There are several sects among the Hindoos, but their differences consist rather in external forms than religious opinions. They all believe in the immortality of the soul; a state of future rewards and punishments; and transmigration of souls. The virtues of charity and hospitality exist amongst them, both in theory and practice, towards those of their own caste. They say that hospitality is commanded to be exercised even towards an enemy; and they use this simile, "the tree doth not withdraw its shade from the wood-cutter, or water-drawer, nor doth the moon withhold her light from the chandalah." These pure doctrines, however, are intermixed with many vile superstitions. The Hindoos pray thrice in the day, at morning, noon, and evening, turning their faces towards the east. Fruits, flowers, incense, and money, are the usual offerings to their idols; but, for the dead, they offer a particular sort of cake called punda. They all seem to pay an extraordinary veneration to fire, and always wash before meals. There is a religious order among the Hindoos, called Fakirs: these are a kind of begging friars, who make vows of poverty, and seem insensible both to pleasure and pain. They generally live upon the bounty of the smaller kind of merchants; and I have seen them often carrying a small copper jimbo, (vessel,) in the form of a water-melon, when they were begging through the bazaars. These Fakirs, to obtain the favour of Brahma as they suppose, suffer the most dreadful tortures; and the austerities which some of them undergo are incredible to those who have not been eye-witnesses of them: some of them stand for months upon one foot, with their arms tied to the beam of a house, by which means their arms settle in that posture, and ever after become useless; some sit in the sun, with their faces looking upwards, until they are incapable of altering the position of their heads; and I even saw one in Bangalore, who had a large sort of iron grating fixed upon his neck, that had not stretched himself upon a bed, or even upon the ground, for two years. But the people, in all these cases, deem it an act of piety to encourage and support them.