This belief in witchcraft is the great curse of Africa. According to this doctrine, every man that dies has been bewitched by some one. Death came into the world by witchcraft. For almost every man that dies somebody is killed, and often several persons are killed. The women being deemed of very little account in this part of the world, it is very seldom that at the death of one of them any body is killed. These poor heathen think no torture cruel enough to inflict upon a wizard. Sometimes the accused will be tied to a tree and burned by a slow fire; at other times they will bind him and put him in the track of an army of bashikouay ants. I remember the horrid sight I met one day; it made my blood freeze all over. I shall never forget the scene as long as I live. I was hunting in the woods for birds, when I spied two green pigeons (_treron nudirostris_), which I wanted for my collection of birds. By dint of great exertions I penetrated the jungle to the foot of the tree, when lo! a ghastly sight met my eyes. It was the corpse of a woman, young evidently, and with features once mild and amiable. She had been tied up here, on some infernal accusation of witchcraft, and tortured with a cruelty which would have done honor to the Inquisition. The torture consisted in the laceration of the flesh all over the body, and fresh Cayenne pepper had been rubbed in the gashes. A cold perspiration covered my body; my eyes became dim; “Was it a dream?” I asked myself. The devil himself could not have displayed more ingenuity in torture. I approached the corpse. It was cold. The poor girl was dead. What terrible sufferings she must have endured! Will you think hard of me when I say to you that I felt I could go into that village of wild men and shoot every one of them? [Sidenote: _A SPECIMEN OF TORTURE._] _Aniemba!_ What a terrible meaning that word possesses in the mind of the poor African of Equatorial Africa! To be bewitched is almost certain death. What an awful superstition! It leads to the most inhuman and abominable acts of cruelty. How many I have seen of these acts! what refinement of barbarism I have seen displayed! what numbers of poor innocent creatures I have seen slain! what numbers of families have in this way been made unhappy! [Illustration: [Fleuron]] [Illustration: [Fleuron]] CHAPTER XIV. A ROYAL FEAST.—ON THE BANKS OF THE OVENGA.—PREPARATIONS.—THE BILL OF FARE.—A TASTE OF ELEPHANT AND A MOUTHFUL OF MONKEY. A royal feast is to be given to me: a real feast, where the King is going to show me what are the splendors of his kitchen department. That feast is to take place in the equatorial regions of Western Africa, on the banks of the Ovenga River. King Obindji is to give the repast. My friend King Quengueza and myself will be the guests at the feast, and it promises to be a great affair.