OR YAKSETO. 31 



of the terrible charms still ringing in her ears, did not die through 

 fright within an hour. There is, however, an old woman still living 

 in Kandj, who was so offered up to the demon, in the time of the 

 last king, Sree Wickrama Raja Singha, but who somehow or other 

 managed to effect her escape. Besides this annual offering, there 

 were others of a less important character, made 3 or 4 times every 

 year to the demon on the same hill. There are seven other demons 

 also known by the same name Bahirawa, but all the eight form a 

 sort of company. When at Kandy on Circuit with the Supreme 

 Court, I twice ascended the hill, and stood on its summit on the 

 very spot, on which I thought the fatal stake must have been fixed. 

 The summit is a small level area, not more than 20 or 25 feet square. 

 Although the demon is said to have left the mountain soon after 

 the British took possession of Kandy in 1815, yet even now few 

 Singhalese have the hardihood to go to its summit alone at night, 

 especially on a Saturday or a Wednesday night. 



X. Mad ana Yaksenito, or Female demons of Lust, is the 

 common name of seven sisters, namely Cama Madana, or demon 

 of Lust; 2 G'mi Madana, or demon of fire; 3 Mohanee Madana, 

 or demon of ignorance; 4 Ratti Madana, or demon of pleasure*, 

 5 Cala Madana, or demon of maturity; 6 Mai Madana, or de- 

 mon oj flowers; and 7 Puspa Madana, or demon of Perfumes, 

 These demons, when worked upon by certain charms, and propi- 

 tiated with certain offerings and ceremonies, are supposed to use 

 their power of seducing the affections of a man or a woman in such 

 a manner, that the person so influenced is said to find the power 

 perfectly irresistible. There are hundreds of ways, in which it is 

 pretended that this can be done; among others, by touching the 

 person of a female with the young leaf of a king cocoanut tree, 

 previously subjected to the incantations and other ceremonies pecu- 

 liar to the mysteries of the art; by the man rubbing on his face a 

 charmed medicine and then shewing himself to her; by mixing 

 some love potion, similarly charmed, with her food; by making her 

 chew charmed beetle leaves; by carrying on his person a charmed 

 thread previously taken from a cloth she had worn; or by any of 



