414 THE FOREST AND THE FIELD. 



a doe n'cheri antelope, which latter had a broken 

 leg, or I should have kept it alive, 



I was taken to a large shed in the centre of the 

 village, the palaver-house of the tribe ; and the 

 king and I being seated upon native stools, about 

 a hundred and fifty women, of all ages, began to 

 dance to the music of half-a-dozen native drums and 

 a couple of rude harmonicons formed of seven pieces 

 of hard wood of different sizes, to each of which a 

 dry hollow gourd was attached as a sounding-board. 



The performance was anything but decent, for 

 the danseurs seemed to vie with each other in ob- 

 scene gestures, and, after a time, when they began 

 to perspire, the foetid exhalations from their bodies 

 became perfectly sickening. In vain the old king 

 pointed me out those which he considered the most 

 desu-able amongst the dusky nymphs, and begged 

 me to select half-a-dozen wives from the number-- 

 my olfactories could no longer stand the effluvia, 

 and, at the risk of being thought wanting in eti- 

 quette, I told the Bekelai to explain to the king 

 that I had some fetish business to perform, and 

 rushed out in the open air. 



