"Ferocious in his amours, the African negro has no sentiment of love. The more wives he possesses the richer he is. If he inclines to traffic, each additional father-in-law is an additional trading connection; if devoted to war, an ally. His animal passions too often disdain all such mercenary suggestions; he brings home new wives for the sake of new gratifications. Fond of ornaments, his prosperity is displayed in thick bracelets and anklets of iron or brass. An old European hat or a tattered dress-coat, without any other article of clothing is a sufficient badge of kingship. He inclines to nocturnal habits. He will spend all the night lolling with his companions on the ground at a blazing fire, though the thermometer may be at more than 80°, occupying himself in smoking native tobacco, drinking palm wine and telling stories about witches and spirits. He is an inveterate gambler, a jester and a buffoon. He knows nothing of hero-worship; his religion is a worship of fetiches. "They are such objects as the fingers and tails of monkeys, human hair, skin, teeth, bones, old nails, copper chains, claws and skulls of birds, seeds of plants. He believes that evil spirits walk at the sunset hour by the edge of forests; he adores the devil, who is thought to haunt burial-grounds and, in mortal terror of his enmity, leaves food for him in the woods. He welcomes the new moon by dancing in her shine. Whatever misfortune or sickness befalls him, he imputes to sorcery and punishes the detected wizard or witch with death. He determines guilt by the ordeal of fire: the accused who can seize a red-hot copper ring without being burned is innocent. His medicine-man--a wind raiser and rain-maker--pursues his main business of exorcism in a head-dress of black feathers, with a string of spirit-charms around his neck and a basket of snake-bone incantations. The more advanced tribes have already risen to idol worship; they adore grotesque figures of the human form, and following the course through which intelligence in other races has passed, they have wooden gods who can speak and nod and wink.