48 
IV. JULY. 1913— JANUARY, 1914 
One Sunday evening there arrived in a canoe a woman 
who was writhing with cramp. I thought at first that it 
was simple hysteria, but the next day maniacal dis- 
turbance supervened, and during the night she began 
to rave and shriek. On her, too, the narcotics had 
hardly any effect, and her strength rapidly diminished. 
The natives surmised that she had been poisoned, and 
whether they were right or not I am not in a position to 
decide. 
From all I hear it must be true that poison is much 
used in these parts, and further south that is still 
offener the case : the tribes between the Ogowe and 
the Congo are notorious in this respect. At the same 
time there are, among the natives, many inexplicable 
cases of sudden death which are quite unjustifiably 
regarded as the result of poison. 
Anyhow, there must be many plants the juices of 
which have a peculiarly stimulating effect on the 
system. I have been assured by trustworthy persons 
that there are certain leaves and roots which enable 
men to row for a whole day without experiencing either 
hunger, thirst, or fatigue, and to display at the same 
time an increasingly boisterous merriment. I hope in 
time to learn something more definite about these 
“ medicines,” but it is always difficult to do so, because 
the knowledge about them is kept a strict secret. Any 
one who is suspected of betraying anything about them, 
and, above all, if it is to a white man, may count with 
certainty on being poisoned. 
That the medicine men employ poison to maintain 
their authority I learnt in a peculiar way through 
Joseph. About the middle of the dry season his 
village went off to a sandbank about three hours 
