as he called him, in opposition to filho de fazenda.  The “king” had lately been crowned in virtue of his mother being a uterine sister of his predecessor.  Here the goods and dignity of the father revert after death to his eldest maternal brother; to his eldest nephew, that is, the eldest son of the eldest uterine sister, and, all others failing, to the first born of the nearest maternal relative.  This subjection of sire to son is, however, mainly ceremonious:  in private life the king wears a cotton pagne, and his “governor” asserts his birth-right even by wigging royalty.

We disposed ourselves upon seamen’s chests covered with red baize, fronting the semi-circle of frock-coated “gentlemen” and half-naked dependants and slaves.  Proceedings began with the “mata-bicho” de rigueur, the inevitable preliminary and conclusion of all life-business between birth and burial.  The Congo traveller will hear “Nganna! mata bicho” (Master! kill the worm, i.e., give me a dram), till the words seem, like “Bakhshish” further east, to poison his ears.  This excuse for a drink arose, or is said to have arisen, from some epidemic which could be cured only by spirits, and the same is the tradition in the New World ("Highlands of the Brazil,” i. chap. 38).  Similarly the Fulas of the Windward coast, who as strict Moslem will not drink fermented liquors, hold a cup of rum to be the sovereignest thing in the world for taenia.  The entozoon of course gives rise to a variety of stale and melancholy jokes about the early bird, the worm that dieth not, and so forth.

A greybeard of our gin was incontinently opened and a tumbler in a basin was filled to overflowing; even when buying ground-nuts, the measure must be heaped up.  The glass was passed round to the “great gentlemen,” who drank it African fashion, expanding the cheeks, rinsing the mouth so that no portion of the gums may lose their share, and swallowing the draught with an affectedly wry face.  The basin then went to the “little gentlemen” below the salt, they have the “vinum garrulum,” and they scrambled as well as screamed for a sup of the precious liquor.  I need hardly quote Caliban and his proposed genuflections.

I had been warned by all the traders of the lower river that Banza Nokki would be to me the far-famed point of which it was said,

“Quern passar o Cabo de Nam
Ou tornara, ou n o,”

and prepared accordingly.  Old Shimbal, the linguist, had declared that a year would be required by the suspicious “bush-men” to palaver over the knotty question of a stranger coming only to “make mukanda,” that is to see and describe the country.  M. Pissot was forbidden by etiquette to recognize his old employe (honours change manners here as in Europe), yet he set about the work doughtily.  My wishes were expounded, and every possible promise of hammocks and porters, guides and interpreters, was made by the hosts.  The royal helmet was then removed,