“make medicine,” to show what the result of the next conflict with the enemy would be.

The Arabs, they said, had been trying every form of fetish known to them, but their oracles were dumb (the Arab method most usually practised is, after certain forms and ceremonies have been gone through, to kill a goat or fowl, from the appearance of whose entrails the witchdoctor pretends to be able to read the future). They had never seen the white man experiment, and were very anxious that we should comply with their request. The Commandant gave out that he would test the fates at eight o'clock that evening, and told them that if his medicine, after due preparation, became red, the Arab forces in the next battle would be annihilated; if it became white, the battle would be drawn; but if green should be the