Having summoned his immediate followers from the various resting-places, which they had constructed with the branches and leaves of the neighbouring trees, by way of temporary shelter, the rajah repeated to them the prophetic words of the divine messenger; and, having gone through the ceremony of making a propitiatory offering under the Bogaha-tree, of fruits, Betel-leaves, (_Piper-betel_,) and flowers of sweet perfume, he, attended by his retinue, proceeded in a direct course through rivers and forests, and over mountains immense, to the southward, as directed by the Maha Sudona. The one hundred hours’ journey having been miraculously performed without any perceptible fatigue, either to himself or attendants, the anxiously anticipated view of that boundless expanse of blue water, which, in his dream, had appeared to him so beautiful, yet nauseous to the taste, and on its margin immense groves of trees, with tufts of leaves, (for the first time plainly perceived to be large branches,) as his visions had foretold, gratified his astonished, but delighted sight. Beneath the branches, sheltered from the vertical sun, hung large clusters of fruit, much larger than he had ever seen in his own country of the interior, of green, yellow, and red[111] colours, and others apparently black. There were no human beings on the coast; but wild beasts, such as leopards, bears, sloths, and elephants innumerable. To climb the cocoa-nut tree, (the promised source of health,) was then unknown, and considered beyond the power of mortal man; but, as fire had been pointed out as the means of obtaining its fruit, the rajah’s followers procured two dry sticks, which having prepared, by pointing the end of one, and making a small hole in the middle of the other, for the reception of the pointed stick, friction produced fire, which was immediately increased, by the application of dried leaves to the emitted flame. Scarcely had an hour elapsed, after the fire had been kindled that was to fell the pride of the coast and the most valuable boon of nature to the Indian world, ere, with a tremendous crash, it became prostrate upon the earth, whence, from its capacious and verdant crest, crept out creatures innumerable: large blue scorpions, brown and yellow centipedes, snakes of various hues, from the Polonga to the less dreadful rat-snake; blue, black, green, and yellow beetles; tarantulas, and other spiders, of all sorts and sizes and colours; whilst, running from branch to branch, the detested rat seemed to imitate the motions and equal in agility the beautiful tri-striped squirrel, or lena of this paradise, (as the glad rajah and his suite at that time considered it,) of the universe.