Central Africa may be said to have no religion, if by that we understand belief in a God. It has produced no Buddha or Mahommed to make known to its people some revelation of a deity, neither has it possessed any ancient writings that a Confucius could bind together as a foundation to a nation’s creed. In its belief we see the most pitiable product of a dark, ignorant, and degraded mind, that, left to itself, has worked out some antidote for that which is inherent in every man—an indefinable longing after the spiritual. Its faith bears in it the seeds of inevitable decay, for in its tenets can be found no trace of truth, purity, or holiness, which, varying however much they may in degree, hold together the great religious systems of the world. It might be described briefly as Devil-worship or the Propitiation of Evil Spirits; it differs in its rites and rituals among the various tribes. In Uganda the practices of the people were more extreme, perhaps, but certainly less torturing than in the Western Provinces of the Protectorate, where superstition led to the most barbarous infliction of human suffering from the cradle to the grave. For every real or imaginary evil and sickness that fell upon the individual, family, or community, branding, cutting, and mutilation of the body took place; while, without exception, all the front teeth in the lower jaw were extracted as soon as ever they appeared. These customs, practised for so many generations, have had a very deteriorating effect on the physical constitution of the people. The strength of the natives has been sapped, their minds degraded, and their energies crushed. They possess very small physical resources, and fall an easy prey to any sickness that visits their district. A few years ago, before the teachers of Christianity reached their country, tiny devil temples, made of grass and twigs, stood in the courtyards of the houses, and in these were placed, from time to time, offerings of cowrie shells or food. One day there was brought to me at the dispensary a child who was said to be devil-possessed. The physic prescribed was so far successful that the grateful mother brought a little thank-offering. It consisted of ten cowrie shells tied round a small piece of papyrus stalk. When the child had fallen ill, the mother had tied one of these shells to the strip of grass and given it as a propitiatory offering to the devil; as the sickness increased, each day another shell was added, until, finding her child become rather worse than better, she brought her down to the dispensary. And as the European had done what the devil refused to do, the woman took the shells away from him and gave them to the white lady!