The candidate is conducted to a sacred wood, where a place is appointed for his habitation, from which he dares not absent himself; if he does, he is immediately surrounded and struck dead.  His food is supplied by men masked, and he must observe an uniform silence.

Fires, during the night, surround these woods, to preserve them inviolate from the unhallowed steps of curiosity, into which if indiscretion tempts any one to enter, a miserable exit is the result.

When the trials are all gone through, initiation follows; the candidate is first sworn to secrecy, to execute implicitly the decrees of the purrah of his order, and to be devoted to the commands of the sovereign purrah.

During the process of initiation, the hallowed woods resound with dreadful howlings, shrieks, and other horrid noises, accompanied by conflagrations and flames.

This secret and inquisitorial tribunal takes cognizance of crimes and delinquencies, more especially witchcraft and murder; and also operates as a mediator in wars, and dissentions among powerful tribes and chiefs.  Its interference is generally attended with effect, more particularly if accompanied by a threat of vengeance from the purrah; and a suspension of hostilities is scrupulously observed, until it is determined who is the aggressor; while this investigation takes place by the sovereign purrah, as many of the warriors are convoked, as they conceive necessary to enforce their judgment, which usually consigns the guilty to a pillage of some days.  To execute the decree, they avail themselves of the night to depart from the place where the sovereign purrah is assembled, previously disguising their persons with hideous objects, and dividing themselves into detachments, armed with torches and warlike weapons; they arrive at the village of the condemned, and proclaim with tremendous yells the decree of the sovereign purrah.  The affrighted victims of superstition and injustice are either murdered or made captives, and no longer form a people among the tribes.

The produce arising from this horrid and indiscriminate execution of the decrees of this tribunal is divided equally between the injured tribe, and the sovereign purrah; the latter share is again subdivided among the warriors employed in the execution of its diabolical decree, as a recompense for their zeal, obedience, and promptitude.

The families of the tribes under the dominion of this infernal confederacy, when they become objects of suspicion or rivalry, are subjected to immediate pillage, and if they resist, are dragged into their secret recesses, where they are condemned, and consigned to oblivion.

Its supreme authority is more immediately confined to the Sherbro; and the natives of the Bay of Sierra Leone speak of it with reserve and dread:  they consider the brotherhood as having intercourse with the bad spirit, or devil, and that they are sorcerers, and invulnerable to human power.  Of course the purrah encourages these superstitious prejudices, which establish their authority and respect, as the members are numerous, and are known to each other by certain signs and expressions.  The Mandingos have also their sacred woods and mysteries, where, by their delusions and exorcisms, they prepare their children for circumcision.