Travels Of Richard And John Lander Into The Interior Of Africa For The Discovery Of The Course And Termination Of The Niger By Robert Huish
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It Must Have Been A Delectable
Treat For The Europeans To Have Been Present At One Of These
Academies Of
Court etiquette, where the old and young were practising
their prostrations before the ugly antiquated eunuch, and who
hesitated not
To give his pupils a kick, when any of them evinced an
extraordinary awkwardness in their attitudes. During the whole of the
time that the prostrations were practising, the attendants were
dancing in a circle, with now and then the interlude of a minuet by
one of the performers, in the course of which he would frequently
throw a somerset, as expert as old Grimaldi, and all this under a
burning tropical sun. These caboceers were dressed in robes of
leopard skin, hung round with tassels and chains, and in a short time
afterwards about twenty of them, in all their dirt and debasement,
stretched at full length before the king, stripped to the waist, and
vying with each other, which should have the most dust, and kiss the
ground with the greatest fervour. When any one speaks to the king, it
must be addressed to him through the eunuch, who is prostrated by the
side of his master.
On the 7th March, the travellers resumed their journey into the
interior, and retracing their steps to Tshow, reached at noon the
next day, the town of Algi, which was just rising from its ruins
after the Fellata, inroad of the preceding year. All the intermediate
villages had shared the same fate.
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