THE GREAT JOURNEY FROM SEA TO SEA. 
295 
Like many other tribes which bear, but do not deserve, the name 
of savages, the Waganda possess a curiously strict code of etiquette, 
which is so stringent on some points that an offender against it is 
likely to lose his life, and is sure to incur a severe penalty. If, for 
example, a man appears before the king with his dress tied care- 
THE AFRICAN VULTURE. 
lessly, or if he makes a mistake in the mode of saluting, or if, in 
squatting before his sovereign, he allows the least portion of his 
limbs to be visible, he is led off to instant execution. As the fatal 
sign is given, the victim is seized by the royal pages, who wear a 
rope turban round their head, and at the same moment all the drums 
and other instruments strike up, to drown his cries for mercy. He 
