wo miles on their journey. Here the priest repeats
his instructions, and tells them where they are to look for the tree. He
shews them a hill, which they are told to ascend, and that on the other
side 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
criminals in the manner which I have described; and that scarcely two
out of twenty have returned. He shewed me a catalogue of all the unhappy
sufferers, with the date of their departure from his house annexed; 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 corresponded with each other, and with the
different informations which I afterwards obtained. I was present at some
of these melancholy ceremonies, 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 move 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; but that no other shrub or plant could be seen near it; and that
the ground was of a brownish sand, full of stones, almost impracticable
for travelling, and covered with dead bodies. After many conversations
with the old Malayan priest, I questioned him about the first discovery,
and asked his opinion of this dangerous tree; upon which he gave me the
following answer:

"We are told in our new Alcoran, that, above an hundred years ago, the
country around the tree was inhabited by a people strongly addicted to
the sins of Sodom and Gomorrha; when the great prophet Mahomet
determined not to suffer them to lead such detestable lives any longer,
he applied to God to punish them: upon which God caused this tree to
grow out of the earth, which destroyed them all,