They knew which it was from the physical condition of the spot. Either there was nothing there but ordinary path stuff; or there was white ash, or there was a log or rock, or tree branch, and the reason for the different emotion with which they regarded this latter was very simple, for it had been an inferior class spirit, one that their charms and howled incantations could guard them against. When there was ash, it had been a witch destroyed by the medicine they had thrown at it, or a medium class spirit they could get protection from "in town." But if "he left no ash" the rest of our march was a gloomy one; it was a bad business, and unless the Fetish authorities in town chose to explain that it was merely a demand for so much white calico, or a goat, &c., some one of our party would certainly get ill.
Well do I remember our greatest terror when out at night on a forest path. I believe him to have been a Sasabonsum, but he was very widely distributed—that is to say we dreaded him on the forest paths round Mungo Mah Lobeh; we confidently expected to meet him round Calabar; and, to my disgust, for he was a hindrance, when I thought I had got away from his distribution zone, down in the Ogowé region, coming home one night with a Fan hunter from Fula to Kangwe, I saw some one coming down the path towards us, and my friend threw himself into the dense bush beside the path so as to give the figure a wide berth. It was the old symptom. You see what we object to in this spirit is that one side of him is rotting and putrifying, the other sound and healthy, and it all depends on which side of him you touch whether you see the dawn again or no. Such being the case, and African bush paths being narrow, this spirit helps to make
