chap.x A PROLONGED FAST 173
tribesmen
and told them that they must give him 2,000 rupees and 27 cubits of
cloth, which are, as I have said, the ells of this country. The
principal among them told him that it was impossible, and that they
were poor, but he persisted in his demand to have what he asked, and
declared that he would remain there without drinking or eating till
they had brought the cloth and the 2,000 rupees. With this resolution
he climbed up a tree in the square, seated himself on a forked branch,
and remained in this position without eating or drinking for several
days. The report of this extravagance reached the ears of the Dutch,
with whom I then was, and we gave money to keep men on the watch all
night close to the tree, to see if it was true that this man was able
to remain for so long a time without eating or drinking, which he did
indeed for thirty days. Besides the people whom we had engaged for the
purpose, there were more than 100 other witnesses whom his tribesmen
had sent, who never moved day or night from the vicinity of the tree.
At length, on the thirty-first day of such a surprising and
extraordinary fast, the idolaters, fearing that the Brahman would not
be able to hold out longer against hunger, and having a scruple about
allowing one of their priests to die for want of that which he asked,
taxed themselves all round and took him the 27 ells of cloth and the
2,000 rupees.1 As soon as the Brahman saw the money and
cloth he descended from the tree, reproached all those of the tribe who
were present at this spectacle with their want of charity to the poor,
and distributed to the poorest the whole sum, reserving only 5 or 6
rupees for himself. He did the same with the cloth, which he cut up
into many pieces, keeping for himself only what was sufficient to cover
his waist, and when all this was done he disappeared, and in spite of
inquiries no one knows what became of him. This
1
This is what is known in India as sitting Dharna.—to enforce payment
of a demand ; it is now an offence under the Indian Penal Code. As to
the possibility of a man remaining for so long a period without food,
India furnishes numerous apparently well authenticated instances.
Besides which we have Dr. Tanner's case in America, many in different
countries of Europe, and that of McSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, who died
in Brixton Prison, on 25th October 1920, after 73 days' hunger strike.
(See p. 156 above.) On ' sitting Dharna,' see Yule, Hobson-Jobson, 315.
