The following story (although I do not vouch for its truth) illustrates very well the magical operation of medicine. A certain chief, it is said, induced a German trader to order for him a chest of medicines prepared in Germany. The bottles of medicine are all numbered and the chest is accompanied by a book of directions, competent for the diagnosis of any particular case. Every liable symptom and combination of symptoms is recorded together with the prescription for each. The prescription refers to the bottles by their numbers. One day the chief fell sick. He found his symptoms accurately described in the book, followed by the direction to take one spoonful of No. 15. The bottle of that particular number was missing; so he took one spoonful of No. 7 and one of No. 8. But the result was so alarming that as soon as he was sufficiently recovered from the shock he consigned the chest to the spirit of the deep sea with the hope that it might do Neptune more good than it had done him; and to this end he was careful to send the book of directions with it. There is a large class of fetishes in which the ancestor is the agent. If a man is expecting to ask a favour of another he will be sure of a generous compliance if he scrape the skull of his ancestor and succeed in putting a little of the powder into the other man’s food. Du Chaillu was highly incensed when he found that this was the explanation of a certain chief’s generosity who had been feeding him lavishly for several days. A man walking in the forest usually carries suspended from his neck a medicine, contained in a goat’s horn, the effect of which is to make him invisible to an enemy if he should meet him in the path. He often carries another, somewhat similar, which will turn the bullets of an enemy’s gun into water if the enemy should see him and shoot at him; or sometimes the bullets will pass through his body and do him no harm. He wears a band, a “kaga,” about his neck, which tightens at the approach of danger. The explanation of the latter may be a physical fact, namely, that fear distends the cords of the neck so that the band would really be tighter. He carries another medicine in a horn which, if danger overtake him in the forest, or he should be in need of help, will whistle in his town, however far away, and summon the people. It is obvious that several of these fetishes are quite superfluous if the others are to be relied upon. The native therefore does not fully trust his fetishes; and there is always the fear that some enemy may have a stronger fetish than his own. There are fetishes to protect a man against theft. One of these will cause a person who steals from its owner to “swell up and burst.” Indeed there are a great many fetishes used for various purposes which have this same effect of causing persons to swell up and burst. Another fetish is kept in the box containing the owner’s cloth, tobacco and other goods.