him of the foul crime. Of course there is some antidote, as the
medicine-man himself drinks large draughts of his own stuff: in
Old Calabar River for instance, Mithridates boils the poison-nut;
but Europeans could not, and natives would not, tell me what the
Gaboon "dodge" is. According to vulgar Africans, all test-poisons
are sentient and reasoning beings, who search the criminal's
stomach, that is his heart, and who find out the deep hidden sin;
hence the people shout, "If they are wizards, let it kill them;
if they are innocent, let it go forth!" Moreover, the detected
murderer is considered a bungler who has fallen into the pit dug
for his brother. Doubtless many innocent lives have been lost by
this superstition. But there is reason in the order, "Thou shalt
not suffer a witch to live," without having recourse to the
supernaturalisms and preternaturalisms, which have unobligingly
disappeared when Science most wants them. Sorcery and poison are
as closely united as the "Black Nightingales," and it evidently
differs little whether I slay a man with my sword or I destroy
him by the slow and certain torture of a mind diseased.

The Mpongwe have also some peculiarities in their notions of
justice. If a man murder another, the criminal is put to death,
not by the nearest of kin, as amongst the Arabs and almost all
wild people, but by the whole community; this already shows an
advanced appreciation of the act and its bearings. The penalty is
either drowning or burning alive: except in the case of a chief
or a very rich man, little or no difference is made between
wilful murder, justifiable homicide, and accidental manslaughter-
-the reason of this, say their jurists, is to make people more
careful. Here, again, we find a sense of the sanctity of life the
reverse of barbarous. Cutting and maiming are punished by the