only gets moistened with palm wine or water, while the more exhilarating beverage goes down their own throats. Perhaps they think that ghosts have weak heads and cannot stand mundane spirits.
The natives of Old Calabar extend the liabilities of a surgeon to an extent that would be most appalling to practitioners of surgery if it were generally adopted in Europe. A doctor on this river was once called to a case in which a boy had had his leg crushed and fearfully lacerated by an alligator, and, to save the boy's life, amputated the leg above the knee. It was a very complicated case, as there were other injuries besides; but after much trouble and hard work his efforts were crowned with success, and the patient was declared out of danger. Not many days after he had ceased visiting the wounded boy he descried, while sitting on the deck of the hulk in which he resided, a canoe being paddled towards him; which, as it drew nearer, he could see contained the parents, brothers, and sisters of his late patient and the patient himself. He thought they were coming to express their gratitude and thankfulness to him for saving the life of their beloved relative, and with the pleased self-consciousness of having performed a virtuous action prepared to receive them. When the family had climbed up the ladder on to the deck they
