CURIOUS CUSTOMS OF THE BASE, 229 burned some flesh before taking up my position, hoping by the smell to render my bait still more attractive. I had chosen the spot where my brother William had shot his lion.

Aylmer, in going to his place near the water about eight o'clock, disturbed one which had just drunk, or was going to do so ; but it made off before he could get a shot. On the 3d we resolved to start once more in a homeward direction. Old Sheik Achmed Ageer again saw us an hour or two on our journey, and then left to return to Haikota. I made frequent attempts to find out if the Base had any religious belief, and every one I asked replied in the negative.

The sheik, who was quite the most intelligent of his class I ever met in the Soudan, persisted in declaring they had none whatever ; he was of course a Mahometan himself, and both read and wrote Arabic well. He said they knew nothing whatever of a God, and he gave me the following curious account of some of their customs. When he was obliged to make peace with any of their chiefs, the Base killed a black goat ; and both he and the Base sheik with whom the covenant was to be made, would pluck out an eye, then cut off a hind and then a fore leg, each taking his part in the ceremony. By this they believe, that, if either failed in the engagement they had entered into, the defaulter would lose an eye, leg, or arm.

Another of their customs was, that, if any of their number stole any thing from his neighbour, the offender, accompanied by a numerous contingent from among his people, was brought to a tree growing near his village ; the said tree being held, as it were, sacred. In order to prove whether the accused person had really stolen any thing, or not, he was required to pull a piece of bark off the tree without the aid of anything except his own fingers. If he succeeded in doing this, he was acquitted, and held innocent ; but if not, he was condemned,