Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/281

Rh prevalent in Southern India. Devils, especially, are supposed to have their abode in them. When a person is, as they believe, possessed of a devil, and foams and raves under its influence, his friends call an exorcist to cast the devil out. The exorcist, with prayers, signs, and various incantations, drives the spirit from the body of the possessed, leads it (as he affirms) to the tree, and, taking a nail, drives it into the trunk, thus nailing it to its prisonhouse. Should the tree be cut down, the devils, they believe, will escape, and entering the body of the disturber of their peace, do him some painful, if not fatal, injury.

During the remainder of our stay at Camakoor, we had an unbroken succession of visitors. As we had medicines with us, mothers came with their sick children, the blind were lead to us for healing, and the lame wished their limbs restored to them again. We could do but little for them; yet it was a satisfaction to do that little, and to exhort them to seek a better portion than this world.

As the day wore on, people began to come into the town, to attend the market or fair held each Tuesday,—some with bundles hung on their arms, some with packages upon their