“... the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger; her husband’s brother shall go in unto her and take her to him to wife.”—DEUT. xxv. 5. When a man dies, part of his goods is buried with him, part goes to pay the precentor at the wake, and to feast the undertakers and friends. Besides these and such like funeral expenses, there is the cost of the legal investigation into the cause of death, and this item if not repaid by damages from the bewitcher (107), will be the most expensive piece of mourning. The remainder of his property (92), including his wives and children, passes on, without any government tax, to his heir. The nearest heir is his eldest brother, who obtains complete possession. This is no hardship to younger brothers, who will succeed in their turn. Failing a brother, there comes the eldest sister, not indeed herself but her son, so that the next heir after a man’s younger brother is his nephew (mwipwagwao). By this custom a man’s own children are purposely set aside. When we tell the natives about the English law of succession, they say that it is “very stupid”. They want to be sure that the heir really has the family blood in his veins, and they cannot trust that a man’s sons answer to this description. The same laws of inheritance are found in various parts of Africa—as for instance among the Ashanti on the Western Coast. Any will that attempted to strike at this custom would be at once set aside. Where writing is unknown, written wills are impossible, but no will would be recognised except perhaps in the case of some trifling matters. If the rightful heir be a minor (_i.e._, a mere child), some one takes the inheritance till he comes of age. The first-born always has the precedence, the younger brother being nothing while the elder is alive. We saw an amusing illustration of this in the case of our own two children. On the birth of the first, the relatives of the chief Kapeni patronised him and even proposed a wife for him, while all the natives called him little Kapeni. But the second child they took no notice of, he was merely “the younger brother of little Kapeni”. The heir pays any debt that may be on the inheritance, he also takes the risk of the “witchcraft” trial. If his predecessor died by witchcraft, he receives a large fine from the bewitcher’s estate, but if his predecessor died by the poison (mwai), he pays a fine to the bewitched persons, or their representatives. The great majority of the natives are the victims of witchcraft one way or other. They either die of witchcraft themselves (106), or are poisoned because they bewitched some one else. On the day of entering on his inheritance the heir marries not only the inferior wives, but the chief wife of his predecessor (43). Should she have property her sureties look after her interest. A married woman, if free, may have property—she may be a herbalist, or a “cook” at the mysteries, or she may make money by her flour and fowls.