The Amazulu, one of the finest of savage races, believe that _some_ snakes are Amatongo—some, not all. In fact, these snakes which are dead men are rather rare. One kind is black and another green. An Itongo does not come into the house by the door, nor does it eat frogs or mice. It does not run away like other snakes. Some say, “Let it be killed.” Others interfere, “What, kill a man?” If a man die who had a scar and you see a snake with a scar, ten to one it is that man. Then, at night, the village chief _dreams_ and the dead man speaks to him. “Do you now wish to kill me? Do you already forget me? I thought I would come and ask you for food, and do you kill me?” Then he tells him his name. Without any teaching, without any system, the savage thinks that the appearances which stand before him in sleep are real. If they are not real, what are they? The savage may not be a reasonable being, but he is a being who reasons. In the morning the village chief tells his dream and orders a sin-offering to the Itongo (ghost) lest he be angry and kill them. A bullock or a goat is sacrificed and they eat the flesh. Afterwards they look everywhere for the snake, but it has vanished. A snake that forces its way rapidly into a house is known to be a liar and he is a liar still. Do they turn him out of doors with a lecture on the beauty of veracity? Far from that. “They sacrifice something to such an Itongo.” A few men turn into poisonous snakes, but this is by no means common. If offended, the Amatongo cause misfortune, but even if pleased they do not seem to confer many benefits; perhaps they cannot, for surely it is easier to do evil than good. Once, however, a snake which was really the spirit of a chief, placed its mouth on a sore which a child had; the mother was in a great fright, but happily she did not interfere and the snake healed the sore and went silently away. [Illustration: _Photo:_ _Mansell._ WILD GOATS AND YOUNG. British Museum. (_Assyrian Relief._)] Other animals are sometimes human beings as well as snakes. The lizard is often the Itongo of an old woman. A boy killed some lizards in a cattle-pen with stones. Then he went and told his grandmother, who said he had done very wrong—those lizards were chiefs of the village and should have been worshipped. I think the grandmother was a humane old person; I even suspect that she said the lizards were chiefs and not old women to make the admonition more awful. The man who told this story to Canon Callaway (from whose valuable work on the Amazulu I take these notes) added that, looking back to the incident, he doubted if the lizards were Amatongo after all, because no harm came of their murder. He thought that they must have been merely wild animals which had become tame owing to people mistakenly thinking that they were Amatongo.