296 
THE GREAT JOURNEY FROM SEA TO SEA. 
is rapidly bound with the ropes snatched hastily from the heads of 
the pages, dragged off, and put to death, no one daring to take the 
least notice while the tragedy is being enacted. 
They have also a code of sumptuary laws which is enforced 
with the greatest severity. The skin of the serval, a kind of leopard 
cat, for example, may only be worn by those of royal descent. Once 
Captain Speke was visited by a very agreeable young man, who 
evidently intended to strike awe into the white man, and wore round 
his neck the serval-skin emblem of royal birth. 
The attempted deception, however, recoiled upon its author, 
who suffered the fate of the daw with the borrowed plumes. An 
officer of rank detected the imposture, had the young man seized, 
and challenged him to show proofs of his right to wear the emblem 
of royalty. As he failed to do so, he was threatened with being 
brought before the king, and so compounded with the chief for a 
fine of a hundred cows. 
SEVERE PUNISHMENTS. 
Heavy as the penalty was, the young man showed his wisdom 
by acceding to it; for if he had been brought before the king, he 
would assuredly have lost his life, and probably have been slowly 
tortured to death. One punishment to which Mtesa, the king of 
Uganda, seems to have been rather partial, was the gradual dis¬ 
memberment of the criminal for the sake of feeding his pet vultures; 
and although on some occasions he orders them to be killed before 
they are dismembered, he sometimes omits that precaution, and the 
wretched beings are slowly cut to pieces with grass blades, as it is 
against etiquette to use knives for this purpose. 
The king alone has the privilege of wearing a cock’s-comb of 
hair on the top of his head, the remainder being shaved off. This 
privilege is sometimes extended to a favorite queen or two, so that 
actual royalty may be at once recognized. 
When an inferior presents any article to his superior, he always 
pats and rubs it with his hands, and then strokes with it each side 
of his face. This is done in order to show that no witchcraft has 
been practiced with it, as in such a case the intended evil would 
