from the man’s shoulder, descend to his hand, return to the shoulder, and pass down the side of the body to the leg.  When it reached the calf of the leg the lizard’s head would appear right under the skin.  After it had been perceptible for three days the lizard was to be cut out with a razor, or the man would die.  Sure enough, the lizard manifested its presence in the appointed place at the appointed time; but the patient would not permit the surgery, and at the end of three days paid with death the penalty of his obstinacy.  Old Aunt Harriet told me, with solemn earnestness, that she herself had taken a snake from her own arm, in sections, after a similar experience.  Old Harriet may have been lying, but was, I imagine, merely self-deluded.  Witches, prior to being burned, have often confessed their commerce with the Evil One.  Why should Harriet hesitate to relate a simple personal experience which involved her in no blame whatever?

Old Uncle Jim, a shrewd, hard old sinner, and a palpable fraud, who did not, I imagine, believe in himself to any great extent, gave me some private points as to the manner in which these reptiles were thus transferred to the human system.  If a snake or a lizard be killed, and a few drops of its blood be dried upon a plate or in a gourd, the person next eating or drinking from the contaminated vessel will soon become the unwilling landlord of a reptilian tenant.  There are other avenues, too, by which the reptile may gain admittance; but when expelled by the conjure doctor’s arts or medicines, it always leaves at the point where it entered.  This belief may have originally derived its existence from the fact that certain tropical insects sometimes lay their eggs beneath the skins of animals, or even of men, from which it is difficult to expel them until the larvae are hatched.  The chico or “jigger” of the West Indies and the Spanish Main is the most obvious example.

Old Aunt Harriet—­last name uncertain, since she had borne those of her master, her mother, her putative father, and half a dozen husbands in succession, no one of which seemed to take undisputed precedence—­related some very remarkable experiences.  She at first manifested some reluctance to speak of conjuration, in the lore of which she was said to be well versed; but by listening patiently to her religious experiences—­she was a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions—­I was able now and then to draw a little upon her reserves of superstition, if indeed her religion itself was much more than superstition.

“Wen I wuz a gal ’bout eighteen or nineteen,” she confided, “de w’ite folks use’ ter sen’ me ter town ter fetch vegetables.  One day I met a’ ole conjuh man name’ Jerry Macdonal, an’ he said some rough, ugly things ter me.  I says, says I, ‘You mus’ be a fool.’  He didn’ say nothin’, but jes’ looked at me wid ’is evil eye.  Wen I come ’long back, dat ole man wuz stan’in’ in de road in front er his house, an’ w’en