Travels in India (Tavernier) 41.1.4

41.1.4

The person carrying it walked close to the pallankeen, on the sunny side, in order to shade the idol, for to close the curtains of the pallankeen would have made it too hot. From time to time the bearer of the shield shook it in order to ring the bells, so that the idol might be amused. All these people with their idols came from Burhanpur and the neighbourhood, and were going to visit their great Ram Ram, i.e. their great god, who is in a pagoda in the territory of King of Carnatic. They had been fully thirty days on the road, and had to march fourteen or fifteen more before reaching the pagoda. One of my attendants who was from Burhanpur, and of the tribe of these very people, asked me to give him a holiday to go with them to accompany his gods, saying that a long time ago he had vowed to make this pilgrimage. I was obliged to give it, well knowing that if I did not give him the holiday he would himself take it, as he had many relatives in the troop. About two months later he rejoined me at Surat, and as he had served M. du Jardin and myself faithfully, I made no difficulty about re-employing him. On asking him some questions about the pilgrimage which he had just made, he related to me a thing difficult to believe, but which happened, as he said, in this manner. Six days after having left me, all the pilgrims had contemplated sleeping at a village;