284 
STRANGE CUSTOMS OF SAVAGE RULERS. 
fashion of walls, are all that a Congo man cares for in a house. 
His clothing is as simple as his lodging, a piece of native cloth, tied 
round his middle being all that he cares for; so that the ample 
clothes and handsome furs worn by the king must have had a very 
strong effect on the almost naked populace. 
The Jagas are a race now settled in Cassange country, into 
which they seem originally to have entered as marauders or con- 
querers. In the early state of the kingdom they were ruled by 
Tembandumba—a queen whose excesses, if not exaggerated in the 
narrative, seem demoniacal in their extent. She soon, by her 
exploits in war, made herself feared and respected by enemies and 
subjects; but so terrible were her cruelties and tyranny, that only 
the awe in which she was held prevented her subjects rebelling. 
She had a host of lovers, all of whom, one after the other, she killed 
with the most cruel tortures as soon as she had tired of them. 
Breaking loose from all her relatives—who had ventured to remon¬ 
strate with her—she founded a constitution which only a woman, 
and one willing to proceed to those extremes of which the sex is 
capable, could have imagined. 
HORRIBLE PRACTICES. 
“She would turn,’' writes Mr. Winwood Reade, “the world into 
a wilderness; she would kill all living animals; she would burn all 
forests, grass, and vegetable food. The sustenance of her subjects 
should be the flesh of man; his blood should be their drink. She 
commanded all male children, all twins, and all infants whose upper 
teeth appeared before their lower ones, should be killed by their own 
mothers. From their bodies an ointment should be made, in the 
way she would show. The female children should be reared, and 
instructed in war; and male prisoners, before being killed and eaten, 
should be used for the purpose of procreation. 
“Having concluded her harrangue, with the publication of 
other laws of minor importance, this young woman seized her 
child, which was feeding at her breast, flung him into a mortar, 
and pounded him to a pulp. She flung this into a large earthen pot, 
adding roots, leaves, and oil, and made the whole into an ointment, 
