302 THE GREAT JOURNEY FROM SEA TO SEA. 



Each carries two spears, and an oddly-formed shield, original!)' 

 oval, but cut into deep scallops, and having at every point a pendant 

 tuft of hair. Their heads are decorated in a most curious manner, 

 some of the men wearing a crescent-like ornament, and some tying 

 round their heads wreaths made of different materials, to which a 

 horn, a bunch of beads, a dried lizard, or some such ornament, is 

 appended. 



Not deficient in personal courage, their spirits were cheered in 

 combat by the certainty of reward or punishment. Should they 

 behave themselves bravely, treasures would be heaped upon them, 

 and they would receive from their royal master plenty of cattle and 

 wives. But if they behaved badly, the punishment was equally 

 certain and most terrible. A recreant soldier was not only put to 

 death, but holes bored in his body with red-hot irons until he died 

 from sheer pain and exhaustion. 



PICTURESQUE REVIEW OF THE WARRIORS. 



Now and then the king held a review, in which the valiant and 

 the cowards obtained their fitting rewards. These reviews offered 

 most picturescjue scenes. "Before us was a large open sward, with 

 the huts of the queen's Kamraviono or commander-in-chief beyond. 

 The battalion, consisting of what might be termed three companies, 

 each containing two hundred men, being drawn up on the left 

 extremity of the parade ground, received orders to march past in 

 single file from the right of companies at a long trot, and re-form 

 again at the end of the square. 



''Nothing conceivable could be more w^ild or fantastic than the 

 sight which ensued; the men all nearly naked, with goat or cat skins 

 depending from their girdles, and smeared with war colors, accord- 

 ing to the taste of the individual; one-half of the body red or black, 

 the other blue, not in regular order; as, for instance, one stocking 

 would be red, and the other black, whilst the breeches above would 

 be the opposite colors, and so with the sleeves and waistcoat. 



Every man carried the same arms, two spears and one shield, 

 held as if approaching an enemy, and they thus moved in three lines 

 of single rank and file, at fifteen or twenty paces asunder, with the 



