“Towards the end of 1593 there was trouble in the family of the Earl of Orkney. His brother laid a plot to murder him, and was said to have sought the help of a ‘notorious witch,’ Alison Balfour. When Alison Balfour’s life was looked into, no evidence could be found connecting her either with the particular offense or with witchcraft in general; but it was enough in these matters to be accused. She swore she was innocent; but her guilt was only held to be aggravated by perjury. She was tortured again and again. Her legs were put in caschilaws—an iron frame which was gradually heated till it burned into the flesh—but no confession could be wrung from her. The caschilaws failed utterly, and something else had to be tried. She had a husband, a son, and a daughter, a child seven years old. As her own sufferings did not work upon her, she might be touched, perhaps, by the sufferings of those who were dear to her. They were brought into court and placed at her side; and the husband first was placed in the ‘lang irons’—some accursed, I know not what. Still the devil did not yield. She bore this; and her son was next operated on. The boy’s legs were set in ‘the boot’—the iron boot you may have heard of. The wedges were driven in, which, when forced home, crushed the very bone and marrow. Fifty-seven mallet strokes were delivered upon the wedges. Yet this, too, failed. There was no confession yet. So, last of all, the little daughter was taken. There was a machine called the piniwinkies,—a kind of thumb-screw, which brought blood from under the finger-nails, with a pain successfully terrible. These things were applied to the poor child’s hands, and the mother’s constancy broke down, and she said she would admit anything they wished. She confessed her witchcraft—so tried, she would have confessed to the seven deadly sins—and then she was burned, recalling her confession, and with her last breath protesting her innocence.” We civilized folk have a way of forgetting our own history, and the pit from which we have been digged. XIII A BOAT CREW The following is the beginning of a letter written to a circle of friends in America while I was in Africa.