The rites practised by the Vamis or Vámácháris are so grossly obscene, as to cast into shade the worst inventions which the most impure imagination can conceive. “In this last mentioned sect (the Shaktas),” says a learned Sanskrit scholar, “as in most others, there is a right-handed and decent path, and a left-handed and indecent mode of worship, but the indecent worship of this sect is most grossly so, and consists of unbridled debauchery, with wine and women. This profligate sect is supposed to be numerous, though unavowed. In most parts of India, if not in all, they are held in deserved detestation; and even the decent Shaktas do not make public profession of their tenets, nor wear on their foreheads the mark of the sect, lest they should be suspected of belonging to the other branch of it.” Solitude and secrecy being strictly enjoined to the Vamis, they invariably celebrate their rites at midnight, and in most unfrequented and private places. They neither acknowledge their participation in these most scandalous orgies, nor, as we have already remarked, confess that they belong to any branch of the Shakta sect, although their reserve in this respect is becoming every day more and more relaxed, if not of all, at least, of many. Those, whose immediate object is the attainment of super-human powers, or whose end is specific, aiming at some particular boon or gift, are more strict on the point, lest they reap no fruits of their devotion. They never admit a companion, nor even one of their own fraternity, into the place of their worship. Even when they are believed by the credulous Hindus to have become Shiddas, that is, possessed of supernatural powers; or in other words, when they have acquired sufficient art to impose upon their ignorant and superstitious countrymen, and have established their reputation as men capable of working miracles, they take every care not to disclose the means through which they have attained the object of their wishes, unless revealed by some accidental occurrence or unlooked-for circumstance. Those whose object is of a general character, hold a sort of convivial party, eating and drinking together in large numbers, without any great fear of detection. But yet they always take care to choose such secluded spots for the scenes of their devotion, as lie quite concealed from the public view. They generally pass unnoticed, and are traced out only when we make it our aim to detect them by watching over their movements like a spy. At present, as their chief desire appears to be only the gratification of sensual appetites, they are at all times found to be more attentive to points which have a direct reference to the indulgence of their favourite passions, than to those minor injunctions which require of them secrecy and solitude. These, however, they are obliged to observe, at least in part, for their own account; for the abominations which, under the name of religious rites, they practice, cannot but expose