. He
was indeed not averse to society, though he had seemed thus to fly
from it; and was so great a favourite with his neighbours, that his
cell would have been thronged with visiters, but for the difficulty of
the approach to it. As it was, it was seldom resorted to, except for
the purpose of obtaining his opinion and counsel on all the serious
concerns of his neighbours. He prescribed for the sick, and often
provided the medicine they required--expounded the law--adjusted
disputes--made all their little arithmetical calculations--gave them
moral instruction--and, when he could not afford them relief in their
difficulties, he taught them patience, and gave them consolation. He,
in short, united, for the simple people by whom he was surrounded, the
functions of lawyer, physician, schoolmaster, and divine, and richly
merited the reverential respect in which they held him, as well as
their little presents of eggs, fruit, and garden stuff.

"From the first evening that I joined the party which I saw clambering
up the path that led to the Hermit's cell, I found myself strongly
attached to this venerable man, and the more so, from the mystery
which hung around his history. It was agreed that he was not a
Burmese. None deemed to know certainly where he was born, or why he
came thither. His own account was, that he had devoted himself to the
service of God, and in his pilgrimage over the east, had selected this
as a spot particularly favourable to the life of quiet and seclusion
he wished to lead.

"There was one part of his story to which I could scarcely give
credit. It was said that in the twelve or fifteen years he had resided
in this place, he had been occasionally invisible for months together,
and no one could tell why he disappeared, or whither he had gone. At
these times his cell was closed; and although none ventured to force
their way into it, those who were the most prying could hear no sound
indicating that he was within. Various were the conjectures formed on
the subject. Some supposed that he withdrew from the sight of men for
the purpose of more fervent prayer and more holy meditation; others,
that he visited his home, or some other distant country. The more
superstitious believed that he had, by a kind of metempsychosis, taken
a new shape, which, by some magical or supernatural power, he could
assume and put off at pleasure This opinion w