in the Congo River . 
3 2 5 
he was the aggressor, yet I must make the excuse ! 
Must I receive a blow, and, notwithstanding, be 
thought to have done wrong ? ” But the peace¬ 
maker explained that the blow was given not to 
offend, but to defend from hearkening to heresies ; 
that it was administered, moreover, out of paternal 
affection by a spiritual father, whom it did not mis¬ 
become, to a son who was not dishonoured by 
receiving it. The unfortunate elector not only 
suffered in the ear, but was also obliged to make 
an abject apology, and to kiss the offender’s feet 
before he was re-admitted to communion. At 
Maopongo the priests lost favour with the court 
and the women by whipping the queen, and, by 
the same process they abated the superhuman 
pretensions of the blacksmith. 
When the chiefs and princes were so treated, 
what could the subjects expect ? The smallest 
ecclesiastical faults were punished with fining and a 
Talmudic flogging, and for disobedience, a man 
was sent “bound to Brazil, a thing they are more 
than ordinarily afraid of.” A man taking to wife, 
after the Mosaic law, a woman left in widow-hood 
by his kinsman, is severely scourged, and the same 
happens to a man who marries his cousin, besides 
being deprived of a profitable employment. Every 
city and town in Sonho had a square with a central 
cross, where those who had not satisfied the Easter 
command or who died unconfessed were buried 
