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Anchorites wearing only loincloths sat quietly in little groups, their bodies besmeared with the ashes that protect them from the heat and cold. The spiritual eye was vividly represented on their foreheads by a single spot of sandalwood paste. Shaven-headed swamis appeared by the thousands, ocher-robed and carrying their bamboo staff and begging bowl.

Today they had laid aside all their garments save their loincloths, having found by experience that their cotton armor was absolutely useless against the missiles of the Spaniards. The chiefs were now conspicuous, as they moved to and fro among the dark masses, by their gay dresses and the metal breastplates worn over the bright feather work.

No time was lost in unloading the portion of the cargo intended for Angria. The goods were carried along the jetty by stalwart Marathas clad only in loincloths, and stored in rude cabins with penthouse roofs. As Desmond knew, the heavy chests that taxed the strength of the bearers contained for the most part muskets and ammunition.

The prisoners had all knives, which they used for cutting their food. With these the work was accomplished. Towards morning the five natives, with the skewers hidden away in their loincloths, and their turbans twisted in Mahratta fashion, stole out from the casemate.

They went there, and as they were selling their leaf plates their sister saw and recognised them; they had only ragged loincloths on, and their skins were black and cracked like a crocodile's. At the sight their sister began to cry.

Hearing the wheels of Amar's carriage in the road, I hastily tied together a blanket, a pair of sandals, Lahiri Mahasaya's picture, a copy of the BHAGAVAD GITA, a string of prayer beads, and two loincloths. This bundle I threw from my third-story window. I ran down the steps and passed my uncle, buying fish at the door. "What is the excitement?" His gaze roved suspiciously over my person.

A Monday morning, 'twas so, indeed. Stephen went down Bedford row, the handle of the ash clacking against his shoulderblade. In Clohissey's window a faded 1860 print of Heenan boxing Sayers held his eye. Staring backers with square hats stood round the roped prizering. The heavyweights in tight loincloths proposed gently each to other his bulbous fists. And they are throbbing: heroes' hearts.

Another turn leads into the street of the metal-workers and armourers, where the sunlight through the thatch flames on round flanks of beaten copper or picks out the silver bosses of ornate powder-flasks and pistols, and near by is the souk of the plough-shares, crowded with peasants in rough Chleuh cloaks who are waiting to have their archaic ploughs repaired, and that of the smiths, in an outer lane of mud huts where negroes squat in the dust and sinewy naked figures in tattered loincloths bend over blazing coals.

The men were not negroes, though some negroes lived among them; they were very much like the Egyptians in appearance, wore pointed beards, and were dressed only in loincloths, while the women wore a yellow sleeveless dress, which reached halfway between the knee and ankle.

The Aorai swung out a boat smartly, into which sprang half a dozen brown-skinned sailors clad only in scarlet loincloths. They took the oars, while in the stern sheets, at the steering sweep, stood a young man garbed in the tropic white that marks the European.