For instance, I ask a man what town he comes from, and he answers that he comes from Jamanen, when he really came from Atakama; and there is no conceivable reason why he should deceive me, except that he lies by preference. In the first days among the Bulu, before there was an established friendship between them and ourselves, when I have asked the road to a certain town the men have directed me the opposite way, and I have inferred the truth from the suppressed exclamations of the tittering women. A man steals a woman, instead of offering a proper dowry; and when I remonstrate, indignant that he should precipitate a war with all its bloodshed and suffering rather than pay a dowry, he amazes me by confessing that he expects to pay the dowry all the same—after the war. Why not pay it in the first place and save the lives of his people? And why does the African tell me a lie when the truth would serve his purpose better? Has he sunken to such a depth that “Fair is foul, and foul is fair?” So it sometimes seemed. But a more intimate knowledge of him always compels one to abandon this theory. It is never the love of bloodshed that leads him to act thus, but an excessive admiration of courage. His attitude of distrust towards his fellow men has bred in him a disposition to secretiveness and deception, so that he lies even when there is no occasion, not from preference but from force of habit. Let him discover that another has lied to him, or stolen from him, and he will resent it as readily and as naturally as ourselves. On occasion I have heard him preach a fairly good extemporaneous sermon on these subjects. In Old Calabar I was shown the leaf of a certain tree, the lower side of which is like sandpaper, and I was assured that it is frequently used upon the lips of persons convicted of lying—though I did not observe that trees of this kind were being rapidly defoliated by reason of this custom. The African lies in self-defense, and steals in the interest of success; but what he practices himself he condemns in others; for he knows that it is wrong. Again, the universal practice of the _ordeal_ is evidence of the moral nature of the African; though at first sight it would seem rather to indicate moral imbecility. Sometimes a hen is set on eggs and the accused person is adjudged guilty or innocent according as the greater number of chickens hatched are male or female. This is a mode of trial for less serious offenses. More commonly in the case of witchcraft a mild poison is administered to the accused in a drink. Sometimes it only produces vomiting and does him no harm. But if he is seized with vertigo and staggers, he is adjudged guilty.