216 



ORDEALS. 



ing sickness lie lays the ghost or haunting fiend, 

 and applies the mde simples which here act 

 ' second causes.' He presides at the savage 

 ordeals. If the Sultan lose health or a villager 

 die, he finds out the guilty one that hewitched the 

 sufi'erer, and hands liim over to the ' secular arm ' 

 for hurning, cutting to pieces, or other such well- 

 merited doom. Here, unless well fee'd, he thrusts 

 into the accused's mouth a red-hot hatchet, which 

 has no power to hurn the innocent or the strong- 

 nerved guilty : in other pai-ts he makes him or 

 her swallow a cup of poison, which is duly tem- 

 pered for the wealthy. In Usumhara the instru- 

 ment of his craft is a bundle of small sticks : these 

 form, when thrown upon the ground, certain 

 figures : hence the Arabs translate Bao, or 

 Uganga — the Mganga's art — by llaml or Geo- 

 mancy, whose last and ignoblest form is the ' Book 

 of Pate,' attributed to Napoleon I. Similarly in 

 Kafir land, sorcerers use sticks or bones, which 

 are supposed to have the power of motion. 



The Waganga are mostly open to the persua- 

 sions of cloth and beads. One saw the spirit of a 

 pale-face occupying a chair which was brought 

 as a present to King Kimwere, and broadly in- 

 sinuated that none but the wise deserved such 

 seat. But let not the reader suppose that these 



