IN WESTERN AFRICA. 
83 
secures from war. He said that all the people of 
the town would meet together and lay their hands 
upon the money, and in the meantime one of his 
great men would make a speech, showing the ben- 
efits of the charm. The money would then be 
incased in cloth, and deposited in a safe place; 
^‘and this,’’ said he, ^^make that no w^ar come to 
my town.” 
They also have war cooks,” whose business it 
is to tell where war may be carried on successfully. 
Sometimes they get their power of divination by 
putting difterent vegetables and various kinds of 
leaves into a pot of water, and boiling them. 
Then by looking into the stained water they pre- 
tend to tell — whether by the color of the water or 
otherwise I can not tell — where an army will be 
victorious. 
These cooks are generally Mohammedans ; and 
as they mostly speak, read, and write Arabic, by 
correspondence with each other they can easily 
defeat or make victorious the party they may 
select, for they have the entire control of the 
armies of the people who employ them, and being 
more intelligent than head-men generally are, they 
impose upon them shockingly. 
The Mohammedans, by the power of these war 
cooks,” and various other stratagems, not a few 
in number, have acquired the ascendency in many 
