uspending them over a chattie to collect the poison as it flows. To
this, arsenic and other drugs are added, and the whole is "boiled in a
human skull, with the aid of the three Kabara-goyas, which are tied on
three sides of the fire, with their heads directed towards it, and
tormented by whips to make them hiss, so that the fire may blaze. The
froth from their lips is then added to the boiling mixture, and so soon
as an oily scum rises to the surface, the _kabara-tel_ is complete."

It is obvious that arsenic is the main ingredient in the poison, and Mr.
Morris reported to me that the mode of preparing it, described above,
was actually practised in his district. This account was transmitted by
him apropos to the murder of a Mohatal[1] and his wife, which had been
committed with the _kabara-tel_, and was then under investigation.
Before commencing the operation of preparing the poison, a cock has to
be sacrificed to the _yakhos_ or demons.

[Footnote 1: A native head-man of low rank.]

This ugly lizard is itself regarded with such aversion by the
Singhalese, that if a _kabara_ enter a house or walk over the roof, it
is regarded as an omen of ill fortune, sickness, or death; and in order
to avert the evil, a priest is employed to go through a rhythmical
incantation; one portion of which consists in the repetition of the
words

Kabara goyin wan d[=o]sey
Ada palayan e d[=o]sey.

"These are the inflictions caused by the Kabara-goya--let them now be
averted!"

It is one of the incidents that serve to indicate that Ceylon may belong
to a separate circle of physical geography, that this lizard, though
found to the eastward in Burmah[1], has not hitherto been discovered in
the Dekkan or Hindustan.

[Footnote 1: In corroboration of the view propounded elsewhere (see pp.
7, 84, &c), and opposed to the popular belief that Ceylon, at some
remote period, was detached from the continent of India by the
interposition of the sea, a list of reptiles will be found at p. 319,
including not only individual species, but whole genera peculiar to the
island, and not to be found on the mainland. See a paper by Dr. A.
GUeNTHER on _The Geog. Distribution of Reptiles_. Magaz. Nat. Hist. for
March, 1859, p. 230.]

[Illustration: CALOTES OPHIOMACHUS]

_Blood-suckers_.--The lizards already mentioned, however, are but the
stranger's introduction to innumerable varieties of others, all most
attractive in their sudden movements, and som