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 himself, and had many superstitions which we could not help thinking as sad.