DRINKING “sassy” WATER. 
119 
household articles — kettles or pots, &c., as the deceased 
was supposed to prize. A number of Gregres and 
amulets are suspended round the grave. After three 
moons, or months, prayers are again offered up for the 
departed. 
Any woman known or suspected to have been on bad 
terms with her husband is obliged, on his demise, to 
drink “ Sassy water,” which mostly proves fatal, unless 
the Dhrrhiu, or priest, is well bribed to dilute the 
poisonous draught. 
At a Grebu town, near the American settlement of 
Greenwell, some of the officers of H.M.S. ‘Albert’ wit- 
nessed a curious ceremony connected with drinking 
“ Sassy water,” and which the Krumen said was gone 
through after the woman had shewn her innocence. We 
give it in the words of the Rev. J. Schdn, one of 
the clergymen employed on the expedition, who was 
present : — “ In a large open space between several 
houses, there was a considerable number of natives of 
both sexes and all ages assembled. Two women had 
seated themselves under the projecting roof of a native 
dwelling-house, with musical instruments — small cala- 
bashes garnished with iron and brass rings — and hooks 
in their hands, from which they dexterously produced 
the same sound, continually accompanying their instm- 
ments with vocal music, singing the same sentences over 
and over again. On their left hand was an old man 
sitting on the ground, beating a drum made out of the 
trunk of a tree merely hollowed out. In front of them 
