If of the charge at Balaklava it was said, "This is magnificent, but it is not war," I may say of these heathen, "Such faith is magnificent, though it be folly." The hunter going out, certain of success, returns empty-handed; the warrior bearing on his breast a fetich panoply, which he is confident will turn aside a bullet, comes back wounded; every one is some day foiled in his cherished plan. Do they lose their faith? No, not in the system,--their fetichism; but in the special material object of their faith--their fetich--they do. Going to the oganga whom they had paid for concocting that now disappointing amulet, they tell him of its failure. He readily replies: "Yes, I know. You have an enemy who possesses a fetich containing a spirit more powerful than yours, which made your bullet miss its mark, which caused your opponent's spear to wound you. Yours is no longer of use; it's dead. Come, pay me, and I will make you a charm containing a spirit still more powerful." The old fetich hitherto jealously guarded, and which would not have been sold for any consideration, is now thrown away or sold to the foreign curio-hunter. A native heathen Akele chief, Kasa, my friend and host in the Ogowe, in 1874, showed me a string of shells, bones, horns, wild-cat tails, and so forth, each with its magic compound, which he said could turn aside bullets. In a friendly way he dared me to fire at him with my sixteen-repeater Winchester rifle. I did not believe he meant it; but, on his taking his stand a few paces distant, he did not quail under my steady aim, nor even at the click of the trigger. I, of course, desisted, apparently worsted. Two years later, Kasa was charged by an elephant he had wounded, and was pierced by its tusks. His attendants drove off the beast; the fearfully lacerated man survived long enough to accuse twelve of his women and other slaves of having bewitched his gun, and thus causing it only to wound instead of killing the elephant. On that charge four of the accused were put to death. Both men and women may become aganga on voluntary choice, and after a course of instruction by an oganga. "There is generally a special person in a tribe who knows these things, and is able to work them. He has more power over spirits than other men have, and is able to make them do what he likes. He can heal sickness, he can foretell the future, he can change a thing into something else, or a man into a lower animal, or a tree, or anything; he can also assume such transformations himself at will. He uses means to bring about such results; he knows about herbs, he has also recourse to rubbing, to making images of affected parts of the body, and to various other arts. Very frequently he is regarded as inspired. It is the spirit dwelling in him which brings about the wonderful results; without the spirit he could not do anything."[32] [Illustration: FETICH DOCTOR. (The triangular patch of hair is the professional tonsure.)]