AN INSTRUMENT OF TORTURE 351 
a malicious grin, and from me it was expected that the pot 
should go back empty! Thoughts of flight passed wildly 
through my brain, only dispelled by the well-recognised know¬ 
ledge of incapability. There was no help for it, so letting 
out a couple of reefs in the leathern belt that helped to hold my 
being together at the waist, I bravely raised the pot to my lips 
and drank. What was my surprise to find the cool beer slipping 
down with the pleasantest sensation imaginable, a fact best 
explained by the native phrase ‘ beef wants beer.’ And so it is: 
the consumption of beef in quantities, without concomitant 
vegetable matter, induces a desire for some farinaceous sub¬ 
stance. This the natives in their crude manner recognise, and so 
arrange their feasts, alternating one with the other, but never by 
any chance devouring the two together, for in natural compen¬ 
sation ‘ beer also wants beef ’ again, and so the feast is prolonged. 
A fact I subsequently learned to appreciate to the full now that 
my attention was called to it. 
Fortunately it was not improper for the ladies to aid our 
flagging efforts in consuming the beer. It was even native 
etiquette to invite them to partake of what their own hospitality 
had provided, and with the last drop, which the willing slave 
girls were called in to finish, our visit terminated, with many 
handshakes and expressions of goodwill. 
We walked over to the Kodthla to have a look at an 
appliance that had formerly aroused my curiosity. It con¬ 
sisted of a large flat stone, on which lay a heavy log, four feet 
thick, flattened on one side to allow it to lie closely on the stone. 
This simple looking contrivance was nothing less than an in¬ 
strument of torture to help reluctant witnesses to the recollec¬ 
tion of the truth, when they showed any desire to prevaricate or 
withhold information from the council. The suspected person was 
placed in a lying position on his abdomen on the stone, with the 
head alone free, while the log, weighing about fifteen hundred 
pounds, was gently let down on to him, where it remained until 
the truth or a conveniently near substitute was expressed out 
of the individual, with sundry other matter contained within the 
