VARIOUS SUPERSTITIONS. 
297 
over with a rag of bark, and had an iron bell tinkling 
from its top. This instrument was shaken roughly in 
the face of each of our Seedees as they sat down ; all 
seemed to change colour at the suspicion, and the old 
man proceeded to the spot where the gauge had been 
taken from. He found it lying a short way off. A 
hyena had removed it, as his tracks were visible. This 
did not shake the faith of our men, but only the more 
strongly confirmed their belief in the "black art." 
.Manua wore wood tied round his ankle, which he had 
received from some of his Waganda cronies, who told 
him it was a charm against snake-bites. Upon Bombay 
ridiculing him, he sharply replied, " Why do you take 
medicine from the Bana or Sahib ? my charm answers 
the same purpose." At cross roads we several times 
came upon a dead frog or fowl ; and in such places, 
if the party is wealthy enough, a goat is laid. The 
animals are split open, with some plucked grass beside 
them, and are placed there for the purpose of curing 
any sick member of a family. Wonderful stories were 
related of a dog having a single horn, and of the 
horn being long preserved by one of the king s officers, 
and used, when Avar broke out, to be stepped over by 
the troops as a good omen previous to going into 
action. One superstitious belief struck us as very 
remarkable — that Kamarasi, if he chose, could divide 
the waters of the lake ! It seemed a long-enduring 
and far-spread tradition from the time of Moses. 
No funeral was ever seen by us in Africa, and hu- 
man bones were remarkably rare. The dead are buried 
somewhere near the house or under the cattle-fold. 
The body is wrapped in bark-cloth or the skin of a 
cow. The king's corpse is dried with heat, and the 
