Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/353

Rh This he refused to do, and left alone, saying: "I shall not die; I hear him speaking." As he journeyed, a beautiful creature came and laid down food beside him every night. In his sleep it spoke to him. It said he was not to fear lions or serpents, and that all the people he met would be his friends; that one day he would become a great chief, and rule a numerous and warlike people. This creature never left the sage till he returned home; and when he told his story, all the people said he had seen the gods, and that he would now be their chief By his wisdom he taught them many new arts, and made laws "which are still observed by all black people".

One tribe, at least, who are descended from this worthy, have a unique manner of salutation. They fill their mouths with water, and squirm it into the eyes and faces of those they wish to honour, and then hug them in the most violent manner. Then their doctors and great men have an inordinate conceit of themselves, and this they carry into their relations with persons whom they very well know value their pretensions at their true worth. One Masellulie sent a messenger, during a thunderstorm, to the Rev. Mr. Edwards, to say he hoped the latter would not be offended, "because your cow has been killed by lightning which I have made". The lightning-bird is mythical; but powerful magicians like Masellulie have had specimens of the genus as their familiar, and took aerial flights mounted on the thunder-car. Lightning being the bird's excrement, the medicine administered by the doctor purged it violently; hence his power to manufacture the subtle fluid. One old Pondo doctor of my own time knew, in his younger days, and may even have been a pupil of one who could traverse the limpid air, and scatter bolts at pleasure.

These doctors have unlimited power over men's lives and property. Among the tribes farther inland, trial by ordeal is commonly practised by them. This may consist of a poison-bowl, when the dose is graduated according to