883.] 
Among the Barotse. 
75 
have a sympathy which "Nambi" has not — a sympathy with 
them in all the joys and sorrows connected with their journeyings, 
crops, hunts, cattle, wives, etc., because they, while in the body, 
experienced the same. Alas ! they little know at what a cost 
our God has provided for us, and for them too, a Saviour and 
High Priest, who feels for us as no man can feel, who suffered 
and sorrowed as no man ever did, and who yet has verily a 
fellow-feeling with us. The religion of these upper-river people 
is widely different from that of the other tribes. It has been 
known to some that they believed in one supreme God, but no 
more was known about them. There are many other interesting 
ceremonies of theirs connected with the offering of oxen, corn, 
beads, and cloth, concerning which I hope to get more infor- 
mation. They have their diviners, seers, magicians, and doctors, 
who work with a mass of beads, human bones, speaking-horns, 
claws of wild animals, and a whole host of things, all of which 
together they call "Lequalo," and to read them so as to pro- 
phesy about them is "Hoqualo." They give this name to the 
word of God and all other books of the white man. The only 
difference, they think, between our Lequalo " and theirs is that 
ours is a confused mass of Httle black marks on paper, and 
theirs is surely much more sensible, as it consists of substantial 
things ! 
HUMAN VICTIMS. 
Nothing of importance can be sanctified without a human 
sacrifice, in most cases a child. First the fingers and toes are 
cut off, and the blood is sprinkled on the boat, drum, house, or 
whatever may be the object in view. The victim is then killed, 
ripped up, and thrown into the river. The burning of men for 
witchcraft is carried on to a fearful extent ; not a day passes but 
some one is tried and burnt. The details of scenes that I have 
been forced to witness in this line are too horrible to put on 
paper ; many a guiltless victim is marched off to the horrid pile. 
A few hundred yards from my hut there lies a perfect Golgotha 
of skulls and human bones, fearful to look upon. Yet one gets 
somehow used to it and to all their murdering ways. 
The trial for witchcraft is short and decisive. If one man 
suspects another of having bewitched him — in fact, if he has 
a grudge against him— he brings him before the council, and the 
