There is a festival to-day among the coolies. All night, from down in the valley where their huts are, has come the sound of tom-toms beating. And this morning there has been no roll-call, no telling off the men to making pits and the women to weeding. The fields have been empty, and the village which is usually so abandoned by day, is full of people. They have roamed lazily to and fro or sat before their doorways in the sun talking and waiting, for the ceremony is not till noon. It begins with a procession. It is a long procession, all of men or boys, for it seems that among these people women are not concerned in the acting of the ceremonies. They are all men, mostly the elders and the headsmen of gangs, and before them dances a man half naked, half mad, who cries and throws his arms about. He is possessed of the Spirit. I do not know what the procession means, and I ask. No one can tell me; only it "is the custom." And so they pass up the main road near my house with tom-toms beating and flowers about their necks, and the "possessed" priest dancing ever before them. They go perhaps a mile about and then return, and by the entrance to the village, where are boys who carry rice and cocoanuts; and as the priest approaches they throw this rice before him and break the cocoanuts at his feet. So they enter the village. In the centre is an open space and they stop, the procession breaks, for the priest goes to the centre still dancing, and the people form a great ring about him. He dances more and more wildly as the tom-toms quicken their beat, his eyes are bloodshot, his hands are clenched, there is foam upon his lips. "He has the Spirit," the people murmur with wonder. Then into the centre of this ring come two men dragging a goat. It is a black goat with a white star on his forehead. His horns are painted and there are flowers about his neck. When the priest sees the goat he rushes forward. He grips the goat by the ears, the men let go and depart, and the priest and goat are left alone. He is about to sacrifice the goat, I know that, but I do not know how, for he has no knife. But I quickly understand. He has seized the goat by both ears in a grip of steel. Then bending down he bares his teeth and catches the lower lip of the goat between them. He tears and worries, and the goat struggles ineffectually, for with savage energy the priest has torn at the lip till it peels off in a long strip down the throat, so that the veins and arteries are laid bare. And then with a sudden jerk he lets go the torn skin and buries his teeth deep in the palpitating throat. You see his jaw work, you see the goat give a great convulsive struggle, there is a sudden rush of blood from the torn arteries pouring over the priest in a great red stream. For a minute there is stillness, and then the goat's tense limbs relax. They droop, for he is dead; and with a tremor in all his limbs the man stands for a