Note 1 — Chapter I · Decline of Demons.

There was, until within a few recent years, in a mountain of Travancore, India, an ancient, gigantic Tree, regarded by the natives as the residence of a powerful and dangerous deity who reigned over the mountains and the wild beasts.1 Sacrifices were offered to this tree, sermons preached before it, and it seems to have been the ancient cathedral of the district. Its trunk was so large that four men with outstretched arms could not compass it.