the bowl a black decoction with which he had been supplied by the king, Mashoku ordered the man to swallow it. The order was immediately obeyed; but no sooner had he drunk the contents of the bowl than all his relations who were present rushed up in the hope of seeing him vomit the draught. “Father, husband, brother, friend!” they cried; “fear not! you are innocent. Your foes were jealous; they grudged you your mabele! Nyambe knows you are a good man! Nyambe grant you to vomit the poison!” But meanwhile the accusers took advantage of any opportunity they could get to revile the poor creature bitterly; they shook their fists at him; they spat in his face; they called him scoundrel, thief, cheat; declared that he was getting only his deserts, and that his bones should be burned as the bones of a traitor.
According to the old Marutse law, every condemned malefactor has to drink a bowl of poison; if after swallowing it, he falls down, succumbing to its influence, he is declared guilty, and his body is at once burnt; if, on the other hand, he vomits what he has taken, he is discharged as innocent; the respite, however, is practically only temporary, as the poison is almost certain to have caused such a disorder in the blood that death ensues in the course of a year or two. In his general subversion of all the long established ordinances of the kingdom, Sepopo set aside this rule just when he pleased, and often gave his executioner private orders to proceed to burn the accused under any circumstances.
Several instances of this were related to me. When he moved from the Barotse to Sesheke he
