WITCHCRAFT 145 



tea-cake, except that its top appears perfectly flat 

 and has a diameter of about two miles, has been 

 so accurately poised that at all the points from 

 which I viewed it the mountain presented the same 

 regular form and appearance. I was further in- 

 formed that nobody had ever been to the top of 

 M'sunga, a statement which did not surprise me 

 in the least, as from the moment the cone-shaped 

 body of mountain is ascended there appears to be no 

 means of scaling the rounded, outward-protruding, 

 lower edge of the crowning " tea-cake " ; but there 

 is quite a gruesome story connected with M'sunga 

 which may account for the superstitious Barud 

 people having made no serious attempt to climb 

 it. This is to the eflFect that many years ago, 

 whilst Shipapata was Makombd, there lived at 

 Mungari, then a royal borough, so to speak, a 

 dreadful old woman named Dzango. For years 

 she had been suspected of witchcraft, and there 

 were few who did not believe she changed herself 

 into various animal shapes and devoured the flesh 

 of the newly buried deaJd. At length one of 

 Shipapata's wives, quite a young woman, and one 

 to whom he was much attached, was mysteriously 

 taken ill and died, and the mutterings against old 

 Dzango increased in volume. Several days after 

 the burial, a chance passer-by observed to his horror 

 that the dead woman's grave had been desecrated, 

 and lost no time in fleeing to the village and spread- 

 ing the ghastly news. This was conclusive. Here 

 at last was clear evidence of witchcraft, and who in 

 Mungari wielded the dread power but old Dzango, 

 at whose door so much misfortune had in the past 



10 



