BASE SUPERSTITIONS.

as proved to be guilty, and punished accordingly. As the tree invariably selected for this purpose was furnished with very tough, closely growing bark, it was usually almost impossible to disengage it with the fingers alone ; and the prisoner's sentence was generally a foregone conclusion.

Although I think there is very little doubt that the Bas are without religion, and have no God, they must, if the following custom told me by the sheik be true, have some belief in a future state. When a Base man dies, his wife, or other relations, place something he was fond of during his life — such as the fruit of the baobab-tree, tobacco, etc. — on his tomb. Perhaps the wind, or some human agency, makes away with the offering ; they then believe that the dead man has consumed it, and perhaps shared it with other spirits, inhabitants of neighbouring tombs. Should these delicacies disappear faster than the donors anticipated, the attentive relations of the dead man will, perhaps, accuse the relict of the inhabitant of a neighbouring tomb, of being lazy and inattentive in not keeping her husband properly supplied, and so compelling his neighbour to share his dainties with him. I give these stories as they were told me, from notes made at the time.

I told the sheik that it seemed to me that the Base were the remnants of the original inhabitants of the country, and that they were settled there before the Arabs came over from Arabia. He did not believe this, but adduced no grounds either for or against my theory. He told me there were two brothers who emigrated from Arabia into Africa, one called Bas, the other Nuba. The former settled where his descendants are now found, but he knew nothing as to what part of the country the other brother had gone to. According to him, the only remnants of the original inhabitants of any part of the Soudan that he had heard anything of were reduced to twenty