tribesmen to pieces, no sooner does he begin to roar, than all the neighbours fly to a distance; but still they hear the feigned sounds. 'Alas!' they cry, 'his whole body is beginning to be covered with tiger-spots!' 'Look, his nails are growing!' the fear-struck women exclaim, although they cannot see the rogue, who is concealed within his tent, but distracted fear presents things to their eyes which have no real existence. 'You daily kill tigers in the plain without dread,' said the missionary;' why then should you weakly fear a false imaginary tiger in the town?' 'You fathers don't understand these matters,' they reply with a smile. 'We never fear, but kill tigers in the plain, because we can see them. Artificial tigers we do fear, because they can neither be seen nor killed by us.'[1] The sorcerers who induced assemblies of credulous savages to believe in this monstrous imposture, were also the professional spiritualistic mediums of the tribes, whose business it was to hold intercourse with the spirits of the dead, causing them to appear visibly, or carrying on audible dialogues with them behind a curtain. Africa is especially rich in myths of man-lions, man-leopards, man-hyænas. In the Kanuri language of Bornu, there is grammatically formed from the word 'bultu,' a hyæna, the verb 'bultungin,' meaning 'I transform myself into a hyæna;' and the natives maintain that there is a town called Kabutiloa, where every man possesses this faculty.[2] The tribe of Budas in Abyssinia, iron-workers and potters, are believed to combine with these civilized avocations the gift of the evil eye and the power of turning into hyænas, wherefore they are excluded from society and the Christian sacrament. In the 'Life of Nathaniel Pearce,' the testimony of one Mr. Coffin is printed. A young Buda, his servant, came for leave of absence, which was granted; but scarcely was Mr. Coffin's head turned to his other
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MYTHOLOGY.
