e chief of a number of devotees, or hermits, who had
constructed a hermitage on the banks of the river Malini, and
surrounded it with gardens and groves, where penitential rites
were performed, and animals were reared for sacrificial purposes,
or for the amusement of the inmates. There is nothing new in
asceticism. The craving after self-righteousness, and the desire
of acquiring merit by self-mortification, is an innate principle
of the human heart, and ineradicable even by Christianity.
Witness the monastic institutions of the Romish Church, of which
Indian penance-groves were the type. The Superior of a modern
Convent is but the antitype of Kanwa; and what is Romanism but
humanity developing itself in some of its most inveterate
propensities?

14. _He has gone to Soma tirtha_.

A place of pilgrimage in the west of India, on the coast of
Gujarat, near the temple of Somanath, or Somnat, made notorious
by its gates, which were brought back from Ghazni by Lord
Ellenborough's orders in 1842, and are now to be seen in the
arsenal at Agra. These places of pilgrimage were generally fixed
on the bank of some sacred stream, or in the vicinity of some
holy spring. The word _tirtha_ is derived from a Sanskrit root,
_tri_, 'to cross,' implying that the river has to be passed
through, either for the washing away of sin, or extrication from
some adverse destiny. Thousands of devotees still flock to the
most celebrated Tirthas on the Ganges, at Benares, Haridwar, etc.

15. _Ingudi_.

A tree, commonly called Ingua, or Jiyaputa, from the fruit of
which oil was extracted, which the devotees used for their lamps
and for ointment. One synonym for this tree is _tapasa-taru_,
'the anchorite's tree.'

16. _Bark-woven vests_.

Dresses made of bark, worn by ascetics, were washed in water, and
then suspended to dry on the branches of trees.

17. _By deep canals_.

It was customary to dig trenches round the roots of trees, to
collect the rain-water.

18. _My throbbing arm_.

A quivering sensation in the right arm was supposed by the Hindus
to prognosticate union with a beautiful woman. Throbbings of the
arm or eyelid, if felt on the right side, were omens of good
fortune in men; if on the left, bad omens. The reverse was true
of women. 19. _The hard acacia's stem_.

The Sami tree, a kind of acacia (_Acacia Suma_), the wood of
which is very hard, and supposed by the Hindus to contain fire.

20. _The lotus_.

This beautiful