The millepedes they also dread. I handle them with impunity, and my little daughter, on the Ogowe, in 1888 did so too, under my example. But her young Negro companions soon made her afraid. True, the adult millepede ejects a dark liquid which stained my hands and which natives said was poisonous if taken internally. (That I never tested.) A native friend, one of my Batanga female church-members, a sincere Christian, of bright mind but limited education, told me recently (1902) of her belief in the chameleon as a bad omen. She was visiting relatives a dozen miles north. Word was sent her to return, as another relative, a woman in my Bongaheli village, was dangerously ill. Her host told her to go, and advised her to gather on the way a certain fern, parasitic on trees, that is used medicinally in the disease of which the woman was sick. My friend started on her day's journey, came to the tree, and was about to pluck the ferns when she observed a chameleon clasping the tree; it stood still and looked at her. She instantly left the tree, abandoned the ferns, went back to tell her host that a chameleon was in possession of them and had stared at her, and that it was useless to gather the medicine, for she was sure their relative was dead. And she resumed her journey, coming back to Bongaheli in order to attend the mourning. It was true; the relative was dead, and the mourning had begun. Her belief was not shaken when I reminded her that that chameleon was only doing just what all chameleons do when they are not walking, and when confronted by any one. They all clasp the branch on which they happen to be, and stare at their supposed pursuer, if unable to escape. LEOPARD FIENDS. Formerly a strange superstition said that on him who should kill a leopard there would come an evil disease, curable only by ruinously expensive ceremonies of three weeks' duration, under the direction of the Ukuku (Spirit) Society. So the natives allowed the greatest ravages, until their sheep, goats, and dogs were swept away; and were aroused to self-defence only when a human being became the victim of the daring beast. The carcass of a leopard, or even the bones of one long dead, were not to be touched.