ciple as the good parson among the wreckers
broke off his sermon to preach practical justice,
"Everybody start fair, and me first"—was tempted
out of the house by some trumped-up message,
while his subjects came in his absence to cheat
the white man. His majesty, not liking such
practical jokes, returned in double-quick time
and administered the law by thrashing his
subjects with a stick. They give poor wretches
accused of witchcraft a drink which is almost
sure to poison them; but, more just than our
forefathers, they don't kill them if they throw
off its effects. If the victim be rich, they take
care that the poison is strong enough, for the
simple reason that they want his money. The
doctors drink it with impunity, as regards life;
but it is most deleterious stuff, as in five minutes
after they have taken it they begin to stagger,
and talk thick; their eyes turn bloodshot, and
they rave. The throne of a king is a clumsy
seat in a rickety hut; his sceptre a bell; his
robes of state a tarnished playhouse coat. One
of the most singular fancies is the attitude in
which a man takes his ease in his arm-chair.
That of a Yankee, with his legs over the sharp
edge of an empty cask; a Turk cross-legged,
with no rest to his back; of a tourist on
the back of a dromedary, which Albert Smith
used to tell us was so like being on a music-
stool on the top of a Hansom cab, going over a
ploughed field; of a knight in armour, or an
acrobat twisted into any letter of the alphabet;
all seem luxurious compared with the posture
of the West African. His chair is a long sloping
log of wood, with a cross-bar near the top, and
not a vestige of covering; his legs, from the
middle of the thigh downwards (to trust the
engraving at least), being straight out, and from
this point sloping upward; his arms, which are
up to his ears, are hooked over the cross-bar,
and his face points full towards the heavens. In
this position, which an ordinary person could
with difficulty maintain for two minutes, he lies
with his pipe (shaped like a great door-key)
stuck in his mouth, in such a manner that it
seems next to impossible that he can avoid the
ashes falling into his eyes and the oil running
into his mouth. Another strange taste is lying
before a huge fire on a hot day. Mr. du Chaillu
found a princess enjoying this luxury, and her
pipe at the same time, the thermometer being
85 deg. in the shade. When a king is elected,
the people, with all the pluck of free and
independent electors, kick, pelt, and spit upon him,
well knowing it is their last chance of free and
independent action.

The musical instruments with which they
make such a terrible uproar are huge tam-tams,
or long clumsy drums, brass kettles, and hollow
pieces of wood. The Bakalai have a small rude
harp, and there is also the itek, an instrument
with six little wooden keys. On these two they
accompany the low, monotonous, mournful songs
they sing. As to the assertion that this harp,
being strung with the fibres of tree roots, would
not emit one musical note, those who have heard
the beautiful notes of the straw-dulcimer, the
beechen fiddle, or the Russian lute, will know what
weight to attach to it. The Fan people possess
an instrument constructed on a novel principle.
It is a wooden dulcimer, the depth of the notes
being increased by fitting hollow gourds, covered
with hard red wood, below the bars or keys.
Each gourd has a little pole in the side, covered
with the skin of a spider. One source of
harmony on great occasions is firing off guns at
random, and as they load nearly to the muzzle
(their idea of doing things properly, when they
shoot at all, being to put in as much powder as
they dare, and as much shot as they can afford
to throw away), the cheerful nature of this part of
their ceremonies may be imagined. Travellers
fond of barrel-organs, street rows, &c., will be
quite at home in the gorilla land.

Among the unusual luxuries of travel, armies
of ants and venomous flies may be safely
reckoned on. Crocodiles, mosquitoes, sharks,
and serpents are such common-place matters,
that it is not worth while to dwell upon them.

The bashikouai ants must be a terrible pest.
They travel, we are told, night and day, in
armies miles long. The elephant and gorilla
fly before them; the black men run for their
lives so soon as the ants are seen. A friend
told the author of this paper that one day, as he
was going up one of the mouths of the Zambese,
he saw a whole village suddenly deserted by the
inhabitants, who fled with all they could carry
off—a proceeding which, as there was no foe in
sight, rather puzzled him, till he found they
were fleeing from the ants. When ants enter a
hut they clear it of any living thing in a few
minutes. Huge cockroaches, almost as large as
mice, centipedes, mice, and rats, are instantly
devoured. A strong rat is killed in less than a
minute; in another minute its bones are picked.
A leopard, dog, or deer is soon despatched and
eaten up, for they kill by their numbers. They
are quite half an inch long, and one variety is so
strong that it will bite pieces clean out of the
flesh. They possess one meritorious property;
they mortally hate, and whenever they can, they
put to death the mischievous white ants which
make such destruction in houses.

In addition to these and the sand ants—
which bite like scorpions, leaving a distressing
pain behind them—there are several varieties of
flies which sting horribly, such as the igogonai,
small gnats, the bites of which go through the
tough hides of the negroes, and itch terribly;
the ibolai, flies or gnats, which sting as though
with a needle, and which whistle as they dash
at you; the richouma, which fill with blood
before you know they are there, and then leave
an itching that lasts for hours, varied at intervals
by sudden sharp stabs of pain; the eloway,
or nest-building flies, not quite so big as a bee,
which cling to a man even in the water, and
assail the natives with such ferocity, that if a
canoe by chance touch one of their nests, the
men instantly dive overboard. These seem the
most spiteful imps of all. The spots where they
bite remain very painful for two or three days
after.