Travels in India (Tavernier) 35.3.4

35.3.4

this made them weak and feeble, added to which, as I have said, they found no one to give them food. The leeches of this country are small and slender, and do not take to the water, but live in the grass. These poor people having walked in the woods the first day till two or three hours after nightfall, found a small river which had in the middle a small dry island, where they went to rest till day, not having to fear the leeches then, because they were surrounded by water. On the following day they pursued their journey with the same persecution from leeches, and slept at night close to a tree, where they found a kind of platform, made of wood and elevated about 4 or 5 feet from the ground, which, without doubt, some one had made to protect himself from the attacks of the leeches. This platform served them as camp for this second night, and, day having come, they were again on the road, and at length arrived by midday at a Pagoda, where there were many Brahmins or Banian priests, who, pitying their miserable condition, and having learnt from them that they had found nothing to eat for three days, gave them rice, fruit, and vegetables dressed with butter. But they gave it all from a distance, making a sign to them not to approach, as we do in Europe with the plague-stricken, to whom one throws charity on a handkerchief spread on the road, from which they stand aloof.