, and many persons have discredited all the
stories relative to their powers; on the other hand, all who have
witnessed their exhibitions are convinced of their genuineness.
Furthermore, these persons are extremely scarce and are indifferent to
money; none has been enticed out of his own country to give
exhibitions. When one dies in a community, his place is never
filled--proving that he had no accomplices who knew any fraudulent
secret practices, otherwise the accomplice would soon step out to take
his place. These men have undoubtedly some extraordinary mode of
sending themselves into a long trance, during which the functions of
life are almost entirely suspended. We can readily believe in their
ability to fast during their periods of burial, as we have already
related authentic instances of fasting for a great length of time,
during which the individual exercised his normal functions.

To the fakir, who neither visibly breathes nor shows circulatory
movements, and who never moves from his place of confinement, fasting
should be comparatively easy, when we consider the number of men whose
minds were actively at work during their fasts, and who also exercised
much physical power.

Harley says that the fakirs begin their performances by taking a large
dose of the powerfully stupefying "bang," thus becoming narcotized. In
this state they are lowered into a cool, quiet tomb, which still
further favors the prolongation of the artificially induced vital
lethargy; in this condition they rest for from six to eight weeks. When
resurrected they are only by degrees restored to life, and present a
wan, haggard, debilitated, and wasted appearance. Braid is credited, on
the authority of Sir Claude Wade, with stating that a fakir was buried
in an unconscious state at Lahore in 1837, and when dug up, six weeks
later, he presented all the appearances of a dead person. The legs and
arms were shrunken and stiff, and the head reclined on the shoulder in
a manner frequently seen in a corpse. There was no pulsation of the
heart or arteries of the arm or temple--in fact, no really visible
signs of life. By degrees this person was restored to life. Every
precaution had been taken in this case to prevent the possibility of
fraud, and during the period of interment the grave was guarded night
and day by soldiers of the regiment stationed at Lahore.

Honigberger, a German physician in the employ of Runjeet Singh, has an
account of a fakir o