THE ORDEAL. 279 



and who is taking its revenge, or is it a witch ? 

 The great fetish-man has been sent for, and soon he 

 arrives, followed by his disciples. He wears a cap 

 waving with feathers, and a party-coloured garment 

 covered with charms ; horns of gazelles, shells of 

 snails, and a piece of leopard's liver wrapped up in 

 the leaves of a poison-giving tree. His face is stained 

 with the white juice from a dead man's brain. He 

 rings an iron bell as he enters the town, and at the 

 same time the Drum begins to beat. The Drum has 

 its language, so that those who are distant from the 

 village understand what it is saying. With short, 

 lively sounds it summons to the dance ; it thunders 

 forth the alarm of fire or war, loudly and quickly 

 with no interval between the beats ; and now it tolls 

 the hour of judgment and the day of death. The 

 fetish-man examines the dead man, and says it is the 

 work of a witch. He casts lots with knotted cords ; 

 he mutters incantations ; he passes round the villagers, 

 and points out the guilty person, who is usually some 

 old woman whom popular opinion has previously sus- 

 pected and is ready to condemn. She is, however, 

 allowed the benefit of an ordeal : a gourd filled with 

 the red water is given her to drink. If she is inno- 

 cent, it acts as an emetic : if she is guilty, it makes 

 her fall senseless to the ground. She is then put to 

 death with a variety of tortures : burnt alive, or torn 

 limb from limb ; tied on the beach at low water to 

 be drowned by the rising tide ; rubbed with honey 

 and laid out in the sun ; or buried in an ant-hill, the 

 most horrible death of all. 



These examples are sufficient to show that the life 

 of the savage is not a happy one ; and the existence of 

 each clan or tribe is precarious in the extreme. They 



