the balsam I have mentioned could be
procured; his wound was washed and dressed, and bound up, and he was
carried to one of our tents. Some of his companions followed and sat
outside, but did not attempt to enter. Not a sound all the time did he
utter of complaint. Now and then he pointed upward to show us that it
was from thence he received strength; that it was there he hoped soon to
go. He had come, he said, to speak the truth to some of his tribe who
were yet unconverted, and totally ignorant of all knowledge of the
gospel; that he would be prevented from bringing those glad tidings to
them was the only cause he had to regret being so speedily summoned from
the world; but "God's ways are not man's ways," he observed, and he had
no doubt that He in his infinite wisdom had good reason for allowing
what had happened to occur.

Mr Fordyce asked him the names of those he would wish to speak to, and
he having given them, we went out with Dango to try and find them at a
spot a short distance from the camp, where we were told that the tribe
were assembled. Some hundred people almost black, and destitute of
clothing, were assembled under the boughs and among the stems of a huge
banyan tree, which formed, as Nowell remarked, a sort of natural temple.
In front of it was a small stone altar, with fire burning on it, the
flames from which shed a lurid glare on the rapidly darkening shadows of
the huge tree. Before the altar were two figures; the most unearthly,
horrible--indeed, I may say demoniacal--I have ever set eyes on. I
could scarcely believe that they were human. They were black, and with
the exception of a piece of cloth round the loins, totally destitute of
clothing; they had huge mouths, with grinning teeth and large rolling
eyes, while their hair hung from their heads in long snake-like locks,
like horses' tails, reaching almost to the ground. They were shrieking
and howling, and making all sorts of horrible noises, while they jumped,
and leaped, and whirled round and round with the most extraordinary
grimaces, distorting their bodies in every conceivable form, while their
hair was tossed up and down in all directions, and whisked about like
the reef points of a sail in a gale of wind.

Dango looked at them with supreme contempt. "They are devil-dancers,"
he observed. "They have been sent for by this ignorant people to dance
for the recovery of the poor fellow we found wounded."

He was a Mohammedan him