All people from neighbouring lands went there and lodges were also set up in nearly all important towns throughout Degama District. Many men and women, who could not be cured from trouble by native doctors, went there to pray for help, but the priest refused to invoke the aid of the Juju unless the suppliant brought him a virgin as gift. The priest then took her as handmaid and she was kept in the temple and hired out by him to worshippers--especially to sterile men who came to pray for increased virility. Such ‘slaves of the Juju’ were marked out by a shaven patch at the top of the head. There were about three hundred of these girls at Nguru but to none of them was it permitted to rear a babe, because by native custom they would have been obliged to refrain from the company of men for the two years during which they were suckling their offspring--and this would naturally have greatly diminished their earnings. So soon as a babe was born, therefore, the law of the Juju ordained that it must be disposed of in one of two ways; either must it be clubbed on the head and flung away, or laid in one of the big earthen jars and deposited in the bush beyond the town. The Nguru lodge was suppressed about 1913 by Mr. J. M. Binny, District Commissioner. Great was the joy of the three hundred women thus set free to rear the babes born to them, instead of being forced to slay these at the harsh behest of the covetous priest of Ale. A belief in the efficacy of sacrificial blood in order to purchase the favour of the powers of fertility is world-wide; but perhaps nowhere in past days did this dread libation flow in such streams as in West Africa. It is true that now the vigilance of Government and missionary effort have succeeded, to a great extent, in substituting that of slaughtered fowls, sheep and goats, for the costly ichor drawn from mortal veins; but in many a hidden shrine on the banks of unexplored creeks or in the depths of the silent bush--wherever indeed a chance occurred to do so in secret--human victims were till lately offered up. Especially was this practised at the season when the yam vines first send forth tender shoots to clothe the poles with green--as a means towards strengthening the new crops--and at harvest, in gratitude to Ale for her bountiful gifts of garnered grain. At such times it was dangerous for any unprotected wayfarer to venture forth beyond the borders of his own country, since strangers were very liable to seizure for such a purpose. Kula, the centre of many strange and terrible cults, bore an ominous reputation in this respect, until its evil practices drew the attention of Government and, as a result, the principal shrines were destroyed.