72 
MISSIONARY LIFE 
Mendi Mission, a man was accused of witchcraft, 
and given the sassy-hark tea to drink, ^ which 
taking efiect established his guilt. A rope was 
then tied around his neck, and by it he was 
dragged around the town until dead. Little did 
I think when visiting the head-man of that town 
that he could permit such barbarity, for he seemed 
a good iiatured fellow. But such is heathenism. 
ITot far from Good Hope Station, shortly-before 
my first arrival on that coast, four persons were 
rescued from death, which was being infiicted by 
piecemeal. These persons were all tied to the 
ground so as to make it impossible for them to 
change their position, and fire was put to some 
parts of the body. One woman had fire put to her 
foot, another to her leg, and the only man in the 
company had fire ^ut to his back. Besides this, 
they were in a state of actual starvation ; and the 
first thing they requested of the missionary who 
efiected their rescue was to give them food. To 
burn to death by piecemeal, with only food enough 
given the victim to keep life in him, is a very com- 
mon mode of torturing persons for witchcraft. 
One object in torturing so severely seems to be 
to extort confession from the victim; and with 
their teachings on that subject, and being distract- 
ed with pain, some confess to a crime they never 
committed, and for which they atone by deaths 
