If a thief should open the box this fetish will spring out and go right through him. Before entering upon a war several days are sometimes spent in the preparation of war-medicine. The best fetish-doctors unite their skill in the preparation. It is medicine that makes the gun shoot straight; it is medicine that makes the bullets kill; it is medicine that makes a man fearless; it is medicine that makes cowards of the enemy. The French government brought into the Congo Français native soldiers of Senegal, armed with first-rate guns and skilled in the use of them. The Fang were of course eager to know the secret of their powerful gun-medicine. Two of the soldiers who were in personal contact with the Fang sold them little tin boxes filled with mud, which they said was their gun-medicine. The two enterprising soldiers were “getting rich quick” when the government required their prompt attendance at the capital. Some of the war-medicines are repulsive. On extreme occasions they will sprinkle upon the forth-going warriors an admixture of the decomposing brains of men recently deceased and the blood of fowls or of animals, with other disgusting ingredients. With this medicine besides others which are suspended about his neck, the smell of such a hero would detract somewhat from the glamour of his exploits; and one can imagine, upon his return from the war, the people holding their noses and singing, “Lo, the Conquering Hero Comes.” There are other fetishes which are used more commonly to avenge private wrongs. When a man cuts his hair or trims his beard, he carefully guards it and then burns it, lest a single hair should fall into the hands of an enemy. So he does with the cuttings of his nails. The possession of these would give an enemy power over him; for they are the common ingredients of a fetish-medicine. A piece of his clothing may also be used in this way. Such medicine, if buried before his doorway or placed beside the path where he will pass, even without coming in contact with him, will inflict sickness or disease, misfortune or death. Most of the evils that befall the native he attributes to the power of these hostile fetishes. Only the most devout and consecrated Christians are entirely freed from this superstition. Even in the Mpongwe Church of Gaboon, the oldest in the Mission, there are many cases of discipline for such beliefs.