When I called he was just rekindling his fire, with the help of a match-box and some splinters of wood which somebody had given him. He was warmly dressed, considering that it was the middle of the hot weather, in an old cloth jacket and a coloured _dhota_, rather scanty but of thicker material than is usual in our part of India. He had long black hair, which he said had never been cut. He seemed rather proud of it, and often dressed it with a little comb. It was parted neatly in the middle and fell in locks over his shoulders, and glistened with oil. He wore moustache and beard, the former cut very short. In the neatness and cleanliness of his person he was a great contrast to the Hindus of the same type, who are called _gosavies_, and whose heads are purposely left to nature, the result of which may easily be imagined. He told me that it had taken him one and a half months from Delhi, a distance of nearly a thousand miles, and that he had travelled all the way on foot, and that he meant to remain for two months by this tomb, and then he would go to Delhi. He had been in all parts of India and Burma, and had lived this life ever since he was a child. He knew nothing about the particular fakir whose tomb he was honouring, but it was sufficient that he had been a mendicant like himself. [Illustration: DOWD PHERIDE, THE EGG-MERCHANT'S SON.] An egg-merchant is the only Mohammedan living in Yerandawana, and I fancy that the fakir was rather a tax on him, although a few Hindus gave him small contributions. I asked him how he lived, and he said that he ate what people gave him, and that if they did not give he went without. I asked how he managed in the rainy season. He replied that if people offered him shelter he accepted it, but that if there were no offers of hospitality he sat in the rain. He said that he had no books and that he could not read. The true fakir, he added, has no books; his mind is his book, and all that he ought to know about God is written there. I asked him whether he considered his life a useful one. He said, "Yes, certainly; I pray." "For yourself?" I asked. "No, for others," was his reply. I saw he was anxious to get on with his cooking, and so I brought my visit to a close. Unfortunately the fakir did not improve the longer he stayed with us. The Mission children were at first inclined to make game of him. Their attitude to the religions to which some of them once belonged is generally one of intense contempt, and they do not always exercise discretion in their way of expressing their feelings. The so-called "ascetics" are feared in India, but not respected, and our children, no longer fearing them, are apt to show their scorn. The fakir did not accept with humility the disrespect of the children, and I first became aware that they had been calling after him rudely, when he turned and faced them with fierce rebukes.