with utmost vigor to extirpate their enemy." Since, however, a dispensing power over such oaths has been exercised by the priests, some negroes observe the precaution, before taking oaths, of causing the priest to swear first, and then drink the red water, with an imprecation that the fetich may punish him if he absolves any one without the consent of all the parties interested in the contract (D. C. G., pp. 124, 125).
The sanction of Scripture is given to an ordeal of precisely this nature is the case of women charged with adultery; and it is curious to find the very same mode of testing the fidelity of wives employed both by the ancient Hebrews and modern negroes. The law of Moses was, that if a man suspected his wife of unfaithfulness, and the "spirit of jealousy" came upon him, he might take her to the priest (with an offering, of course), and leave him to deal with her in the following manner: Taking holy water in an earthen vessel, the priest was to mix in it some of the dust of the floor of the tabernacle, and set the woman with her head uncovered, and the jealousy offering in her hands, "before the Lord." He was then to "charge her with an oath," saying, that if she was pure, she was to be free from the bitter water that caused the curse, but if not, the Lord was to make her a curse and an oath among her people, causing her hips (or thighs) [to disappear and her belly to swell. The water was to go into her bowels to produce these effects. Hereupon the woman was to say, "Amen, amen." According to the effects of the bitter water upon her constitution, was her guilt or her innocence adjudged to be (Num. v. 11-31).
Now the procedure of the negroes, in similar cases, is almost an exact reproduction (it can scarcely be an imitation) of that enjoined by Jehovah. "Red water" is administered, instead of "bitter water;" but with this exception, precisely the same method is pursued, and precisely the same doctrine underlies the use of the ordeal. God is expected, both by Jews and negroes, to manifest the truth where human skill is incompetent to discover it. The negroes, according to Bosman, believe that where the red water is drunk by one who makes a false declaration, he will either "be swelled by that liquor till he bursts," or will "shortly die of a languishing sickness; the first punishment they imagine more peculiar to women, who
