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DREADFUL CONSEQUENCES OF 



possess any of the powers ascribed to them ; the answer most pro- 

 bably will be—" Sir, I don't know much about these things myself; 

 my forefathers have believed in them, my neighbours still do so, 

 and what is good for them cannot, I think, do any harm to myself. 

 Possibly much of what you say may be true, and certainly a great 

 deal of what now goes under the name of charms is spurious, and 

 many of the Cattadiyas are ignorant impostures. Really, Sir, I 

 don't understand these things well, but there may be some, who 

 can perhaps satisfy you on the subject, though I cannot." Or he 

 will say — "Sir, I don't know whether these things be true or false. 

 When we fall sick, we try every means within our reach of get- 

 ting better. We worship Buddha, the gods, and the demons, all at 

 once, to take our chance of recovering from the sickness through 

 the help of some of them. All my countrymen do so, and I am 

 only doing like them." The demeanour of the man during this 

 conversation is like that of one, who has been convinced of the ab- 

 surdity of his worship, and who is anxious to profit by the advice 

 of a superior, although he evinces considerable impatience at being 

 stopped, and is anxious to get away as soon as possible. The mo- 

 ment he turns his back however, he will go away laughing at his 

 own skill in answering so well and cursing, or at least pitying the 

 Englishman for being an infidel and a Christian. Hence many an 

 Englishman is led to believe that Demon Worship has not at present 

 a firm hold of the minds of a portion of the people, and that it is 

 upheld amongst a few merely because custom, or habit has made it 

 familiar to them. Nothing can be more erroneous than this opinion ; 

 for so far from a portion of the people being indifferent to Demon 

 Worship from a conviction that it is an absurdity, we believe there 

 is not (excepting 4 or 5 hundred well educated men in the whole 

 Island) one Singhalese man, who believes in any thing more 

 firmly than in Demonism. In Colombo and its immediate neigh- 

 bourhood alone, where the superstition does not command many 

 zealous votaries, there are some few who have no great faith in 

 charms, or who, though believing in them, have no opportunity of 

 reducing that belief into practice in the form of Demon cere- 



