He made no objections to my questions, and, to my delight, offered to give me a demonstration if the ritual of the women who held the secrets would consent to exhibit them. At noon I was taken to a kind of tribal palaver and the matter was put to a species of test or judgment by lot. A young girl was blindfolded and given a basket containing short and long sticks. Certain prayers and incantations were performed and she passed into a semi-trance state. My permission depended on her selection of a majority of short sticks, but as I could not see the sticks, and she was in a state of light hypnosis, I made occasion to recite one or two resounding Hebrew charms and laid my hands on her head; after that, all was easy. Her will obeyed mine and she selected the sticks as I desired. It was almost an unanimous election. When dusk fell with all its African suddenness, the rising moon hung like a blazing buckler in the sky. Dogs barked in answer to the distant hill jackals and the acrid smoke of the camel-dung fires hung like a sour fog about the camp. We left the village and went about a quarter of a mile along the hillside to the local buryingplace, following a stony track that was little more than a dried watercourse. At the head of our little procession were two men with flaming argan wood torches tied to long canes, behind them came four men with long silver-decorated Remington rifles, and then the little group of sorceresses followed by myself and the elders. The burial ground was a scanty clearing among the scrub and dwarf oaks, and bushes encroached upon the outer graves. Each tomb was marked by a stone monolith or pillar, rough-hewn, with a knob at the top in pursuance of the Muslim custom. The graves radiated in circles from the central stone, whereon fluttered little bundles of rags and similar votive offerings. We made our way to a recent grave, which was rapidly opened by the men, disclosing, a bare two feet beneath the surface, the bent body of a man buried in sitting posture. It was a ghoul-like business and the whole air of the graveyard carried the tainted scent of the dreadful carrion they were unearthing. In the meanwhile, the women were busy, and from behind the tombs brought forth skulls which they anointed with some strange grease and set on sticks in a circle round the central altar. At last the corpse, in its foul, earth-stained wrappings, was exhumed and carried in a piece of sheeting to the altar. The men who had served as guards and grave diggers then withdrew out of earshot, and the ceremonies began. Fire was applied to the circle of skulls and they began to burn. I noticed that the eyes and ear sockets were stuffed with old rags which served as wicks for the unclean oil. They flared smokily, sending off a foul-scented sooty smoke. The women began to chant their monotonous wailing rhymes, and their leader rocked to and fro leading this strange chorus.