ORDEAL BY FIRE — RELIGION. 
61 
if the fate of a culprit is to be decided, the council of elders 
is assembled, and the majority pronounces upon the guilt of 
the accused, without decreeing the punishment; for the 
village chief alone has the right of life and death. 
To ascertain if any one is justly accused, the blacksmith 
makes a piece of iron red hot ; this is applied to the tongue ; 
if he manifests any symptoms of pain, he is declared guilty ; 
if, on the contrary, the iron does not make any impression 
upon him, he is acquitted. 
If a free man violates a female slave, she is set at liberty, 
and the offender is obliged to pay the price of a slave to 
her owner. 
Mahometanism is making daily progress, and will soon 
become the only religion of the country of Cayor. The court 
alone remains attached to a Paganism more favourable to the 
passions. The circumcision practised among the Joloffs, even 
by the Pagans, the public schools kept by the Marabouts and 
frequented by all children, and that inviolability which ren- 
ders the persons of the Mahometan priests as sacred among 
the Pagans as among the followers of the Koran, are three 
causes which must powerfully concur to extend Islamism 
among these people. 
It is impossible to find more faithful observers of the 
external forms of their religion, than the Mahometan Negroes. 
They rise several times during the night to chant chapters of 
