THE GYLONG. 
231 
Most of the hillmen are marked with the punctures 
made by this venomous fly. On some occasions the 
skin peels from the wounds, and, where the habit of 
body is not good, phagedenous sores break out which 
are difficult to be got rid of. These troublesome in- 
sects may with truth be called the tyrants of the hills. 
The inhabitants of Boutan are great believers in 
demonology, and ascribe all physical evils, especially 
diseases of every kind, to the malignant influence of 
evil spirits, against which they have recourse to charms 
of various descriptions. Their priests are supposed 
capable of exorcising these infernal agents by the 
employment of potent spells; and it may fairly be 
suspected that among so superstitious a people those 
reverend functionaries find their enchantments too 
lucrative a trade to be abandoned for the questionable 
benefactions of a more enlightened belief. Whenever 
a person is sick, the doctor is sent for : if he pro- 
nounces the case a serious one, the priest is instantly 
summoned,* who commences his incantations, equally 
to his own advantage and the sufferer’s delusion. 
Should the strength of the patient’s faith, or of his 
constitution, triumph -over his disease, the Gylong, 
or minister, has the credit of having expelled it 
from the body of which it was supposed to have 
taken possession: should death, however, take place 
in spite of the Tioly man’s incantations, it is at once 
concluded that the unhappy victim of superstition 
had, in consequence of his numerous and heinous 
crimes, put himself too completely in the devil’s 
power to be rescued even by the powerful enchant- 
ments of a Gylong. 
