‘ 
7 
. 
A WOMAN CHANGED INTO A LEOPARD. 223 
‘‘One day-several women had gone to the plantation 
with me, and as we returned to the village, it was just 
getting dark, when lo! I heard a tremendous, a fearful 
scream from the woman ahead of me, and I had just 
time to see through the darkness a tremendous leopard 
carrying her away into the woods. We all shouted, but 
in vain. All became silent; the leopard had disappear- 
ed with its prey. Fear seized upon us, and we made off 
for the village with the utmost speed. 
“When we brought the news, there was great conster- 
nation and wailing, for the woman who had been taken 
away was very beautiful. 
“The next day we danced round the mbuiti, and the 
mbuiti told us that we should kill the leopard. 
“So thirty men prepared themselves for the hunt. 
We cooked the war dish, bled our hands, covered our- 
selves with our war fetiches, marked our bodies with the 
ochre of the Alumbi, invoked the spirits of our ancestors 
to be with us, and departed. 
‘The day before some people came to the place where 
they had seen the leopard’s foot-prints, and not far off was 
a tremendous jungle, very thick, and several trees had 
been brought down by atornado. The leopard’s lair was 
there. | 
‘ At last we came round the lair. Some said the leop- 
ard was not there, while others said he was. In the mean 
time we shouted, and all the time our spears were in read- 
iness, and the dogs were barking; we had a hope that it 
would spring on one of them, then we would transpierce 
it with our spears. 
‘When a man who said the leopard was not there 
first entered the jungle, he had hardly made a step into 
