On this matter, a curious phenomenon to investigate would be, the process by which the untonsured neophyte is converted into the bonneted doctor; the progress and stages of his mind in the different phases of the practice; how he begins by deceiving himself, to end in deceiving others; the first uninquiring ignorance; the gradual admission of ideas, what he is taught or left to imagine; the faith, of what is fancied to be so, the mechanical belief; then the confusion of thought from the intrusion of doubt and uncertainty; the adoption of some undefined notions; and, finally, actual unbelief; followed by designed and systematic injustice in the practice of what first was taken up in sincerity, though even this now perhaps is not unmixed with some fancy of its reality. For this must be the gradation more or less gone through in all such things, whether Obeism, Fetichism, the Evil Eye, or any sort of sorcery or witchcraft, in whatever variousness of form practised; cheats on the one hand, and dupes on the other the _primum mobile_ in every case being, some shape or other of _gain_ to the practitioner. It seems, however, hardly likely that Obeism should now be "rapidly gaining ground again" there, from the greater spread of Christianity and diffusion of enlightenment and information in general since the slave-emancipation; as also from the absence of its feeding that formerly accompanied every fresh importation from the coast: as, like mists before the mounting sun, all such impostures must fade away before common sense, truth, and facts, whenever these are allowed their free influence. The conclusion, then, would rather be, that Obeism is on the decline only more apparent, when now seen, than formerly, from its attracting greater notice. M.