A stranger concludes at once that one witch has been captured already and is now driven before the detective. The wretch looks as if she were haunted by all the Furies and Demons of Pagan Mythology. Heir face, breast, and arms are marked with patches of blood-red. Her head is covered, not with short negro wool, but with snaky tresses which hang down her back. Her loins are girt with leopard skins. Her legs are overhung with “rattles,” which sound at every step. In her hand she grasps a scourge of tails, which she waves wildly about her. Her eyes roll and stare in her fierce frenzy. She is evidently surrounded by fiends, which though invisible to others, are dreadful realities to her. With them she maintains a desperate struggle, ever trying to beat them off with her scourge. After wrestling thus she utters shrieks of the most unearthly character, and with a terrible bound dashes into the circle, and we have before us the witch-detective herself. Once in the middle of the crowd, she shouts and rants, sings and dances, eats grass and chews branches for several hours. Of her chants some are common in the district, others in the Walolo language, contains a sound of the letter _r_ that the Yao cannot pronounce. She chaffs them for their awkwardness, and notwithstanding the grave nature of her ceremony, she succeeds in drawing smiles from the multitude. In some of her chants she boasts of her power. “Let the bewitcher become a leopard or a carrion crow yet,” she cries, “there can be no escape.” A large part of the crowd are in a state of terrible suspense. Each person knows that from three to five people will be “detected,” and what if he be among the number? The first time I was at a witch-dance I was not free from concern! The bewitchers, however, will either be relatives of the deceased or persons that have had a quarrel with him. As the decisive moment arrives, the detective asks the hand of every one in the crowd as she chants the appropriate words:— “Pasa manja Chipembere (Give Chipembere your hand). Pasa manja Chipembere.” _Response._—“E, e, e, e, e, e, e.”