“And this I saw with my own eyes. And when both the leopard and the gorilla had gone I picked up the tail and brought it home to my town, thinking that I would use it to keep the flies off my back. Many people of the town saw this tail; but all those who saw it are dead. For, you see, it was a human leopard (a leopard that was formerly a man) and it haunted the town so long as the tail was there, and inflicted a plague upon the people, so that every one who saw the tail died. And at length, for the sake of the town and the health of the people, I carried the tail to the forest and left it where the leopard would find it. “And that’s the end of the story.” IX FUNERAL CUSTOMS A Kru workman died at an English trading-house, it is said—or was supposed to have died—and his uncoffined form was being borne to the grave upon an open bier by his fellow workmen, when he suddenly embarrassed the funeral cortège by addressing the bearers and demanding that he be instantly informed of what they were intending to do—and why. The affrighted bearers hastily dropped their load and set out for the interior of Africa. Encountering a body of water on the way they plunged into it and submerged themselves as long as nature would allow, in order to effect a disconnection with talking spirits—which are supposed to have an aversion to water—and their fear being thus quenched, they returned. The corpse meanwhile got off the bier and went home. Premature burials are common enough in Africa, for reasons which I shall mention later. But the African might offer an easier explanation and say that the Kruman was really dead and came to life again. For the African lives in a world of confusion and disorder, where there is scarcely any such thing as a “course of nature”; but, rather, a succession of unrelated wonders. Elsewhere every effect has a cause; but Africa is run by magic, and things happen without a cause. Elsewhere, as some sage has remarked, every beginning has an _end_—implying that the end bears a logical relation to the beginning and may even be foreseen; but in Africa a beginning is just a beginning, and affords no clue to the end—if there should be any end. One goes to a wedding, and it turns out that the groom is a leopard in the form of a man, who in the midst of the ceremony carries off the bride. One goes to a funeral and the corpse sits up and talks or breaks loose and runs away. This is the atmosphere in which the African lives.