some unintelligible gibberish,
unceasingly making strange passes with his arms. He put down a number
of articles on his cloth--which was villainously tattered and
greasy--an unripe plantain, a handful of rice, of parched peas, a thigh
bone, two wooden cups, some balls, &c., &c.; all of which he kept
constantly lifting and moving about, keeping up the passes and
muttering all the time.

The child was a sickly-looking, pining sort of creature, rocking about
in evident pain, and moaning and fretting just as sick children do.
Gradually its attention got fixed on the strange antics going on. The
Ojah kept muttering away, quicker and quicker, constantly shifting the
bone and cups and other articles on the cloth. His body was suffused
with perspiration, but in about half an hour the child had gone off to
sleep, and attended by some dozen old women, and the anxious father,
was borne off in triumph to the house.

Another time one of Mr. D.'s female servants got bitten by a scorpion.
The poor woman was in great agony, with her arm swelled up, when an
Ojah was called in. Setting her before him, he began his incantations
in the usual manner, but made frequent passes over her body, and over
the bitten place. A gentle perspiration began to break out on her skin,
and in a very short time the Ojah had thrown her into a deep mesmeric
sleep. After about an hour she awoke perfectly free from pain. In this
case no doubt the Ojah was a mesmerist.

The influence of fear on the ordinary native is most wonderful. I have
known dozens of instances in which natives have been brought home at
night for treatment in cases of snake-bite. They have arrived at the
factory in a complete state of coma, with closed eyes, the pupils
turned back in the head, the whole body rigid and cold, the lips pale
white, and the tongue firmly locked between the teeth. I do not believe
in recovery from a really poisonous bite, where the venom has been
truly injected. I invariably asked first how long it was since the
infliction of the bite; I would then examine the marks, and as a rule
would find them very slight. When the patient had been brought some
distance, I knew at once that it was a case of pure fright. The natives
wrap themselves up in their cloths or blankets at night, and lie down
on the floors of their huts. Turning about, or getting up for water or
tobacco, or perhaps to put fuel on the fire, they unluckily tread on a
snake, or during sleep they roll ov