76 
Seven Years in Central Africa. [April, 
ordeal of the boiling pot, to which I have already referred, is 
resorted to. My proposal is, that if they consider it a fair 
trial of whiteness or blackness of heart, as they call it, then let 
both the accuser and the accused put their hands into the boiling 
water. The king is strongly in favour of this proposal, and would 
try any means to stop this fearful system of murder, which is 
thinning out many of his best men, but the nation is so strongly 
in favour of the practice that he can do nothing. An old friend 
of mine, called Wizini, who took quite a fatherly care and 
interest in me for some peculiar reason of his own, was charged 
with witchcraft. He pleaded earnestly to be spared the terrible 
trial, and was reprieved because of his years, but banished from 
his people and country for life, for no other reason than that 
a neighbour had an ill feeling against him. Had he been first 
to the king with his complaint, he might have got his neighbour 
burned or banished instead of himself I much missed this 
old man. 
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
The manners and customs of the negro " pure and simple " of 
the interior remind one of many things mentioned in Scripture. 
The Barotse have such names as Child of Sorrow," " Child 
of Joy," " Born by the River," and others, suggested by events 
occurring at birth. When a man of property dies, leaving no 
children, his nearest kinsman takes his brother's wives; and 
chilc^ren born of them inherit the dead man's property. (See 
Deut. XXV. 5, 6.) This custom, however, is dying out. In 
2 Kings iii. ii it is said of Elisha that it was he who poured 
water on the hands of Elijah. On the return of a man to his 
town or house a servant regularly waits with a vessel to pour 
water on his hands. The average negro is the reverse of cleanly, 
but there are many laws and customs among them as to cleansing. 
The better-class negro washes his hands regularly before and 
after meals, but this is because he eats with his fingers. He 
may use a spoon with thin porridge or thick milk, but only to 
ladle the food into the palm of his hand, from which he drops it 
into his mouth. Houses defiled by dead bodies must be cleansed, 
and a woman who needs cleansing must live so many days 
outside the town ; after which she is washed with water, anointed 
with oil and perfume, the inner fat of an ox is hung round her 
