About a mile from the town is a plain, where the natives annually undergo a very strange kind of penance on the 9th of April; some for the sins they have committed, others for those they may commit, and others in consequence of a vow made by their parents. This ceremony is performed in the following manner. Thirty bamboos, each about the height of twenty feet, are erected in the plain above-mentioned. On the top of these they contrive to fix a swivel, and another bamboo of thirty feet or more crosses it, at both ends of which hangs a rope. The people pull down one end of this rope, and the devotee, placing himself under it, the brahmin pinches up a large piece of skin under both the shoulder blades, sometimes in the breasts, and thrusts a strong iron hook through each. These hooks have lines of Indian grass hanging to them, which the priest makes fast to the rope at the end of the cross bamboo, and at the same time puts a sash round the body of the devotee, laying it loosely in the hollow of the hooks, lest, by the skin giving way, he should fall to the ground. The people then haul down the other end of the bamboo: by which the devotee is immediately lifted up thirty feet or more from the ground, and they run round as fast as their legs can carry them. Thus the devotee is thrown out the whole length of the rope, where, as he swings, he plays a thousand antic tricks; being painted and dressed in a very particular manner, on purpose to make him look more ridiculous. Some of them continue swinging half an hour, others less. The devotees undergo a preparation of four days for this ceremony. On the first and third, they abstain from all kinds of food; but eat fruit on the other two. During this time of preparation they walk about the streets in their fantastical dresses, dancing to the sound of drums and horns; and some, to express the greater ardour of devotion, run a wire of iron quite through their tongues, and sometimes through their cheeks.

Happy are Christians in being delivered from the darkness, absurdities, and horrors of superstition, by the bright effulgence of the Sun of righteousness!