52 A FARMERS YEAR 



out of proper control ; so, as she could not be removed without a 

 magistrate's order, I was followed to the church. 



On Monday the second lamb that the dog bit by the way, 

 that brute has not troubled us again died of mortification, so 

 that up to the present our total loss is six. Yesterday there was 

 a cold east wind, which, however, was favourable for the beet 

 drilling and harrowing. To-day I went to Norwich to open a 

 great missionary bazaar in the Agricultural Hall, where the at- 

 tendance was surprisingly large. Many of the exhibits were very 

 interesting indeed, especially the models of Eastern houses and 

 of Jerusalem as it existed in the time of our Lord. There was 

 also a first-class collection of African fetishes, jujus, and miscel- 

 laneous assorted gods, some of the holiest being represented by 

 cowrie-shells fashioned to the shape of a cone. I wonder if there 

 is any connection between this and the cone that was always a 

 feature in the Phoenician worship. But that subject is too large 

 to go into here. I wish that someone would write an adequate 

 book upon superstition and its effects, as distinguished from and 

 opposed to revealed religion and its effects. This curse of the 

 world, civilised or savage, deserves a worthy chronicler. Walking 

 round the exhibits in the Agricultural Hall to-day, it was borne 

 in to my mind that superstition in all its hideous phases is perhaps 

 the most concrete and tangible form in which the Evil One mani- 

 fests himself upon earth, and I think that those who have mixed 

 much with native races will not disagree with me. Here is an 

 instance of its working, which has just come to my notice. 



Not long ago two Matabeles were tried at Bulawayo for the 

 murder of their grandson, an infant of two. Poison having failed, 

 the boy was held beneath the water and drowned. The crime was 

 admitted, but the defence raised was that the child had cut its top 

 teeth first. Such children being unlucky and the cause of ill-luck 

 to others, it was customary to kill them, and a ' witch doctor ' on 

 being consulted had ordered that this one should be put to death ! 



Well, only a century or so since we did things almost as bad 

 in England, and I am told that to-day, in London, societies 



