supposed to be fond of flattery. Certain other ceremonies and forms of prayer they are directed to repeat one hundred thousand times; and if no relief be found from this mode, they are taught to believe that they are doomed to undergo many miserable births, to appear again and again on earth, in the body of some abject slave, some abominable beast, or some vile and loathsome leper, unless they submit to expiate their sins by severe bodily sufferings before death. From this the poor frightened creatures profess to be willing to undergo any bodily mortification that can be inflicted on them, and are accordingly started on a pilgrimage to Jugernathu. An account of their sufferings on this route is almost incredible; but as we have it from indisputable, authors, we will proceed to give a brief account.

They are shod frequently with iron sandals or slippers, stuck thick with blunted spikes, which cruelly torture them as they walk; their common apparel is taken off, and they are clad with a blanket of coarse hair; some are without clothes, bedaubed with mud and mire, mingling as they advance in idolatrous dances and obscene ceremonies, enduring all manner of tortures, and performing all manner of bloody and gloomy scenes. In certain temples on the road, said to be dark and foul within, there may be found lying before the shrine of some frightful idol, the headless trunks of men sacrificed to this senseless image. Many devotees sit performing their devotions daily at these temples; some stand in a fixed posture, exposed to the burning rays and scorching winds of mid-day suns, in these scorching deserts, resolved to die in that manner, some exposing themselves to slow fires, and others suspending themselves with iron hooks or spits passed through their tongues; many women may be seen on the route burning themselves alive on the funeral piles of their dead husbands. The crackling of the blazing piles, the cries of the distressed, added to the harsh discord of barbarous music, appear to be almost sufficient to freeze the blood in the veins of any christian spectator.

The road to Jugernathu is stated to be always strewed with human bones, and bodies of the dead and dying.

This place contains twelve pagodas, or temples, surrounded by a wall of great height, the air tainted with the horrid effluvia of putrid and mangled carcases, which wild dogs, jackals; and vultures are devouring at their leisure. On the approach of a band of pilgrims, may be heard the loud howling of beasts of prey; and sharks and alligators seen approaching the shore of the sullen lake on which Jugernathu stands, seeking their accustomed prey of receiving from the breasts of mothers, infants, which they cast into their wide extended jaws; and sons and daughters may be

seen plunging their aged parents into the lake as an offering to its insatiable inhabitants. While these things are going on, the gates of the inclosure are thrown open, from whence an enormous car, of a pyramidical form, is drawn forth, ornamented with numerous figures of idols, the noise of whose many rumbling wheels is stated to resemble the earth when disturbed by inward convulsions. And the infatuated multitude is said to cry out afresh at the sight of this car of Jugernathu, some seizing the ropes by which it is drawn, others casting themselves on the earth before this dreadful machine of death, by which they are instantly crushed to atoms; and few, comparatively to the immense numhers that visit this place, ever return to their native homes a gain.

CHAPTER XLVII.

BRACHMANS,

A SECT of Indian philosophers, known to the ancient Greeks by the name of Gymnosophists. The ancient Brachmans lived on herbs and pulse, abstained from every thing that had life in it. They lived in solitude without matrimony, and without property; and they wished ardently for death, considering life as only a burden.

The modern Brachmans make up one of the casts of the tribes of the Banians. They are the priests of that people, and perform their office of praying and reading the law, with several mimical gestures, and a kind of quavering voice. They believe that in the beginning nothing but God and the waters existed; and that the Supreme Being desirous to create the world, caused the leaf of a tree to float on the waters in the shape of a child playing with its great toe in its mouth. From its navel there issued out a flower, whence Brama drew his original, who was intrusted by God with the creation of the world, and presides over it with an absolute sway. They make no distinction between the souls of men and brutes, but say that the divinity of the human soul consists in being placed in a better body and having more room to display its faculties. They allow of rewards and punishments after this life, and have so great a veneration for cows, that they look upon themselves as blessed if they can but die with the tail of them in their hand. They are remarkable for their religious austerities. Some of them have been known to wear about their neck a heavy collar of iron for a considerable time: others to

chain themselves by the feet to trees, with a firm resolution to die in the place; and others walk in wooden shoes, stuck full of nails on the inside. Their divine worship consists chiefly of processions made in honor of their deities.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

BANIANS.

THE Banians inhabit the empire of Mogul. They believe a metemsychosis, and will therefore eat no living creature, nor even kill noxious animals, but endeavour to release them when in the hands of others.

The Banians are said to be so. fearful of having communications with other nations, that they break their cups if one of different religion has drank out of them or even touched them. It is also said that if they happen to touch one another, they purify and wash themselves before they eat or enter their own houses. They carry hanging to their necks a stone, called tamberane, as big as an egg, and perforated in the middle, through which they run three strings. This stone, they say, represents their great God; and upon that account they have great respect shewn them by all the Indians.

CHAPTER XLIX.

DRUIDS.

THE Druids were the priests or ministers of the ancient Brittons and Gauls. They were chosen out of the best families, and were held, both by the honors of their birth and their office, in the greatest veneration. They are said to have understood astrology geometry, natural history, and politics; had the administration of all sacred things; were the interpreters of religion, and the judges of affairs indifferently.

Whoever refused obedience to them was declared impious and accursed. They held the immortality of the soul and the metemsychosis. They are divided by some into several classes. They had a chief or arch-druid in every nation, who was a sort of high-priest, having an absolute authority over the rest, and was succeeded by the most considerable among his survivors. The

youth used to be instructed by them, retiring with them into caves and desolate forests, where they were sometimes kept for twenty years.

They preserved the memory and actions of great men, by their verses; but are said to have sacrificed men to Mercury.

CHAPTER L.

ESSENES, OR ESSENIANS.

IN Jewish antiquity, is one of the three sects among that people who out-did the Pharisees in their most rigorous observances. They allowed a future state, but denied a resurrection from the dead. Their way of life was very singular; they did not marry, but adopted the children of others, whom they bred up in the institutions of their sect. They despised riches and had all things in common; and never changed their clothes until they were entirely worn out. When initiated, they were strictly bound not to communicate the mysteries of their sect to others, and if any of their members were found guilty of enormous crimes, they were expelled.

CHAPTER LI.

CABBALIST.

THE Jewish doctors who study cabbali. In the opinion of these men, there is not a word, letter, or accent, in the law, without some mystery in it. The Jews are divided into two general sects: the Karaites, who refuse to receive either tradition or the Talmud, or any thing but the pure text of scripture; and the Rabbinist, or Talmudist, who, besides this, receives the traditions of the ancients, and follows the Talmud. The latter are again divided into two other sects: pure Rabbinist, who explain the scripture in its natural sense, by grammar, history, and tradition; and Cabbalist, who, to discover the hidden mystical sense, which they suppose God to have couched therein, make use of the cabbali, and the mystical methods above mentioned.

CHAPTER LII.

TARTARS.

THE religion of the Tartars somewhat resembles their civil government, and is commonly accommodated to that of their

neighbours; for it partakes of the Mahometan, the Gentoo, the Greek, and even the Popish religions. Some of them are the grossest idolaters, and worship little rude images, drest up in rags. Each has his own deity, with whom they make very free when matters do not go according to their own minds. But the religion and government of the kingdom of Thibet and Lassa, a large tract of Tartary, bordering on China, are the most remarkable, and the most worthy of attention. The Thibetians are go verned by the Grand Lama, or Dalai Lama, who is not only submitted to and adored by them, but is also the great object of adoration for the various tribes of Heathen Tartars, who roam through the vast tract of continent which stretches from the banks of the Wolga, to Corea on the sea of Japan. He is not only the sovereign pontiff, the vicegerant of the Deity on earth; but, as superstition is ever the strongest where it is most removed from its object, the more remote Tartars absolutely regard him as the Deity himself. They believe him to be immortal, and endowed with all knowledge and virtue. Every year they come up. from different parts to worship and make rich offerings at his shrine; even the emperor of China, who is a Manchou Tartar, does not fail in acknowledgments to him in his religious capacity, though the Lama is tributary to him, and actually entertains, at a great expense, in the palace of Pekin, an inferior Lama, deputed as his nuncio from Thibet. The opinion of those who are reputed the most orthodox among the Thibetians is, that when the Grand Lama seems to die, either of old age or of infirmity, his soul only quits a crazy habitation, to look for another younger and better, and it is again discovered in the body of some child, by certain tokens known only to the lamas or priests, in which order he still appears. In 1774, the Grand Lama was an infant, which had been discovered some time before by the Tayshoo Lama, who in authority and sanctity of character is next to the Grand Lama, and during his minority acts as chief. The lamas, who form the most numerous, as well as the most powerful body in the state, have the priesthood in their hands: and besides, fill up many monastic orders, which are held in great veneration among them. The residence of the Grand Lama is at Patoli, a vast palace on a mountain near the banks of the Burnimpooter, about seven miles from Lahassa. The East India Company made a treaty with the Lama in 1774.

The religion of Thibet, though in many respects it differs from that of the Indian Bramins, yet in others it has a great affinity to it. The Thibetians have a great veneration for the cow, and also highly respect the waters of the Ganges, the source of which they believe to be in heaven. The Sunniasses or Indian pilgrims,