“While dancing the headman and his two attendants suddenly rushed up to the suspected persons and dealt them heavy blows with the Tongora, blows which may or may not have killed them at once; but whether killed or not they were quickly taken away and thrown on the fire.” BORFIMA A word which was constantly heard before the Special Commission Court was Borfima, the “medicine” referred to in the Human Leopard Ordinance. The word is a contraction of _Boreh fima_, medicine bag, and is usually, but not invariably, tightly bound up in a leather package. This package contains, amongst other things, the white of an egg, the blood, fat, and other parts of a human being, the blood of a cock, and a few grains of rice; but to make it efficacious it must occasionally be anointed with human fat and smeared with human blood. So anointed and smeared, it is an all-powerful instrument in the hands of its owner, it will make him rich and powerful, it will make people hold him in honour, it will help him in cases in the White Man’s Court, and it certainly has the effect of instilling in the native mind great respect for its owner and a terrible fear lest he should use it hostilely. An oath administered by the proper person and with due ceremony upon Borfima is of the most binding nature, and it was by means of such oaths that great secrecy was obtained. But the potency of this great fetish apparently soon evaporated. Owners of the Borfima found that their riches did not increase as rapidly as they anticipated, they lost cases in the Courts, expectations were not realized with respect to adverse witnesses upon whose hearts and livers and kidneys imprecations had been showered—all this showed that the Borfima had become weak and needed resuscitation with fresh human fat and blood—and to obtain this human fat and blood was the primary object of the Human Leopard Society. WITCH-DOCTORS To give an idea of the mental outlook of the majority of the natives before the Court, and so that some of the difficulties under which the prosecution laboured may be appreciated, allusion should be made to witch-doctors and oaths. [Illustration: WIVES OF A NATIVE CHIEF.]