Page:West African Studies.djvu/249

 "Then comes the stage Ntolotolo, meaning sleep or mock death.

"The next stage is called Tchela nxela nbela, that is the knife cutting stage, referring to the operation of bleeding as part of the cure ; and the last stage of the disease is called Nlemba Ngombo. Lemba means to cease. The rites of Lemba are those which refer to the marriage of a woman who swears to die with her husband or rather to cease to live at the same time as he does. Ngombo is the name of the native grass cloth in which, before the Nlele or cotton cloth of the white man appeared, the dead were wrapped previous to burial. Thus in the name Nlemba Ngombo we have the meaning of marriage to the deathly winding sheet or shroud.

"I remember how poor Sanda (a favourite servant of Mr. Dennett's, a mussorong boy) was taken sick with pains in his head which I at first mistook for simple headache. As he was of great service to me I kept him in the factory instead of sending him to town (the custom with invalids in Kakongo is that they should go to their town to be doctored). I purged him and gave him strong and continued doses of quinine and he got better; but from time to time he suffered from recurring headache and drowsiness, and on one occasion when I was vexed at finding him asleep and suspecting him of dissipation, was going to punish him, I was informed by another servant that the poor fellow was suffering from the sleeping sickness. I at once sent him to town with sufficient goods to pay his doctor's bill, and his relations did all in their power to have him properly cured, taking him many miles to visit certain Ngangas famed for the cure of this fell disease.

"He came back to me well and happy. The next year