548 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION 
counted more than twenty of Lobossi’s subjects who 
made bitter complaints against their partners, so that it 
seemed to me the women of the Lialui were in a state of 
complete domestic revolt. After some discussion, it 
was resolved that any wife who failed to yield blind 
and absolute obedience to her lord, should be bound 
hand and foot and thrust into the lake, where she was 
to pass the night with only her head out of water. 
This new law being approved, Gambella gave orders to 
certain chiefs to promulgate it in the various villages. 
One thing which struck me as particularly curious 
in these audiences, was the mode in which Gambella 
conferred with the King, in secret, before the whole 
assembly. At a signal of the Minister’s, the music 
struck up, and the eight batuques made such an infernal 
noise that it was simply impossible to hear a word of 
what was being debated between the King and his 
Minister. The audience being over, the King is accus¬ 
tomed to retire to a convenient place, and go in for 
hard drinking. Numerous pipkins of capata are sent 
round, and the sovereign and his courtiers devote 
themselves to the worship of the God Bacchus. From 
this scene he retires to bed, and in the afternoon, after 
fresh libations, he gives another audience. This lasts 
till nightfall; he then feeds, and repairs to his seraglio, 
whence he rarely issues till one in the morning. At 
that hour, amid the beating of drums, he turns into his 
own house to sleep. The cessation of the batuques is a 
sign that the monarch has retired. His guard, com¬ 
posed of some forty men, then strike up a music which, 
though monotonous, is far from disagreeable, and all 
the night through they join their voices, in an under¬ 
tone, in a soft and harmonious chorus. This music, 
which is presumably soothing to the King’s ear, and 
lulls him agreeably to sleep, serves to show that his 
guard are watching round his house. The foregoing 
will give the reader a general idea of the monotonous 
life led by this African autocrat,—a life made up of 
gross lasciviousness and brutal intoxication. 
On that same day, the 4th of September, I learned that 
