DREADFUL CONSEQUENCES OF A BELIEF, ETC, 109 



for some other similar reason. Among many instances of this kind 

 which have come under our own notice, we will give here one or 

 two for the benefit of the reader, from which it will appear that, 

 if the power and influence of demons are to be perceived anywhere 

 in these liooniyan matters, it must be in the miseries brought on 

 many an honest and happy family by their credulity. 



In the district of Caltura in the Western Province of the Island, 

 there lived some years ago a man, we will call Hendrick Appoo, 

 with his family consisting of his wife, three sons, and one daughter. 

 The sons were grown up men, married and having children. The 

 daughter was the youngest and still unmarried. Hendrick Appoo 

 was considered by his fellow villagers to be a rich man, that is, he 

 had some 15 or 20 head of cattle, and about 6 or 7 acres cf land 

 scattered here and there in the village in small pieces of a rood or 

 two each; and he had too his own paddy field and sweet potatoe 

 and betel plantations with 50 or 60 cocoanut trees and 7 or 8 jack 

 trees: it was also supposed that he had in cash about 2 or 3 hun- 

 dred Eixdollars (£15 or £22 10s.) His father had been a Widhane 

 Aralchy, and so he was a village aristocrat. In short, he was a 

 " Country gentleman." He had a neighbour we shall call Harrnanis 

 Appoo, also well thought of by his neighbours as a man well to do 

 in the world. This man had only two children, both unmarried, 

 young men of good character. As he and Hendrick Appoo were 

 men in the same rank of life, and especially as they both happened 

 to be nearly equal to each other in the respectability of their pedi- 

 grees (an essential point in the matrimonial arrangements of the 

 Singhalese,) it was proposed and agreed between them that the 

 eldest son of the one should marry the daughter of the other. The 

 proposal met with the approbation of nearly all the members of 

 both the families; and so both the families became very friendly 

 and attached to each other, assisting each other in various small 

 matters, and in short living on the most intimate and happy terms 

 with each other, as is usual on the proposal, and before the con- 

 summation, of a marriage between any two families. Of course 

 the two young persons, who were most interested in the matter, 



