Boys are often initiated against their will. One of my schoolboys, a handsome lad of about fifteen, during a vacation was initiated and died before it was over. It is his initiation that I have just described—at least the very small part of it that I was able to find out. His death made them more unwilling to tell me. His initiation lasted several days during which he was compelled to remain in the bush. Further up the river a boy, during the initiation, is usually placed for several days in a house alone, after being made to look at the sun so long that sometimes he faints, and when he is taken into the house he cannot at first see anything. Meantime the door is closed and they all go away. Gradually he sees things around him and at length discovers opposite him a corpse, in an early stage of decomposition. He is kept there day and night during the ceremony. The men visit him and subject him to all sorts of indignities in order to impress him with the necessity of absolute obedience to the society. They defile him with filth, and that the vilest of filth. But I presume that the reader will gladly excuse me from any further description of this disgusting practice. One cannot omit all reference to such things if he would describe the African as he really is. They believe that the skull of the father or other ancestor when it has been properly prepared becomes the residence of the ancestor, who, however, is not confined to it, but wanders about returning to it as to his home. The son, in order to avoid the wrath of the departed father, and to obtain his help, will keep the skull comfortably warm and dry, occasionally rubbing it with oil and redwood powder, and will feed it bountifully. The process of feeding it is interesting. The son before going on a hunting expedition will open the box, and addressing his father in audible words will ask his favour and will promise that in return for success he will give him a goodly portion of the game. If he should neglect this duty for a length of time he may find when he meets an animal in the forest that his gun will not fire, and he may even find himself helpless before his enemies. The white man knowing the kind of guns they use, does not think it necessary to go so far for an explanation of the fact that they often fail in a critical moment. When the son returns with game he will again open the box and place the meat before the skull. Then he will close the house against all possibility of intrusion and he himself will go away while the father eats. After a while he comes back, and although he finds the meat exactly as he left it, he supposes that in some mysterious way his father has eaten it and yet left it, that is, has eaten the spirit of it. He then eats it himself, sharing it also with the men of the society. But since it has been offered to the dead father it is now sacred, and he cannot allow his wife or children to taste it under any circumstances. The men, being of a