The testimony of Declè[81] as to the tribes of South-Central Africa is: "You would suppose that the African expected everybody to live forever, since his one explanation of death is an immediate recourse to witchcraft. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that every natural death entails a violent one as its consequence. Along with witchcraft and the inevitable accusation of sorcery when one dies, goes the custom of 'muavi,' the ordeal by poison.... It is plain what complete domination this practice has got over the native mind. The reason is that he thoroughly believes in its efficiency. My own porters have constantly offered to submit to the ordeal on the most trivial charges. Of course, this thorough belief in 'muavi' hands the native over completely defenceless to the witch doctor. The doctor can get rid of anybody he likes to. Besides this, he is a kind of public prosecutor; that is to say, that when he accuses any man or woman of sorcery, he is not obliged, like any ordinary accuser, to take the poison himself." The "ordeal" or test of the innocence of a person accused of practising witchcraft or of having caused the death of any one (except in places where Christianity has attained power), is almost the same now as that described by Rev. Dr. J. L. Wilson, and subsequently by Du Chaillu, as existing fifty years ago on the entire West Coast of Africa. On the Upper Guinea coasts it is called the "red water." "It is a decoction made from the inner bark of a large forest tree of the mimosa family." At Calabar a bean was used, an extract of which since has been employed in our pharmacopœia, in surgical operations of the eye. In the Gabun country the bark and leaves of a small tree called "akazya" are used. Farther south, in the Nkâmi (miswritten, "Camma") country, it is called "mbundu." The decoction itself is supposed to have almost sentience,--an ability to follow, in the various organs of the body, like a policeman, and detect and destroy the witch-spirit supposed to be lurking about. Accused persons sometimes even demand that they be given the ordeal. This an innocent person could fearlessly do, feeling sure of his innocence, and thinking, as any honest person in a civilized country charged with theft would feel, that it was perfectly safe to have his house searched, sure that no stolen article was secreted there. So here the ignorant native is willing to take this poison, not looking on it as what we call "poison."