Next he kindled a wax taper at the flame of a lamp placed for the purpose just behind the jars, and planted it firmly on the brim of the first jar by spilling a little wax upon the spot where it was to stand. Two similar tapers having been kindled and planted upon the brims of the second and third jars, he then partook of a "chew" of betel-leaf (which was presented to him by one of the women present), crooning the while to himself. This refreshment concluded, he drew from his girdle a bezoar or talismanic stone (batu penawar), and proceeded to rub it all over the patient's neck and shoulders. Then, facing about, he put on a new white jacket and head-cloth which had been placed beside him for his use, and girding his plaid (sarong) about his waist, drew from its sheath a richly-wrought dagger (k'ris) which he fumigated in the smoke of the censer and returned to its scabbard. He next took three silver 20-cent pieces of "Straits" coinage, to serve as batu buyong, or "jar-stones," and after "charming" them dropped each of the three in turn into one of the water-jars, and "inspected" them intently as they lay at the bottom of the water, shading, at the same time, his eyes with his hand from the light of the tapers. He now charmed several handfuls of rice ("parched," "washed," and "saffron" rice), and after a further inspection declared, in shrill, unearthly accents, that each of the coins was lying exactly under its own respective taper, and that therefore his "child" (the sick man) was very dangerously ill, though he might yet possibly recover with the aid of the spirit. Next, scattering the rice round the row of jars (the track of the rice thus forming an ellipse), he broke off several small blossom-stalks from a sheaf of areca-palm blossom, and making them up with sprays of champaka into three separate bouquets, placed one of these improvised nosegays in each of the three jars of water. On the floor at the back of the row of jars he next deposited a piece of white cloth, five cubits in length, which he had just previously fumigated. Again drawing the dagger already referred to, the Pawang now successively plunged it up to the hilt into each of the three bouquets (in which hostile spirits might, I was told, possibly be lurking). Then seizing an unopened blossom-spathe of the areca-palm, he anointed the latter all over with "oil of Celebes," extracted the sheaf of palm-blossom from its casing, fumigated it, and laid it gently across the patient's breast. Rapidly working himself up into a state of intense excitement, and with gestures of the utmost vehemence, he now proceeded to "stroke" the patient with the sheaf of blossom rapidly downwards, in the direction of the feet, on reaching which he beat out the blossom against the floor. Then turning the patient over on to his face, and repeating the stroking process, he again beat out the blossom, and then sank back exhausted upon the floor, where he lay face downwards, with his head once more