inning
to enjoy and assimilate the blessings of Western culture. I refer to
certain sculptured finds which are from time to time made in the
country and are naturally looked upon by the unsophisticated native
mind as nothing short of a mystery.

These images, or _nomolis_, as they are called in the vernacular, are
by no means the empirical efforts of some crude artists, but are the
products of finished workmanship wrought in steatite or soapstone,
which abounds in the Protectorate. They present purely Egyptian and
Ethiopian features, and are apparently of great antiquity, possibly
thousands of years old. They are dug out from old graves in the course
of ploughing, and the finder of one of them considers himself a lucky
man indeed. He sees visions of an unprecedentedly rich harvest, or of
an extraordinarily brisk trade, if he happens to be in the commercial
line, as the _nomoli_ is the presiding deity of crops and commerce.
If the good services of the god are required on the farm a small
shrine is erected there for it and a great big hamper and a bundle of
rods placed in front of it. The demon is then addressed in some such
manner as this: "I wish you to protect this farm from injury. Make the
crop prosper more than everybody's else, and, to do this, every day
you must steal from other people's farms and fill this hamper to the
full. If you do this I shall treat you well; but if you fail, this
bundle of rods is reserved for your punishment." The god is then
heartily treated to a sample of the walloping it should expect in case
of default. When its help is needed in the store a similar temple is
put up for it in a corner within, and its duty is then to protect the
store from burglary, to replenish it by theft and to "draw" custom by
a sort of personal magnetism. In either case it must be well cared
for. Whatever food or drink its owner partakes every day, a portion
must be given to it--and don't forget the whipping. Whether you
realize or are disappointed in your expectations of it the guardian
angel respects force more than gentleness, and must be whipped soundly
every morning.

It will be seen from this that the morality of the _nomoli_ is of a
rather naughty order. The controlling principle of its life is theft;
in fact it idealizes this vice, since ownership in regard to it cannot
be transferred except by stealing. The god argues it this way: "He who
is so careless of me that he allows me to be stolen from him, is n