Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/561

 good day for landing, "for he'd only had to swim the last fifty yards."

And finally, as the preacher says, remember it is highly advisable to have your conscience clear, at any rate regarding your past treatment of your Kru or Accra boat-boys, before you trust yourself to them to take you through a surf. There was a bad man once on the Gold Coast who had ill-used his men and when they took him out through the surf to go aboard the ship that was to take him home, there was the usual catastrophe, which no one thought much of, only saying "It was hard on B. just as he was going home," until the body of B. came ashore, and then, in the clothes, were found three iron shark hooks, with lots of line attached, wherewith the men had held B. back from shore, and played him like a fish, until the surf beat the life out of him.

Forgive this digression on surf, but a coaster cannot help going on like this as soon as his pet enemy is mentioned, and I humbly return to African apparitions. There is one thing about the surf that I do not understand, and that is why witches always walk stark naked along the beach by it at night, and eat sea crabs the while. That such is a confirmed habit of theirs is certain; and they tell me that while doing this the witches emit a bright light, and also that there is a certain medicine, which, if you have it with you, you can throw over the witch, and then he, or she, will remain blazing until morning time, running to and fro, crying out wildly, in front of the white, breaking, thundering surf wall, and when the dawn comes the fire burns the witch right up, leaving only a grey ash—and palaver set in this world and the next for that witch.

A highly-esteemned native minister told me when I was at Cape Coast last, that a fortnight before, he had been away in the Apollonia district on mission work. One evening he and a friend were walking along the beach and the night was dark, so that you could see only the surf. It is never too dark to see that, it seems to have light in itself. They saw a flame coming towards them, and after a moment's doubt they knew it was a witch, and feeling frightened, hid themselves among the bushes that edge the sandy shore. As they watched, it