Because blood is life, all blood, and any blood, has been looked upon as a vehicle of transferred life. And because blood is life, and the heart is a fountain of blood, and so is a fountain of life,--a touch of blood, or, again, the minutest portion of a vital and vivifying heart, has been counted capable of transferring life, with all that life includes and carries; just as the merest cutting of a vine, or the tiniest seed of the mightiest tree, will suffice as the germ of that vine or that tree, in a new planting. The blood, or the heart, of the lower animals, has been deemed the vehicle of life and strength, in its transference; and a touch from either has been counted potent in re-vivifying and in improving the receiving organism. Thus, for example, Stanley, in the interior of Africa, having received “a fine, fat ox as a peace-offering,” from “the great magic doctor of Vinyata,” when making a covenant of blood with him,[276] was requested to return the heart of the ox to the donor; and he acceded to this request. After this, Stanley’s party was several times assailed by the Wanyaturu, from the neighborhood of Vinyata. Thereupon his ally Mgongo Tembo explained, says Stanley: “That we ought not to have bestowed the _heart_ of the presented ox upon the magic doctor of Vinyata; as by the loss of that diffuser of blood, the Wanyaturu believed we had left our own bodies weakened, and would be an easy prey to them.”[277] Another modern traveler in Equatorial Africa finds fresh bullock’s blood counted a means of manhood. While the young Masâi man is passing his novitiate into warrior life, he seeks new strength by taking in new blood. Having employed medical means to rid his system of the remains of all other diet, says Thompson, the novice went to a lonely place with a single attendant; they taking with them a living bullock. There “they killed the bullock, either with a blow from a rungu, or by stabbing it in the back of the neck. They then opened a vein and drank the blood fresh from the animal.” After this, the young man gorged himself with the bullock’s flesh.[278] And whenever the Masâi warriors “go off on war-raids they also contrive to eat a bullock [after this fashion], by way of getting up their courage.”[279] Again, it is said, that Arab women in North Africa give their male children a piece of the lion’s heart to eat, to make them courageous.[280] And an English traveler in South Africa[281] describing the death of a lion shot by his party, says: “Scarcely was the breath out of his body than the Caffres rushed up, and each took a mouthful of the blood that was trickling from the numerous wounds; as they believe that it is a specific which imparts strength and courage to those who partake of it.”