10 KEV. ALFRED T. BRYANT. 



can preserve a man from impending evil (say of getting 

 wounded in battle), than that it can save him fi-om its effects 

 after it has actually befallen him. In fact the accomplish- 

 ment of the former feat would appear to involve less difficulty 

 than the latter. It is obviously just as reasonable to expect 

 Nature to have provided antidotes against the secret mal- 

 practices of brother-man as against the mischief worked in 

 human beings by those much more abstruse forces causing 

 disease and death. The office of the medicine-man tlius 

 requires him to administer magic and charms as often as 

 health-giving drugs. He would stand aghast at the magni- 

 tude of your ignorance if you were bold enough to ridicule 

 his ability to confound the knavery of the nin'lliahathi by 

 plentifully sprinkling InTelezi-inedacme about the kraal, or to 

 ward off the lightning by erecting a medicated stone in its 

 vicinity. 



But while he assumes the ])o\ver of being able to ward off' 

 and fortify against all manner of possible corporal and 

 physical evils, he knows too how to induce them ; and the 

 proneness of human nature to work evil, especially for 

 gain, being well recognised by the Kafirs, the most skilled 

 medicine-man is with them invariably suspected of being also 

 the greatest umThnkathi. 



(6) The Native Medicines, 



Crawling into the doctor's hut we may find him in the act 

 of making up a prescription, for he is his own chemist. 

 Squatting alone on the floor on the right side of the hut, a 

 vast array of small objects, of all shapes, all colours, all 

 characters, lies spread out in an orderly fashion before and 

 about him. From time to time, after a thoughtful survey, he 

 picks up one or other of the curious objects, pares off a few 

 tiny slices, or drops a few particles on to the rag-patch out- 

 stretched before him, until a small heap has been accumulated, 

 perhaps half a tea-spoonful or so, sufficient for one or more 

 doses according to the strength of the ingredients. 



