190 APARTMENTS OF THE PALACE. 



preserved it nearly six weeks, and had brought 

 it a distance of five hundred miles, from Fernando 

 Po, in order to show it to his countrymen. 



The queen now suddenly pulled me by the 

 sleeve, and led me into a yard through two 

 apartments, the doors of which were so low that 

 we were obliged to creep on our hands and feet. 

 The object was for me to see the king's workmen 

 put up the frame for the roof of the house : 

 this is afterwards covered over with bamboo, 

 cut into pieces, and arranged a few inches apart, 

 and then plastered over with mud. There are 

 about a hundred and twenty houses, enclosed by 

 a wall a few feet high, in which Attah's favourite 

 wives reside, the whole number of which exceed- 

 ed two thousand. On a mound at the southern 

 entrance of the queen's apartment, was a pile of 

 fifteen human skulls, eight of which were evi- 

 dently quite fresh : the king is in the habit of 

 thus butchering three or four slaves every week, 

 to appease, as he says, the wrath of the river- 

 god. In going through the outer door of the 

 queen's apartments I struck my head against 

 something, and drawing back to see what it was, 

 I found a dead fowl, a mullet, and a tortoise, in 

 a state of putrefaction, suspended over the door 



