* * * * * Turning to the still savage races of the old world we everywhere find these superstitions in full force. Africa furnishes an ample store of them, varying from the crudest simplicity to the most deadly devices. Among the Kalabarese the _afia-edet-ibom_ is administered with the curved fang of a snake, which is dexterously inserted under the lid and around the ball of the eye of the accused; if innocent, he is expected to eject it by rolling the eye, while, if unable to do so, it is removed with a leopard’s tooth, and he is condemned. Even ruder, and more under the control of the operator, is the _afia-ibnot-idiok_, in which a white and a black line are drawn on the skull of a chimpanzee: this is held up before the defendant, when an apparent attraction of the white line towards him demonstrates his innocence, or an inclination of the black line in his direction pronounces his guilt. More formidable than these is the ordeal-nut, containing a deadly poison which causes frothing at the mouth, convulsions, paralysis, and speedy death. In capital cases, or even when sickness is attributed to hostile machinations, the _abiadiong_, or sorcerer, decides who shall undergo the trial; and as the active principle of the nut can be extracted by preliminary boiling, judicious liberality on the part of the individual selected is supposed to render the ordeal comparatively harmless.[826] Throughout a wide region of Western Africa, one of the most popular forms of ordeal is that of the red water, or “sassy-bark.” In the neighborhood of Sierra-Leone, as described by Dr. Winterbottom, it is administered by requiring the accused to fast for twelve hours, and then to swallow a small quantity of rice. After this the infusion of the bark is taken in large quantities, as much as a gallon being sometimes employed; if it produces emesia, so as to eject all of the rice, the proof of innocence is complete, but if it fails in this, or if it acts as a purgative, the accused is pronounced guilty. It has narcotic properties, also, a manifestation of which is likewise decisive against the sufferer. Among some of the tribes this is determined by placing on the ground small sticks about eighteen inches apart, or by forming an archway of limbs of trees bent to the ground, and requiring the patient to pick his way among them, a feat rendered difficult by the vertiginous effects of the poison. Although death not infrequently results from the ordeal itself, yet the faith reposed in these trials is so absolute that, according to Dr. Livingston, they are demanded with eagerness by those accused of witchcraft, confident in their own innocence and believing that the guilty alone can suffer. When the red water is administered for its emetic effects, the popular explanation is that the fetish enters with the draught, examines the heart of the accused, and, on finding him innocent, returns with the