call upon him, and
squatted down beside the tomb. A tall slender bamboo, which in such
cases is usually adorned with a little flag, marked the spot. He had a
small lantern burning at night, which I used to see glimmering when I
closed the church door after Compline. His other property consisted of
the crutch-stick, which is the emblem of his profession; a brass bowl
for water; a piece of sacking and an old blanket for his bed. There
was also a large accumulation of ashes from the wood fire on which he
prepared his food.

When I called he was just rekindling his fire, with the help of a
match-box and some splinters of wood which somebody had given him. He
was warmly dressed, considering that it was the middle of the hot
weather, in an old cloth jacket and a coloured _dhota_, rather scanty
but of thicker material than is usual in our part of India. He had
long black hair, which he said had never been cut. He seemed rather
proud of it, and often dressed it with a little comb. It was parted
neatly in the middle and fell in locks over his shoulders, and
glistened with oil. He wore moustache and beard, the former cut very
short. In the neatness and cleanliness of his person he was a great
contrast to the Hindus of the same type, who are called _gosavies_,
and whose heads are purposely left to nature, the result of which may
easily be imagined.

He told me that it had taken him one and a half months from Delhi, a
distance of nearly a thousand miles, and that he had travelled all the
way on foot, and that he meant to remain for two months by this tomb,
and then he would go to Delhi. He had been in all parts of India and
Burma, and had lived this life ever since he was a child. He knew
nothing about the particular fakir whose tomb he was honouring, but it
was sufficient that he had been a mendicant like himself.

[Illustration: DOWD PHERIDE, THE EGG-MERCHANT'S SON.]

An egg-merchant is the only Mohammedan living in Yerandawana, and I
fancy that the fakir was rather a tax on him, although a few Hindus
gave him small contributions. I asked him how he lived, and he said
that he ate what people gave him, and that if they did not give he
went without. I asked how he managed in the rainy season. He replied
that if people offered him shelter he accepted it, but that if there
were no offers of hospitality he sat in the rain. He said that he had
no books and that he could not read. The true fakir, he added, has no
books; his mind is