274 APPEAL TO THE COUNCIL. 
for travelling across the forest of Wassoulo. Lamfia, who 
accompanied us, carried my sack. He had already several 
times proposed to go to the mansa, to submit to an ordeal, 
which consisted in passing a red-hot iron across the tongue. 
The person accused is acquitted if the iron do not burn him, 
but in that case the accuser is obliged to submit to the same 
ordeal. Judgment is pronounced against the party who re- 
fuses to undergo the operation. If it be the prosecutor, he 
must make reparation by giving the accused a present ; if 
the latter, he must restore the value of vrhat he is thus found 
guilty of stealing. This absurd custom, which ignorance 
has established, prevails throughout the whole of western 
Africa. 
We found the chief in the midst of business. He was 
presiding over the council of elders, assembled at the wo- 
men's mosque. We entered a hut, and soon afterwards the 
judges arrived. A native of Kankan, who knew something 
of Arabic, acted as my interpreter ; 1 asked him to perform 
this office for me, as I did not understand the Mandingo 
sufficiently to make myself understood. He declared to the 
assembly, in terms which appeared to me very forcible, the 
manner in which I had been robbed ; mentioning every par- 
ticular, even the razor scene. Lamfia maintained, with great 
boldness, that I had not been robbed ; he reverted once 
more to the loss of my paper, still accusing the absent Fou- 
lah. My interpreter answered, and stated in my name, that 
I could never sufficiently express the sense I entertained of 
the kind reception I had experienced from the inhabitants of 
Fouta-Dhialon, on my passage through their country ; that 
so far from cheating me, they had behaved to me with the 
most generous hospitality ; that there was no doubt that 
the person who had stolen my glass beads had also taken 
the paper. Lamfia, to justify himself, and defend his cha- 
racter, proposed to submit to the ordeal of red-hot iron, 
which often takes place among the people without any ap- 
