CUSTOMS. 
285 
and were soon lost to our sight in the crowd. As old Odumata 
passed in his hammock, he bade us observe him well when he 
passed again : this prepared us in a small degree. Presently the 
King's arrival in the market place was announced, the crowd rolled 
towards it impetuously, but the soldiery hacked on all sides indis- 
criminately, and formed a passage for the procession. Quatchie 
Quofie hurried by, plunging from side to side like a Bacchanal, 
drunk with the adulation of his bellowing supporters ; his attitudes 
were responsive to the horror and barbarism of the exultations 
which inspired them. The victims, with large knives driven through 
their cheeks, eyed him with indifference; he them with a savage 
joy, bordering on phrenzy : insults were aggravated on the one, 
flattery lavished on the other. Our disgust was beguiled for an 
instant by surprise. The chiefs who had just before passed us in 
their swarthy cloths, and the dark gloomy habits of war, now 
followed Quatchie Quofie, ghstening in all the splendor of their 
fetish dresses ; (see drawing, No. I.) the sprightly variety of their 
movements ill accorded with the ceremony. Old Odumata's vest 
was covered with fetish, cased invariably in gold or silver. A 
variety of extraordinary ornament and novel insignia, courted and 
reflected the sun in every direction. It was like a splendid panto- 
mime after a Gothic tragedy. 
We followed to the market place. The King, and the chiefs not 
immediately connected with Quatchie Quofie, were seated under 
their canopies, with the usual insignia and retinue, and lined about 
the half of a circle, apparently half a mile in circumference; the 
soldiery completed it, their respective chiefs situated amongst 
them. Thirteen victims, surrounded by their executioners, whose 
black shaggy caps and vests gave them the appearance of bears 
rather than men, were pressed together by the crowd to the left of 
the King. The troops of women, before described, paraded without 
