Mb’Obam, Ndong Koni’s uncle, died not long after the visit to his town, the incidents of which I have recounted. He and his wife, Sara, had for a long time lived a pure and exemplary life in the midst of the darkest heathenism. When he died the people accused Sara of having made medicine to kill him. This medicine is a fetish and acts supernaturally: it is not necessary that it should come in physical contact with the victim. Mb’Obam had died of a lingering disease well known to them. But such is the mental degradation incident to the belief in magic and witchcraft that effects are referred to a supernatural cause even when the natural and physical cause is before their eyes. Every death is attributed to magic or witchcraft, and if they are not forward in avenging it the spirit of the dead one will inflict misfortune and even death upon them. Mb’Obam had completely broken with fetishism and had discarded all these beliefs and had bravely defended the victims of native cruelty. At his approaching death he charged the people not to touch Sara nor to charge her with witchcraft, reminding them what a faithful wife she had been and how differently they both had lived since they became Christians. But though they had regarded him with respect and reverence during his life, yet at his death old customs and beliefs asserted tyrannous authority, and they charged Sara with having killed him. It fell to Esona, the succeeding chief, to decree the punishment of Sara. In the vicinity of the French government he would not dare to kill her. So he led her into the middle of the street before all the people, placed her on her hands and knees, and bound upon her back a heavy load of plantain-stocks. Then two men sat upon the load, on her back, and all the men of the town drove her thus up and down the street on her hands and knees until they nearly killed her. As soon as she had sufficiently recovered from the effect of the awful ordeal they repeated the performance, and repeated it again, until Sara managed through a Christian boy to get a message to me. Leaving the school I made ready the _Evangeline_ and went with all haste to the town, thirty miles distant, where I arrived just in time to stop another repetition of the outrage. The sight was too much for me. Mb’Obam and Sara had been the very first of my Fang friends. Whether the impulse was noble indignation or a very mortal temper, the reader may decide. With a stick which I carried I flogged Esona the chief before all the people, and there was blood on the stick when I got through.