IN WESTERN AFRICA. 
85 
because of an approaching storm, and when I in- 
quired the cause of their fear, one replied they had 
no gregree for storm on water. 
I brought several kinds of gregrees with me to 
this country, and one ‘^country fashion.’^ The 
country fashion is about four inches long, three 
inches wide, and two inches thick. It is covered 
with cloth, and has some Arabic characters in it.. 
This is used for a variety of things— such as driv- 
ing evil spirits out of town, trying convicts, curing, 
the sick, and keeping off sickness. 
To try convicts, the gregree-man rubs this on a, 
piece of board, or wood, hack and forward, and 
so long as he can keep it going, the accused is ac- 
counted innocent, hut if it stops he is guilty. 
They believe that some supernatural power holds 
back, or makes powerless the hand of the opera- 
tor, so that he can not continue to move the country 
fashion, if the accused he guilty, while tlie truth 
is he may cease to move it at pleasure. Surely 
that people is destroyed for lack of knowledge.’’ 
I must give some account of a few of the gre- 
grees I brought from Africa. Two of them were 
taken from a slave canoe which was captured, and 
the slaves liberated. One was to tell whether 
slave-canoes could pass places where there was a 
liability to be captured. They have a way of con- 
sulting them to learn such things from them. The 
