but left the innocent quite free from harm. It seems a sound
conclusion of the missionaries, that the draught was modified
according to the good or ill will of the magicians, or the liberality
of the supposed culprit. The trial called Bolungo, was indeed
renounced by the king, but only to substitute another, in which the
accused was made to bend over a large basin of water, when, if he
fell in, it was concluded that he was guilty. At other times, a bar
of red hot iron was passed along the leg, or the arm was thrust into
scalding water, and if the natural effect followed, the person's head
was immediately struck off. Snail shells, applied to the temples, if
they stuck, inferred guilt. When a dispute arose between man and man,
the plan was, to place shells on the heads of both, and make them
stoop, when he, from off whose head the shell first dropped, had a
verdict found against him. While we wonder at the deplorable
ignorance on which these practices were founded, we must not forget
that "the judgments of God," as they were termed, employed by our
ancestors, during the middle ages, were founded on the same
unenlightened views, and were in some cases absolutely identical.

Other powers, of still higher name, held sway over the deluded minds
of the people of Congo. Some ladies of rank went about beating a
drum, with dishevelled hair, and pretended to work magical cures.
There was also a race of mighty conjurors, called Scingilli, who had
the power of giving and withdrawing rain at pleasure; and they had a
king called Ganja Chitorne, or God of the earth, to whom its first
fruits were regularly offered. This person never died, but when tired
of his sway on earth, he nominated a successor, and killed himself;
a step, doubtless, prompted by the zeal of his followers, when they
saw any danger of his reputation for immortality being compromised.
This class argued strongly in favour of their vocation, as not only