chakra, or discus, which is a circular weapon peculiar to the Hindus; under her left foot was a lion, and beneath him a throne. When they weighed the image, they found it equal to four panchiri, measure of the Dekhan. Even now, they sacrifice in every village of the Kohistan of Nanda-púr, and country adjacent, a man of good family. Another idol, called _Mávelí_,[266] is in the town of Bister.[267] The belief of the people there is that, when an hostile army comes to attack them, the divinity, under the form of a woman selling vegetables, goes into the camp of the enemy, and whoever eats what she offers, dies; and during the night she appears like one of the public girls, and whoever finds her charming, and calls her, meets with death. They relate many strange and wonderful things about her. When in the year of the Hejira 1069, A. D. 1658-9, the famous general Tavaljí Khan Beg besieged and took the fort Kot Bahar, which is stronger than the fort of Bister, there died so many men and beasts of various maladies and the particular effects of climate, that their number exceeds all computation; and this the inhabitants of the fort of Bister attributed to the power of the goddess. There is another class of followers of Síva, that is, of Sáktían, whose creed is quite different from that just before stated: they never have intercourse with the wife of another; they drink no wine. The adorers of Síva are obliged to drink wine in the _Síva-ratra_,[268] which is a sacred night: because it is written in their books that they ought then to fill a cup with wine and to drink it; as, according to the rule of this sect, it is not a matter of choice to drink wine; many who cannot get it, having procured a draught of syrup, mix a little of a fermented liquor with it to render it like wine, and take it for such, calling it _pána_.[269]