162 CHIEFS & CITIES OF CENTRAL AFRICA 



that our compound was turned into a regular farm- 

 yard. 



This muniiicence is not practised towards the poorer 

 inmates of the town ; in fact, a beggar only receives 

 alms if a crowd of spectators is there to witness the 

 generosity of the royal donor, Gauaronga likes to 

 feel that all are dependent on him, the supreme 

 monarch, — the birds of the air, as much as the men 

 and beasts of the earth. Every week one or two 

 oxen are slaus"htered outside the Palace, that the 

 vultures may come and feed. All this was very well 

 in the rich days, when the Sultan could afford to be 

 lavish, but now lean years have come upon him. His 

 coffers are empty, and as slave-dealing is checked, and 

 exactions made more difficult by the presence of his 

 French friends, Gauaronga finds it hard to raise the 

 necessary funds. 



One day he hit upon a brilliant expedient, and 

 issued a proclamation to the effect that the Father 

 of his people found it a grave menace to morality 

 that women of marriageable age should remain unwed 

 — he therefore, in his great goodness and kindness, 

 arranged marriages for all. Those who were grateful 

 for the Sultan's interest in their welfare would natur- 

 ally wish, his agents pointed out, to express their sense 

 of his goodness by some gift worthy of his acceptance 

 — while those who did not like the partners selected 

 for them used the same means to get let off. 



In the afternoon we paid a formal call upon this 

 astute personage, and were received in an inner court, 

 approached through two yards kept by immensely tall 

 sentinels who guard the Palace gates, though their 

 badge of office, a bracelet, is hardly symbolical of 



