Chap. XXIX. FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 
271 
He does not say whether these belonged to the cour- 
tiers, or whether every private individual might be 
called upon promiscuously to fulfil this important 
duty ; but the strict etiquette of the court of Bornu 
makes it probable that the former was the case. 
Be this as it may, the choice being made, the three 
electors proceeded to the apartment of the sovereign 
elect, and conducted him in silence to the gloomy 
place in which the unburied corpse of his deceased 
father was deposited ; for till this whole ceremony 
was gone through the deceased could not be interred. 
There, over the corpse of his deceased father, the 
newly elected king seems to have entered into some 
sort of compromise sanctioned by oath, binding him- 
self that he would respect the ancient institutions, 
and employ himself for the glory of the country. 
I shall have to mention a similar custom still pre- 
vailing at the present day in the province of Muniy6, 
which belonged to that part of the empire called 
Yen, while the dynasty of the Muniyoma probably 
descended from the Berber race. Every newly elected 
Muniyoma, still at the present day, is in duty bound 
to remain for seven days in a cave hollowed out by 
nature, or by the hand of man, in the rock behind 
the place of sepulchre of the former Muniyoma, in the 
ancient town of Gammasak, although it is quite de- 
serted at present, and does not contain a living soul. 
But that not only the royal family, but even a great 
part of the whole nation, or rather one of the nations 
which were incorporated into the Bornu empire, was 
