While the Laos believe that the universe is controlled by spirits, their belief in magic implies that certain persons can command the services of some of the spirits to accomplish the darkest designs. No superstition is more general throughout Siam and Laos than the belief in magic. Among the Laos it is supposed that a sorcerer can command a spirit to assume the form of an insect, which, flying against the person whose destruction is intended, enters him and is transformed usually into a buffalo hide, though it may assume after entering the body of the victim any form, according to the will of the sorcerer. The Siamese very generally believe that the Laos possess this occult power, and the Laos, knowing little concerning it, credit the Karens and other mountain-tribes with it. About two years ago two Karens were brought to the city of Cheung Mai by some of their neighbors, charged with having caused the death of a young man by enchantment. The case was very clear against the accused. The young man had a musical instrument which these Karens wished to purchase; the owner refused to sell it, and a short time afterward he became ill, and died, I believe, on the fourteenth day of his illness; at his cremation a portion of his body would not burn and was of a shape similar to the musical instrument. Thus it was clear that his death had been caused by a spirit entering his body and taking the form of the coveted musical instrument. The Karens were beheaded, protesting that they were innocent of the crime charged against them, and threatening that their spirits should return and wreak vengeance for their unjust punishment. It is but just to add that cases of this kind are not of frequent occurrence. These nightmares of the Laos imagination are almost incredible to us, though they are terrible realities to them. CHAPTER XXVIII. _TREATMENT OF THE SICK._