34 THE FERNAND VAZ. Chap. 11. 



close to the site of my house, at what was formerly 

 the entrance to the single street of the village. 

 Almost all the villages in this country have some- 

 thing of this kind at their entrance, constructed to 

 prevent the entry of witchcraft and death, or to 

 bring good luck to the inhabitants. Eabolo's talis- 

 man was considered to be a very effective one, for 

 since the village was established, twelve dry seasons 

 ago, no one had died there. This was no great 

 wonder, since there were only fifteen inhabitants 

 in the place. 



My builders came to me to say they dared not 

 remove Rabolo's fetich, and prayed me not to touch 

 it until Rabolo came, otherwise there would be a big 

 palaver. It seemed likely I should have some diffi- 

 culty, for Rabolo had already spent the purchase- 

 money of his village, distributing the goods amongst 

 his wives and numerous fathers-in-law. However, 

 I was firm, and when Rabolo came I was peremptory 

 in demanding that the rubbish should be cleared 

 away. He submitted at last, and commenced to cut 

 down the bushes which covered the talisman, and 

 dig up the mysterious relics. The first thing that I 

 saw turned up was the skull of a chimpanzee buried 

 in the sand ; then came the skull of a man, probably 

 an ancestor of Rabolo, and a mass of broken plates, 

 glasses, and crockery of all sorts, which had been 

 placed there to keep company with the mondah. He 

 then removed the two upright poles with cross-bar 

 and talismanic creeper growing at their foot, which 

 constituted the protecting portal of the village, the 

 negroes all the while standing around with looks of 



