“From ignorance of the sacredness of the ground over which the god’s favourite tree casts its honoured shade, thou once didst omit the usual respect due to it from all created beings. Its deeply-pointed leaf distinguishes it above all other trees as sacred to Budhoo; and, under another tree of the same heavenly character thou now liest a mass of sores and ulcers, which the impurity of the red water within the large and small rivers of thy body, has, at the great deity’s command, brought upon thee externally. But since the snake, the kind snake, the shelterer of the god Budhoo, when on earth, has thrice partaken of thy drink, thou wilt derive health and long life by obeying the commands which I now bear thee. In that direction (pointing towards the south) lies thy remedy. One hundred hours’ journey will bring thee to those trees, which thou shalt see in reality, and taste their fruits to thy benefit. But as on the top only it is produced, by fire it must be obtained. The inside, partly of transparent liquid, partly of innocent food, must be thy _sole_ diet, till thrice the Great Moon (Maha Handah) has given and refused her light. Disease will, at the expiration of that time, leave thee; thou wilt be clean again; but forget not, with the restoration of thy health, (the Singalese language renders it, ‘the skin of thy flesh, renewed by the fountains of thy life, being made red again,’) sacrifices of sweet flowers and fruits, with much thanksgiving, to that great Brahma of all Brahmas,[108] to whom all other gods, and even demons, pay homage, through whose mercy and forgiveness of thy neglect and transgressions thy bodily vigour will have been restored, and the days of thy enjoyment in the splendour of the mighty and flaming chief ruler[109] of the moon prolonged.” A sound, as of ten thousand tom-toms,[110] struck at once seemed to the delighted rajah a manifestation of the messenger’s authority. It reverberated on his ear for hours together, after he had awakened from his second trance; and, impressed with a belief that the invisible powers had thus intimated a disposition to take him under their especial protection, and that, consequently, it was his bounden duty to obey commands so mysteriously conveyed, the rajah, placing the palms of his hands across his forehead, and bending to the ground, prayed for strength to act in obedience to the Ossah Pollah Dewyo, the ruler and creator of all gods and demons, and of the flat world itself.