ROASTED TO DEATH BY THE SUN.

Temuka Leader, Issue 273, 24 July 1880, Page 2

ROASTED TO DEATH BY THE SUN.

(London Telegraph, March 18,)

Dr Schweinfurth, in a lecture which he recently delivered at the Berlin Geographical Society on the subject of his latest explorations in Central Africa, gave his hearers a thrilling account of the mode in which capital punishment is inflicted upon criminals by the AlQuadjis, a small tributary off-shot of the great an I powerful Djour people. The malefactor condemned to die is bound to a post firmly driven into the ground in some open place where no trees afiord a shade, and is there slowly roasted to death—not by any artifical means involving a waste of fuel, but by the natural heat of the sun’s rays as they reach our earth in its equatorial regions. To protract his sufferings and to avert his too speedy end by sunstroke, the ingenious Al-Quadjis cover their erring cr mpatriot’s head with fresh green leaves which effectually shield his brain from Phoebus’s daits. No such protection is, however, accorded to his body, which gradually dries up, shrinks together, and ultimately becomes carbonised. One chance of salvation is open lo (he roasting man, while as yet he is not completely “done to death.” If a cloud pass between the sun and his place of torment he is f t once cast loose from his post and becoaies the object of popular reverence, as a mighty magician in whose behalf the supernatural powers have deigned directly to intervene. But clouds seldom interfere with the administration of justice on the days chosen for public executions by the Al-Quadj i authorities ; at least, that appears to be Dr Schweiufurth’s experience of African weather as far as it bears upon the judical roasting of malefactors.