When, By Means Of His Hand Rubbings, Etc., He Had Got Hold
Of A Witch Or A Bewitched One, He
Always gave the unfortunate an
emetic and always found several lively young crocodiles in the
consequence, and the stories of
The natives in this region abound in
accounts of people who have been carried off by witch crocodiles,
and kept in places underground for years. I often wonder whether
this idea may not have arisen from the well-known habit of the
crocodile of burying its prey on the bank. Sometimes it will take
off a limb of its victim at once, but frequently it buries the body
whole for a few days before eating it. The body is always buried if
it is left to the crocodile.
I have a most profound respect for the whole medical profession, but
I am bound to confess that the African representatives of it are a
little empirical in their methods of treatment. The African doctor
is not always a witch-doctor in the bargain, but he is usually.
Lady doctors abound. They are a bit dangerous in pharmacy, but they
do not often venture on surgery, so on the whole they are safer, for
African surgery is heroic. Dr. Nassau cited the worst case of it I
know of. A man had been accidentally shot in the chest by another
man with a gun on the Ogowe. The native doctor who was called in
made a perpendicular incision into the man's chest, extending down
to the last rib; he then cut diagonally across, and actually lifted
the wall of the chest, and groped about among the vitals for the
bullet which he successfully extracted.
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