i8 GOD'S BLACK DIAMONDS. 
three men, one evidently in custody. They were 
going through an elaborate native ceremony, which 
by listening attentively I discovered was the Ju-ju 
way of taking the temperance pledge. It turned 
out that the culprit — a slave — was too fond of gin 
and rum, and had behaved very unseemly several 
times until his masters thought the situation called 
for drastic measures. So they brought him to this 
altar, and before Ju-ju made him take the most 
solemn and binding oath they knew — ''biam.** 
Whether this way of securing total abstainers was 
a success I cannot say, as I did not know any of 
the men personally. But it does show that even 
the heathen recognise its cursed power, and are 
compelled to take stern measures every now and 
then to deal with it. A District Commissioner (a 
British official) once told our missionaries that he 
had no trouble whatever with mission towns. We 
felt it a splendid tribute to the success of our work. 
The District Commissioner partly accounted for the 
good behaviour of such towns by the way the trade 
in gin and rum was tackled by our Churches. The 
first funeral I conducted in Jamestown was that of 
an intelligent and well-educated native from Sierra 
Leone. He died raving mad — a danger to himself 
and a peril to the community^ — through fondness for 
gin and rum. One of the most striking testimonies 
of its curse came to me when on my way to take 
the weekly open-air preaching service at Ibaka. 
The latter place was about a mile from Jamestown, 
and was worked from there. Accompanied by my 
interpreter, and some of the house-boys, we ap- 
proached the entrance to the town and found in the 
palaver»shed a number of drunken men sprawling 
