With several uncivilised nations in Africa, the practice of compelling persons accused of crime or witchcraft to undergo the ordeal of swallowing some vegetable poison is still carried on. For this purpose certain tribes in Western Africa use the Calabar bean, sometimes called the ordeal bean, which contains a powerful poisonous principle, called Physostigmine. It was customary, at one time, in Old Calabar, and the mouth of the Niger, where the plant grows, to destroy it whenever found, a few only being preserved to supply seeds for judicial purposes, and of these seeds the store was kept in the custody of the native chief. Witchcraft, indeed, may be said to play the chief part in the daily life of all African natives, and to witchcraft they attribute every ill that befalls them. Two classes of witchcraft are supposed to exist--the one practised secretly by evil-doers, and the other practised by the witch doctors with the view of destroying the effects of the former. Witch doctors are, in fact, the greatest power in the land; they hold the lives of all in their hands, and are daily employed to satisfy the passions of their neighbours. "According to native ideas," says one who has had a long experience among the native tribes, "death or sickness never occurs through natural causes, but is always the result of somebody's act. Whenever any one is accused of having practised witchcraft, or of having committed any other crime, Calabar bean or Muavi is used to decided the case. The taking of these is the great trial by ordeal, and, usually, except when the accuser is a witch doctor, accused and accuser have both to submit to the test. Chiefs, however, may appoint a deputy to undergo the ordeal in their stead. Muavi consists of a specially prepared drug, usually made by scraping the wood of a certain tree known to the witch doctors; this is mixed with water, and both parties swallow the decoction. In a very short time the drug begins to act. Vomiting sets in, followed by convulsions and death. Of course, in most cases the result depends on the dose given. Sometimes both accuser and accused are seized with vomiting; in that case the natives say that the medicine has been badly prepared, and the operation is repeated. At other times both die; in that case also the medicine was no good, but the trial cannot be renewed, as may be readily understood. When the guilt of one of the parties has been established by his death, his property is at once looted, his wife and children being killed. So great, however, is the faith of the natives in the infallibility of the Muavi test, and they so fully believe that in case of innocence they will be proof against the deadly effects of the drug, that they will never hesitate to submit themselves to the trial; in fact, they will frequently volunteer to go through it, and insist upon taking muavi even when falsely accused. From this account it will be easily seen that the witch doctor who prepares the muavi can