When the doctor’s fee had been paid, and money (goods) saved for a feast, the _Ndembo_ people are brought to life. At first they pretend to know no one and nothing; they do not even know how to masticate food, and friends have to perform that office for them. They want everything nice that any one uninitiated may have, and beat them if it is not granted, or even strangle and kill people. They do not get into trouble for this, because it is thought that they do not know better. Sometimes they carry on the pretence by talking gibberish, and behaving as if they had returned from the spirit world. After this they are known by another name, peculiar to those who have ‘died _Ndembo_.’ There seems to be no advantage accruing to the initiated, the license and the love of mystery seem to be the only inducements. We hear of the custom far along on the upper river, as well as in the cataract region. The _Nkimba_ custom is an introduction from the coast of comparatively recent times. The initiatory fee is paid (about two dollars of cloth and two fowls), and the novice repairs to an enclosure outside of the town. He is given a drug which stupefies him, and when he comes to himself he finds his fellow Nkimbas wearing a crinoline of palm frondlets, their bodies whitened with pipeclay, and speaking a mysterious language. Only males are initiated into this rite, which is more like our own Freemasonry. Living apart for a period, varying from six month to two years, he acquires the mysterious language, and at the end of his time he is reckoned a full brother, _Mbwamvu anjata_, and all Nkimbas in all districts hail him as a brother, help him in his business, give him hospitality, conversing freely with him in the mystic language. It is no gibberish, as that attempted by the Ndembo folk, but until quite lately no white man could get any collection of words. I have, however, been able to get over two hundred words and forty sentences; and while still unable to understand thoroughly the principles on which it has been made up, it is evident that it has been made. The vocabulary is limited, and is characterised by the system of alliteral concord. Some words are slight changes of ordinary Congo, and others bear no resemblance. ‘Lusala, a feather, is Lusamwa, Vana, to give, is Jana. Kwenda, to go, is Diomva. Masa, maize, is Nzimvu.’--(qy. from Ngemvo, the beard of maize). The common people are given to understand that the Nkimba know how to catch witches. In the daytime they wander in the grass, and dig for roots, and gather nuts in the woods, often beating people on the roads who do not run away on their approach. At night they rush about screaming and yelling and uttering their wild trill. Woe to the unfortunate man who ventures out of his house in the night for any purpose, a beating and heavy fine will surely follow.