One day I contemplated a journey to Coimbatore on my own affairs, and was walking up the road trying to make a bargain with a handy man whom I desired to engage to carry me there; but as we could not come to terms, I parted with him and turned into the Lovedale Road at 6 P.M.  I had not gone far when I met a man dressed like a Sannyasi, who stopped and spoke to me.  He observed a ring on my finger and asked me to give it to him.  I said he was welcome to it, but inquired what he would give me in return, he said, “I don’t care particularly about it; I would rather have that flour and sugar in the bundle on your back.”  “I will give you that with pleasure,” I said, and took down my bundle and gave it to him.  “Half is enough for me,” he said; but subsequently changing his mind added, “now let me see what is in your bundle,” pointing to my other parcel.  “I can’t give you that.”  He said, “Why cannot you give me your swami (family idol)?” I said, “It is my swami, I will not part with it; rather take my life.”  On this he pressed me no more, but said, “Now you had better go home.”  I said, “I will not leave you.”  “Oh you must,” he said, “you will die here of hunger.”  “Never mind,” I said, “I can but die once.”  “You have no clothes to protect you from the wind and rain; you may meet with tigers,” he said.  “I don’t care,” I replied.  “It is given to man once to die.  What does it signify how he dies?” When I said this he took my hand and embraced me, and immediately I became unconscious.  When I returned to consciousness, I found myself with the Sannyasi in a place new to me on a hill, near a large rock and with a big shola near.  I saw in the shola right in front of us, that there was a pillar of fire, like a tree almost.  I asked the Sannyasi what was that like a high fire.  “Oh,” he said, “most likely a tree ignited by some careless wood-cutters.”

“No,” I said, “it is not like any common fire—­there is no smoke, nor are there flames—­and it’s not lurid and red.  I want to go and see it.”  “No, you must not do so, you cannot go near that fire and escape alive.”  “Come with me then,” I begged.  “No—­I cannot,” he said, “if you wish to approach it, you must go alone and at your own risk; that tree is the tree of knowledge and from it flows the milk of life:  whoever drinks this never hungers again.”  Thereupon I regarded the tree with awe.

I next observed five Sannyasis approaching.  They came up and joined the one with me, entered into talk, and finally pulled out a hookah and began to smoke.  They asked me if I could smoke.  I said no.  One of them said to me, let us see the swami in your bundle (here gives a description of the same).  I said, “I cannot, I am not clean enough to do so.”  “Why not perform your ablutions in yonder stream?” they said.  “If you sprinkle water on your forehead that will suffice.”  I went to wash my hands and feet, and laved my head, and showed it to them.  Next they disappeared.  “As