live; others scalded to death with boiling water; others killed
with the spear; others sewn up alive in mats, and left to perish of
hunger and corruption; and others beheaded. Recourse is not unfrequently
had to poison, which is used as a kind of ordeal or test. This is
applicable to all classes; and as any one may accuse another, on
depositing a certain sum of money,--and as, moreover, no accused person
is allowed to defend himself,--the ordeal does not fall into disrepute
for want of use. If the accused endures it without perishing, a third
part of the deposit is awarded to him, a third part goes to the court,
and the remainder is returned to the accuser. But if the accused die,
his guilt is considered to have been established, and the accuser
receives back the whole of his money.

The poisoning process takes place as follows:--

The material employed is obtained from the kernel of a fruit as large as
a peach, called the _Tanghinia venenifera_. The lampi-tanghini, or
person who administers the poison, announces to the accused the day on
which the perilous dose is to be swallowed. For eight-and-forty hours
before the prescribed time he is allowed to eat very little, and for the
last twenty-four hours nothing at all. His friends accompany him to the
poisoner's house. There he undresses, and takes oath that he has had no
recourse to magic. The lampi-tanghini then scrapes away as much powder
from the kernel with a knife as he judges necessary for the trial. Before
administering the dose, he asks the accused if he confesses his crime;
which the accused never does, because under any circumstances he would
have to swallow the poison. The said poison is spread upon three little
pieces of skin, each about an inch in size, cut from the back of a plump
fowl. These he rolls together, and administers to the supposed culprit.

"In former days," says Madame Pfeiffer, "almost every person who was
subjected to this ordeal died in great agony; but for the last ten years
any one not condemned by the queen herself to take the tanghin, is
allowed to make use of the following antidote. As soon as he has taken
the poison, his friends make him drink rice-water in such quantities that
his whole body sometimes swells visibly, and quick and violent vomiting
is brought on. If the poisoned man be fortunate enough to get rid not
only of the poison, but of the three little skins (which latter must be
returned uninjured), he is declar