act. Some roll on the ground after the god, as he is carried in a great
car or chariot around the temple. It is customary for the people to
build very high cars or chariots, and cover them with very beautiful
cloths. They also tie the cocoa-nut blossom and plantain-tree within
them, and attach great ropes to them. When they are ready to drag these
cars, or chariots, they bring their gods of gold or of brass from the
temples, and place them on them. Then one, two, three, six, nine
hundred, and even a thousand persons, when the cars are very large,
catch hold of these ropes and drag them around the temple. While they
are doing this, many of the heathen, to fulfil vows which they made when
in sickness, and at other times of distress, throw themselves on the
ground, and roll over from side to side, and frequently much injure
themselves.

Some swing on great hooks, which are passed through the tender parts of
their backs. Sometimes they swing for half an hour; sometimes an hour.
The longer they can bear the torture of the swinging, the more
acceptable they suppose it will be to their goddess. It occasionally
happens, that the flesh in which the hooks are fastened gives way, in
which case the poor creature is dashed to the ground. When this occurs,
the people hold him in the greatest abhorrence. They judge him to be a
great criminal, and suppose that he has met a violent death in
consequence of sins which he committed in a former birth.

Not long since, I attended one of these hook-swingings, not far from the
city of Madura. It took place on the morning of June 8th, 1848, just
twenty-nine years after I first left America for India. It should have
taken place on the preceding afternoon; but one of the axle-trees of the
car, which was to support the machine on which the man was to be
elevated in the air, was broken. Nothing, of course, could be done until