"The Siques are in general strong and well made, accustomed from their Infancy to the most labourious Life and hardest fare, they make marches and undergo fatigues that will appear really astonishing. In their Excursions they carry no tents or baggage with them, except perhaps a small tent for the principal Chief, the rest Shelter themselves under a Blanket, which serves them also in the cold Weather, to wrap themselves in, and which in a March covers their Saddles. They have mostly two horses a piece, and some three; their horses are middle sized, but exceeding good, strong and high spirited, and mild tempered; The Provinces of Lahore and Multan, noted for producing the best Horses in Indostan, supply them amply, and indeed they take the greatest Care to encrease their numbers by all means in their power, and tho’ they make merry in the Demise of one of their Brethren, they condole and lament the Death of a Horse, thus shewing their Value for an animal so necessary to them in their Excursions. The Sect of the Siques has a strong taint of the Gentoo Religion, they venerate the Cow, and abstain piously from killing or feeding on it, and they also pay some Respect to the Devtas or Idols. But their great object of worship is with them their own saints, or those whom they have honoured with the name of Gorou. Those they invoke continually and they seem to look on them as everything. Wah Gorou repeated several times is their only Simbol, from which the Musulmen have (not without Reason) taxed them with being downright Atheists. Their mode of initiating their Converts, is by making them drink out of a Pan in which the feet of those present have been washed meaning by that, I presume, to abolish all those Distinctions of Casts which so much encumber the Gentoos; they also steep in it, particularly for a Musulman the tusks or Bones of a Boar and add some of the Blood of that Animal to it. This with repeating the Simbol to Wah Gorou wearing an Iron Bracelet on one Arm, and letting the Hair of the head and beard grown forms the whole Mystery of their Religion, if such a filthy beastly Ceremony, can be dignified with that name. They have also stated Pilgrimages both to the Ganges and their famous Tank at Ambarsar where at fixed times they wash and perform some trifling Ceremonies invoking at the same time their Gorou."
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