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Updated: May 15, 2025
Hydrophobia is never cured, not even by the devil-dancers of Ceylon. The normal appearance of these dogs is that of abject fear, as they move about with heads drooping and their tails pressed close between their hind legs. A harsh word sends them off at top speed, while a kind one brings out their instinctive fondness for the human race.
He sat up while some came in, and others stood in front of it, and asked them some questions, to which they replied briefly. I had little doubt that it was about the devil-dancers, and that they told him they had been doing their best for his recovery. Then he spoke to them long and earnestly, though it seemed to me that his voice was growing weaker and weaker.
Perhaps in no other way would they have listened to them." I was right. The Veddahs soon recovered from their grief, or rather ceased from exhibiting it, and placing the body on the litter on which he had been brought to the tent, they carried it to the banyan tree, where the rest of their tribe, with the horrible devil-dancers, were still assembled. Mr Fordyce, Nowell, and I followed.
The countenances of many of them exhibited great astonishment; still more so, when six of those who had been listening to the dying Veddah's exhortations stepped forward, and taking the devil-dancers by the shoulders, marched them away to a distance, first addressing them vehemently in the hearing of the rest.
The people are very fond of these devil-dancers; it tires them to listen to the Buddhist priests, mumbling out of their books, the five hundred and fifty histories of Buddha; but it delights them to watch all night the antics of a devil priest. What is the character of these deceived people? They are polite, and obliging, but as deceitful as their own priests.
"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. After some difficulty he found the men we were in search of, and got them to accompany us to the tent where the poor Veddah lay.
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