s of their worship. Like
other unenlightened nations, a variety of external beings supply the want
of the principles of Christianity; hence the counterfeit adoption and
substitution of corporate qualities as objects of external homage and
reverence.

_Fetish_, derived from the word _Feitico_, denotes witchcraft among the
majority of the maritime nations of Africa: this superstition is even
extended to some Europeans after a long residence in that country, and is
an expression of a compound meaning, forming an arrangement of various
figures, which constitute the objects of adoration, whether intellectually
conceived, or combined with corporeal substances; even the act of devotion
itself; or the various charms, incantations, and buffoonery of the priests
and fetish makers, who abound among them. In short, it is an incongruous
composition of any thing dedicated to the purpose; one kind of fetish is
formed of a piece of parchment containing an expression or sentence from
the Koran, which is associated with other substances, sewed up in a piece
of leather, and worn upon several parts of their bodies. Another kind is
placed over the doors of their huts, composed of distorted images besmeared
with palm oil, and stuck with feathers, some parts are tinged with blood,
and the whole is bedaubed with other preposterous applications.

_Ghresh_, or _Gresh_, is an expression in the Arabic tongue, meaning to
expel or drive away, and, as I apprehend, by the repetition of the word, is
the expression from which the African _gris-gris_ is derived, consisting of
exorcised feathers, cloth, &c., short sentences from the Koran, written on
parchment, and enclosed in small ornamented leathern cases, worn about
their persons, under the idea that it will keep away evil spirits, and is a
species of _fetish_.

The Mandingos, or book-men, are great _fetish_ makers, many of them being
well versed in the Arabic tongue, and writing it in a neat character. From
the impression of their superior learning and address, their influence and
numbers daily increase, many of them having become rulers and chiefs in
places where they sojourned as strangers, The religion they profess in
common with the Foolahs, Jolliffs, and other Mahomedan tribes, is
peculiarly adapted to the sensual effiminacy of the Africans: the doctrines
of Mahomet contained in their book I have procured from a very intelligent
chief in the Rio Pongo, and when I compare his account with others