Gnongo, from whence your black blood came. It commences on page 33, and runs thus: "The king of Gnongo ruled a small but very powerful and very populous country, and was the terror of all his neighbors to the North and West by reason of the number and ferocity of the slave-raids that started from his dominions, and were almost invariably successful. The whole religion of these people necessitated attacks upon their neighbors, for its basis was constant human sacrifice, and the simple law of self-preservation taught the Gnongos, for their own safety, always to keep at hand a goodly supply of the necessary victims. The true history of the place would be a dismal record of ruthless and brutal doing to death of human beings, often apparently for no reason whatever except to satisfy a ghoulish craving for the sight of human blood flowing fresh, or blackening, clotted and nasty in the open, in the town, in street, in square, in court-yard — nay, upon the very household utensils themselves.
" 'On this, the third day, were to be erected with all the proper ceremonies the six main uprights of the new Juju House. The reason, or even the simple mythology of these acts, it is hopeless to expect; one might as well hope to learn the mythology of monkeys; though verily, I believe, the daily annals of a collection of the higher quadrumana would be more sane and cleanly and far less bloodthirsty than those of the baser, lower bimana.
" 'But now it was time for things to begin, and as etiquette, dangerous to evade, constrained all to take part in the ceremonies fasting, so far as a solid meal
7
