The Africans have no treatment for the leper. He simply lives his life in the village so long as he looks after himself or can get anyone to care for him. But when his disease has gone on year after year, and he is no longer able to walk or do anything for himself, or has no friend to care for him, the people used to have, and still have in many places, a savage way of dealing with him. Back from the village a bit in the bush a little hut was built, and one day the leper was carried out, taken to the hut, shut into it with a supply of food, and left to his fate. Either he perished from hunger or was devoured by a wild beast, or was burned to death by a bush-fire. The natives firmly believe that such lepers are transformed into wild animals. I once heard how a poor sufferer was otherwise dealt with. He had been ill for years with an ulcer on one of his legs. The sore had been neglected at first and then it got too bad for treatment. But as native doctors cannot cut off limbs as white doctors can, the poor fellow could now do nothing but lie about his village, and depend on his friends to help him. As he got worse and worse, and less able to help himself, his friends became fewer and fewer. At last he became such a source of trouble to the people that the men decided to put an end to it. Accordingly they went up the hillside near and dug a grave with a small niche to one side at the bottom. Then they returned to the village and carried off the helpless sufferer. He guessed at their intention and piteously implored them to desist. “Where are you going with me?” he said. “Do not leave me alone on the cold hillside.” But they were deaf to his appeals. When they reached the grave they quickly lowered the miserable wretch down, placed him in the niche at the side, shut him in with a mat, drove in a few stakes, filled up the grave, and left him. Not long ago I passed through a village where some years ago I had made the acquaintance of the head man. He was then a hale and hearty old fellow, fond of his joke and his snuff-box. But now what a change. I found his people mostly gone and he himself but the wreck of what he had been. Everything round about had a neglected look. Some disease or other had laid him low and friends had gone. I found him sitting on a mat close to a fire. His poor skeleton legs were firmly bound at knees and ankles with cords made of bark. He had tried many doctors, he said, and had paid for much medicine, and now he had nothing to do but sit and wait for the end. He was too old to visit a white doctor; he was accustomed to the medicine of his own people and would not try that of strangers.