to come here from Mecca?" once asked a native
of an Arab Sheik, who went out hawking some charms in the course of a
religious tour. "Oh, more than a month," answered the unsuspecting
Moslem. "A month!" exclaimed the intended convert. "Yes." "And you
have come all that distance to help us with these things?" "Yes."
"Then you must have paid quite a lot of money for your passage?"
"Quite a lot." "And I dare say, you must have only a little money left
now?" pursued the native. "Oh, yes, that's why I am selling these
potent charms so cheaply, because I wish to raise money to go back
home," confessed the true believer. "But how is that?" queried the
native; "if, as you say, these charms can make a poor man become rich,
how is it that you did not stay in Mecca and use them yourself to
become rich instead of coming all the way here to sell them to get
money?"

As this attitude towards charms, which is typical of the Sherbro
natives, shows that they are not a fetish worshipping people, it can
hardly be supposed that the _nomolis_ are relics of that superstition.
If this were the case, it could easily be suggested by those who wish
to discredit the race that the images might have been made by members
of some foreign race and exported to the "heathen," who are supposed
to delight in "bowing down to wood and stone," a sort of execution to
order. This should be quite possible, because it was recently
discovered that a certain London firm did a thriving business in idols
with China; and it has even been suggested that the _nomolis_ were
imported into Sherbroland from Phoenicia.

But such a contingency being ruled out of court, in view of the
Sherbro native's antipathy to idol worship, we must look for an
explanation of the origin of the _nomoli_ to one other feature in the
customs of Sherbroland. The Sherbros have a custom almost similar to
that of the Timnis, a kindred people. The latter are given to ancestor
worship. At the burial of a Timni, a few stones are placed upon the
grave, and after three days, when the spirit of the deceased is
supposed to have entered into the stones, they are removed to a little
shrine in the porch of the family house. The spirit then becomes a
guardian angel, and offerings are made at the shrine from day to day.
The Sherbros also make use of stones for the reception of the spirits
of their departed ones, but not with a view to ancestor worship. If a
Sherbro happened to die away from home, which is c