predecessor. An officer returned for some
forgotten papers, after the audience was over,
and found his Majesty, naked of all splendour,
surrounded by his ministers of state, capering
and chattering over his presents with childlike
simplicity. The former Attah was a
hateful tyrant, and the despotism of their
chiefs, restrained only by the fear of poison
from the headmen, is sometimes, whether
in Africa or Russia, power terribly misused.
A child picked up a snip of velvet, about two
inches long, from a boat, when the Liverpool
expedition was off Iddah. The little fellow
made a bag of it, and put some seeds in for a
charm, which he hung in the usual way about
his loins. Presently, he was brought before
the predecessor of the present Attah, reviled
for wearing "king's cloth," and at a sign, his
head was rolling on the floor.

Africans, according to their rank, abound
in wives and domestic slaves. A king over
much territory will have five hundred wives.
The women are only considered lovely in
proportion to their fat; some of them might
be first cousins to their neighbour
hippopotamus. The slaves are not worse treated
than the wives. Domestic slavery in Africa
itself is not a very bitter servitude. The
African who has not been a slave is almost
always a good-humoured master.

We quit Iddah, and continue our course up
the stream. The country now assumes a
new aspect, being mountainous. The Kong
mountains touch the Niger here, and now we
come to the next notable point upon the stream,
the confluence of the broad water of the Chadda.
The Chadda has been explored only for about
a hundred miles; it is supposed to flow
through Lake Chad, in the interior, the lake
being, perhaps, an expanse of the river.
Nearly opposite the confluence is the spot
where the model farm was landed, and the
gay tent which had figured in the Eglintoun
tournament was put up for the accommodation
of the colony.

We will take the opportunity of running
up the Shary to Fundah, where Mr. Laird
lay for a fortnight, almost dead. The King of
Fundah was in his day a provoking rascal.
After an audience with his Majesty, a portly
personage, Mr. Laird was invaded in his hut
by an old woman, the king's mother, and a
cunning, wiry-looking little man. These
worried for presents. The woman was soon
satisfied, not so the man, who was at length
kicked out in a summary manner. This little
man turned out to be his Majesty himself,
who wore "bombast"* on state occasions.
Horse-races afterwards took place at Fundah.
African horses are all small; and as the
riders on this occasion were stuffed into the
appearance of so many Falstaffs, the effect
was of course very ridiculous. The Africans
admire rotundity, perhaps, because their
climate favours it. Travellers note their own
tendency to become fat in the Niger: Lander
became, in the phrase of his last companions,
"as broad as he was long." The quantity of
palm-oil mixed with food may assist in
bringing about this result.
*Our ancestors at one period wore clothes stuffed largely
with wool &c, which was called bombast.

Talking of fat reminds us again of the
negro women. They are as busy as the men,
and shrewder traders. But there is no
exception to the note of testimony in their
favour. When Mr. Laird was at Fundah,
ill-used by the king, reduced by disease to an
irritable skeleton, covered with craw-craw, it
could have been nothing but the pure
impulse of a woman's heart that made the
females risk beatings to bring him food and
consolation. The stout black ladies with
their anklets, their armlets, their henna-
stained nails, and their wash to counteract
the odour of black skin, are true women.
Near the coast it is usual to drown one wife
as a sacrifice upon the husband's death; but
up the river this custom probably is not
observed. There is a substitute, in the custom
of giving "sassy water" (poison), with many
ceremonies, to any wife suspected of having
been a scold and a torment to the deceased.
If she be innocent—that is to say if she be
rich enough to bribe the priests—the dose of
poison is not fatal to her. There is then a
ju-ju or religious ceremony, in which, with a
wild dance, and sundry odd proceedings, she
comes pure out of the trial.

Our Phantom Ship continues its course up
the stream. Here is a village burning;
trembling natives huddled on a sand-bank in the
middle of the stream, shrieks from the village,
and the galloping of horsemen. Those horsemen
are Felatahs, a fierce race, who are a
scourge to the mild natives in their
neighbourhood. They make a business of slave-
catching. When they approach a village, as
they come on horseback, and do not use
canoes, all who can paddle off to any bank or
island, or across the stream, are safe from
capture. Those who remain are victims, and
the village is destroyed. These Felatahs were
extending their ravages lower and lower down
the stream, until they menaced the poor Attah
of Iddah himself, at the date of our last
accounts. But, at the same time, the natives
higher up were organising a conspiracy to
make reprisal. Mr. Becroft, on a recent visit
up the Niger, found Rabbah, the Felatah
capital, laid waste; so we may suppose the
plot to have, so far, succeeded. But Rabbah
is subject to Soccatoo, and from Soccatoo
vengeance probably would come, and the
Felatahs be more fierce than ever.

We will go up to Rabbah, the Felatah city,
the highest point to which the Niger has been
mapped. It is by far the largest town we
have yet seen upon the river, covering much
space, with extensive suburbs. Men may be
seen galloping along the quay on fine Arabian
horses. A dead horse, or a dead man may
be found rotting on the highway, where we
land. The Felatahs, who are all Mussulmen,