unfortunate Akankon concession, and his right to sell or to let either of
them has been seriously disputed. This practice, again, may lead, unless
checked, to serious difficulties. When the local government shall have
established a regular department and a staff of Gold-commissioners, every
owner should be compelled legally to prove his title to the land. West
Africans know nothing of yards and fathoms; they have hardly any words to
express north or south. [Footnote: The four points are taken from the
buried body, the feet being to the east and the head lying west.]
Consequently they will sell, either wittingly or in their ignorance of
dimension and direction, the same ground, or parts of it, to two or three
purchasers. Indeed, they would like nothing better, and consequently
'jumpers' must be expected.

Sensensé is a dark man, apparently on the wrong side of fifty. His grizzly
beard, grown comparatively long, his closely-trimmed mustachios, and his
head-cloth, worn like a turban, made me take him at first sight for a
Moslem. He has a cunning eye, which does not belie his reputation. His fad
is to take money and to do no work for it; he now wants us to pay for the
clearing of an uncleared path. The villagers fear him on account of
certain fetish-practices which, in plain English, mean poison; and he
keeps up their awe by everywhere displaying the outward signs of magic and
sorcery. A man with this gift can rise at night when all sleep; cast off
his body like a snake's slough; become a _loup-garou_; shoot flames from
eyes and ears, nose, mouth, and arm-pits; walk with his head on the ground
and kill man either by drinking his blood or by catching his _kra_
(_umbra_), which he boils and devours. Here the sign of 'fetish' is mostly
the _koro_, or pot full of rubbish. At Axim and Akankon we shall find our
chief a mighty bore, each visit being equivalent to a bottle of gin.

After a restful sleep in the cool and pleasant air of Apatim, we proceeded