Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 6.5.1

6.5.1

I believe that extreme poverty, long fasts, and perpetual austerities count for something in the condition at which these men arrive. Our Friars and Hermits must not suppose that on these points they surpass the Jauguis or other Asiatic religionists. I can, for instances, appeal to the lives and fasts of the Armenians, Copts, Greeks, Nestorians, Jacobins, and Maronites; compared to these people our European devotees are mere novices, though it must be confessed, from what I have myself experienced, that the pains of hunger are not so sensibly felt in the Indies as in our colder climates.