Savage Africa. 
ig 
^hile the women build the houses, till the gardens, fetch 
water, wait on their lords, and tend the infants. After the 
infants can run alone, they are left to do pretty much as 
they like, and take care of themselves. On some occasions, 
when the tribe has departed on some warlike expedition, 
the little ones have been left in charge of some old women 
belonging to the tribe. On other occasions, when the 
parents have been pressed by want or debt, they have sold 
their children for slaves. They place great faith in " medi- 
cine men " and in witchcraft. Offences among them are 
punished by ordeals of different kinds. Most of the men in 
certain of the tribes keep more than one wife, and look upon 
them as servants. Drinking poison water, is one of the 
most favourite ordeals ; should the condemned person drink 
and die by the draught, it is assumed that the guilt is fully 
proved; while should he or she pass uninjured, the inno- 
cence is assumed. One of the missionaries travelling among 
the people near Mpwapwa, tells us that he saw, more than 
once, remains of bodies hanging from trees to which the 
criminals had been hung up alive, head downwards, roasted 
by a slow fire, and then their charred and lifeless bones 
had been allowed to hang at the mercy of the winds and 
beasts, as a warning to others. Among some of the tribes 
the punishments are very severe for stealing ; tortures of 
different kinds being inflicted at the will of the chiefs. At 
one part of his journey down the Congo, Stanley came to 
the dominions of the King Kasongo, a ruler of bloodthirsty 
habits and principles. The lives and property of the com- 
mon people are at Kasongo's disposal, and human life is 
held so cheaply, that certain rites and ceremonies observed 
in Kasongo's dominions are merely occasions for orgies of 
cruelty and murder. One custom in this monarch's country 
is that of burying alive numbers of wives on the occasion of 
