STRANGE CUSTOMS OF SAVAGE RULERS. 277 



denote his royal rank. His empire is as large as all Germany, and 

 about three hundred chiefs owe him allegiance, though his subjects 

 do not number more than two millions, and his despotism is shared 

 and tempered by a queen. 



When the king desired a fresh companion, a married woman 

 was selected, her husband and the lovers whom she confessed to 

 (for it seems they all had them, married or single) being put to 

 death. These little preliminaries being completed, she entered the 

 royal seraglio, where much more liberty than would be granted in 

 Mohammedan kingdoms was allowed to her. On the king's death 

 all his waves were buried with him. 



PECULIARITIES OF SAVAGE ROYALTY. 



No man dare see the king eat or drink. All this must be done 

 in privacy. If a dog even entered the house while the august sover- 

 eign was at food it was killed; and a case is recorded by English 

 authorities in which the king ordered the execution of his own son, 

 who had accidently seen him drink palm-wine. 



The large army supported by the Congoese monarch was 

 officered by their own chiefs, and apparently fought under a kind 

 of feudal system. 



As in most parts of Africa, the old Congo kings, before the 

 decay of the slave trade ruined them, monopolized, as far as they 

 could, the commerce of the country. This is still the fashion of 

 the Muata-Yanvo of the Kanoko Empire, east of the Congo country. 

 When traders arrive at the capital, their goods are deposited in the 

 capital until the king's messengers, who are sent into the neighbor- 

 ing countries, can collect the slaves and ivory he is willing to give 

 in exchange. 



No stranger is allowed to proceed into these interior regions, 

 the inhabitants of which are described as cannibals, or as dwarfs. 

 When Dr. Buchner was at the Muato-Yanvo's in 1879 he was 

 threatened by the Kioko, a nation famous as smiths, elephant hunt- 

 ers, and man stealers, who are gradually spreading from the Upper 

 Quango to the northward, and from the latest accounts are endan- 

 gering the very existence of this secluded empire. 



