POISON TREE. 
321 
they will find a rivulet, which they are to follow, 
and which will conduct them directly to the upas. 
They now take leave of each other, and, amidst 
prayers for their success, the delinquents hasten 
away. 
“ The worthy old ecclesiastic has assured me, that 
during his residence there, for upwards of thirty 
years, he had dismissed above seven hundred crimi- 
nals in the manner which I have described ; and 
that scarcely two out of twenty have returned. He 
showed me a catalogue of all the unhappy sufferers, 
with the date of their departure from his house an- 
nexed ; and a list of the offences for which they 
had been condemned : to which was added a list of 
those who had returned in safety. I afterwards 
saw another list of these culprits, at the jail-keeper’s 
at Soura Charta, and found that they perfectly cor- 
responded with each other, and with the different 
informations which I afterwards obtained. 
“ I was present at some of these melancholy cere- 
monies, and desired different delinquents to bring 
with them some pieces of the wood, or a small 
branch, or some leaves of this wonderful tree. I 
have also given them silk cords, desiring them to 
measure its thickness. I never could procure more 
than two dry leaves that were picked up by one of 
them on his return ; and all I could learn from 
him, concerning the tree itself, was, that it stood 
on the border of a rivulet, as described by the old 
priest ; that it was of a middling size ; that five or 
six young trees of the same kind stood close by it ; 
VOL. III. Y 
