One of my men, being in great pain from stricture, I gave the maximum dose of opium for his relief. On returning to see the effect he answered, “Yes, I have had no pain since they burned me.” My little tabloids were despised as too trifling a remedy for such serious ill; burning had been considered a more sensible treatment, and the relief afforded by a full dose of opium attributed to it. “Perhaps it was the English medicine that relieved your pain?” I suggested. “The English medicine is good, but I have had no pain since they burned me,” he repeated. Great is Faith! How many cures may have resulted from the faith excited by a red-hot nail, without the aid of opium! At the same time English medicines are highly valued, especially those which have a prompt and visible effect, and there is no fear of their being too nasty. I gave a baby girl, about a year old, a dose of castor oil. She smiled and licked her lips; perhaps it was no more unpleasant than native butter. One of our camels fell lame. My clerk thought it had stepped on a thorn, but the native opinion was that it had smelled the dung of a hyaena. A bundle of the knuckle bones of a sheep are hung up in the tent with the object of assisting the healthy growth of the baby, and dog’s teeth are tied round its neck to insure the regular succession of its own. The cure for a headache is a string bound tightly round the head, and amulets are generally included. My junior clerk having been stung by a scorpion, was induced by the severe pain, in the absence of other help, to trust to native ministrations. His head (which has abundant curly hair) they did with butter anoint, even with the malodorous “samin,” and gave him copiously of the same to drink. The root of a certain tree was bound round his wrist and an amulet round his elbow. I do not know which of these four remedies effected the cure; a good drink of “samin” would certainly have an effect in the right direction. The Exhibit at Shepherd’s Bush of “charms” and magical objects, recently in use in England, indicates a mental level no whit higher than that of my brown people. And yet with what contempt would these English wearers of amulets and dried mole’s feet have regarded the “heathen niggers.” And can we say much more for the large numbers of half-educated people who do not like to spill the salt, and generally bow to the new moon, because “there might be something in it,” who refuse to believe what is strange to them, no matter what the evidence, though believing many things on no true evidence at all? Religion and superstition having occupied so much of our attention, I seem to lack a sense of proportion in devoting but a short space to the more real matter of morality. Brevity is, however, excused by the fact that all description of men’s ways of life is necessarily an exposition of their moral state.