ins PALACE. 205 



landlady, who, I think, will require not a little 

 persuasion before she again lets her house to a 

 white man. 



As I was now established in the court of the 

 King of Fundah's palace, I may describe it. — It 

 consists of nothing more than an immense as- 

 semblage of circular huts, surrounded by a mud- 

 wall about fifteen feet high and three feet thick. 

 Through this wall there are three principal gate- 

 ways, besides several doorways which open into 

 an outer court : beyond this court strangers are 

 not permitted to enter, but, from the account of 

 my boy Friday, who was in the interior several 

 times, it is merely an open space surrounded by 

 small huts, in each of which reside one or more 

 of the king's wives. The whole is in the form of 

 a horse-shoe, and covers a space of about nine 

 or ten acres. The part allotted to us consisted of 

 two huts of about twenty feet diameter, with a 

 verandah projecting about five feet from the 

 walls, and a court-yard about thirty feet wide. 

 A door was broken in the outer wall for our use, 

 and the doors that communicated from the huts 

 to the inner space were carefully stopped up 

 with brick. Our court-yards were separated 



