84 
MISSIONARY LIFE 
places which but a few years since were under the 
control of real pagans. Indeed all the Moham- 
medan chiefs in the Sherbro and Mendi countries 
are usurpers, and hold their towns not by right, 
but by might. They manage to put down or out 
of the way — by administering poison, if nothing 
else will do, — those who have much influence in the 
country. It is thought that King Peer-Charly, 
and others, who died while I was in Africa, were 
poisoned by their doctors who were Moham- 
medans. 
Gregrees aftbrd security from all evil, and give 
the necessary instruction in all cases of emergency* 
They are emphatically their light in darkness, 
their wisdom in ignorance, and their strength in 
weakness. In them they find a balm for every 
wound, and a remedy for all the ills of life. In 
short, they put more confidence in them than many 
professors of religion do in the Bible, and the God 
of the Bible. 
Once I asked the head-man of a town what he 
would take for a witch gregree, which at the time 
was hanging near the door- way of his hut. He 
looked at me with surprise, and said, with his 
voice elevated, ^^You leant to take my witch-medicine 
away so witch come and, kill me one time.^’ 
Another time, when on the river, my men seemed 
much alarmed upon the water growing roughs 
