Novices may be initiated at several different times of the year. The families in several different villages, who wish to have their children admitted, collect all the boys between the ages of twelve and fourteen, and send for the Simo. He comes to the place in disguise, to circumcise the children, none but candidates being present at the operation; the ceremony is accompanied by a great feast, at the expense of the parents, who contribute according to their respective means. The feast lasts sometimes for several days; after it is over, the Simo withdraws to the woods, and takes with him the boys who have been initiated; from this time forward, they have no further communication with their relatives. They lead a pleasant idle life; provisions are bestowed upon them in abundance, and they dwell in huts made of the branches of trees, with no other clothing than a few palm leaves skilfully arranged, from the loins half way down the thighs, the head and the rest of the body being quite naked. I have often seen them go by with two calabashes of palm-wine slung at the two ends of a stick, which they carried on their shoulder. They walk at a prodigious rate, and seem afraid of being seen. When the Simo or his disciples meet a stranger in the wood, they ask him for the watchword of the order; if the answer is correct, the stranger is admitted amongst them; if not, the master and his pupils, all armed with sticks and rods, attack him, and, after beating him severely, exact a high ransom. If an uncircumcised boy falls into their hands, they circumcise him and keep him, for the purpose of initiating him. They have no mercy upon women, whom they beat most cruelly, and, as I have been told, they are sometimes barbarous enough to kill them. The young persons thus initiated lead this idle and vagabond life for seven or eight years; this period, it is said, is necessary for their instruction. When the parents are desirous of getting them back from the woods, they collect all the pagnes they can, and make with them a fine girdle, which they adorn with copper bells, and send it to their children with a present of tobacco and rum for the master. It is only at such times that the son shows himself in public. The eve of this festival is celebrated in the woods, near the spot where he is to make his appearance, and he gives notice by his loud shouts that he means to be visible. Without this notice no person excepting the uninitiated durst look at him, for they are foolish enough to think it unlucky, and if they were to feel ill after it, they would not fail to ascribe it to the unfortunate glance.