34 NATIVE MEDICAL PROFESSION. CHAP. I, 



are others who devote their talents to some speciality. 

 The elephant doctor prepares a medicine which is con- 

 sidered indispensable to the hunters when attacking that 

 noble and sagacious beast; no hunter is willing to venture 

 out before investing in this precious nostrum. The croco- 

 dile doctor sells a charm which is believed to possess the 

 singular virtue of protecting its owner from crocodiles. 

 Unwittingly we offended the crocodile school of medicine 

 while at Tette, by shooting one of these huge reptiles as it 

 lay basking in the sun on a sandbank ; the doctors came 

 to the Makololo in wrath, clamouring to know why the 

 white man had shot their crocodile. 



A shark's hook was baited one evening with a dog, of 

 which the crocodile is said to be particularly fond; but 

 the doctors removed the bait, on the principle that the 

 more crocodiles the more demand for medicine, or perhaps 

 because they preferred to eat the dog themselves. Many 

 of the natives of this quarter are known, as in the South 

 Seas, to eat the dog without paying any attention to its 

 feeding. The dice doctor or diviner is an important 

 member of the community, being consulted by Portuguese 

 and natives alike. Part of his business is that of a 

 detective, it being his duty to discover thieves. When 

 goods are stolen, he goes and looks at the place, casts his 

 dice, and waits a few days, and then, for a consideration, 

 tells who is the thief: he is generally correct, for he trusts 

 not to his dice alone ; he has confidential agents all over 

 the village, by whose inquiries and information he is 

 enabled to detect the culprit. Since the introduction of 

 muskets, gun doctors have sprung up, and they sell the 

 medicine which professes to make good marksmen ; others 

 are rain doctors, etc., etc. The various schools deal in 

 little charms, which are hung round the purchaser's neck 

 to avert evil : some of them contain the medicine, others 

 increase its power. 



