lives, but also a certainty, in case of their safe return, that a provision will be made for them in future by the Emperor.  They are also permitted to ask a favour from the Emperor, which is generally of a trifling nature, and commonly granted.  They are then provided with a silver or tortoiseshell box, in which they are to put the poisonous gum, and are properly instructed how to proceed while they are upon their dangerous expedition.  Among other particulars, they are always told to attend to the direction of the winds; as they are to go towards the tree before the wind, so that the effluvia from the tree are always blown from them.  They are told, likewise, to travel with the utmost dispatch, as that is the only method of insuring a safe return.  They are afterwards sent to the house of the old priest, to which place they are commonly attended by their friends and relations.  Here they generally remain some days, in expectation of a favourable breeze.  During that time the ecclesiastic prepares them for their future fate by prayers and admonitions.  When the hour of their departure arrives, the priest puts them on a long leather-cap, with two glasses before their eyes, which comes down as far as their breast; and also provides them with a pair of leather-gloves.  They are then conducted by the priest, and their friends and relations, about two miles on their journey.  Here the priest repeats his instructions, and tells them where they are to look for the tree.  He shews them a hill, which they are told to ascend, and that on the other side they will find a rivulet, which they are to follow, and which will conduct them directly to the Upas.  They now take leave of each other; and, amidst prayers for their success, the delinquents hasten away.  The worthy old ecclesiastic has assured me, that during his residence there, for upwards of thirty years, he had dismissed above seven hundred criminals in the manner which I have described; and that scarcely two out of twenty have returned.  He shewed me a catalogue of all the unhappy sufferers, with the date of their departure from his house annexed; and a list of the offences for which they had been condemned:  to which was added, a list of those who had returned in safety.  I afterwards saw another list of these culprits, at the jail keeper’s at Soura-Charta, and found that they perfectly corresponded with each other, and with the different informations which I afterwards obtained.  I was present at some of these melancholy ceremonies, and desired different delinquents to bring with them some pieces of the wood, or a small branch, or some leaves of this wonderful tree.  I have also given them silk cords, desiring them to measure its thickness.  I never could procure move than two dry leaves that were picked up by one of them on his return; and all I could learn from him, concerning the tree itself, was, that it stood on the border of a rivulet, as described by the old priest; that it was of a middling