ROYAL TRAVELLING. 103 
transit from the shoulders of one to those of 
another, at the termination of an ordinary stage, 
was accompanied with much greater despatch 
than the horses of a mail-coach are changed, or 
an equestrian could alight and remount. On 
these occasions, their majesties never suffered 
their feet to touch the ground; but when they 
wished to change, what to them answered the 
purpose of horses, they called two of the men, 
who were running by their side; and while the 
man, on whose neck they were sitting, made little 
more than a momentary halt, the individuals who 
were to take them onward fixed their hands upon 
their thighs, and bent their heads slightly forward : 
when they had assumed this position, the royal 
riders, with apparently but little effort, vaulted over 
the head of the man on whose neck they had been 
sitting, and, alighting on the shoulders of his suc¬ 
cessor in office, proceeded on their journey with the 
shortest possible detention. 
This mode of conveyance was called amo or 
vaha. It could not have been very comfortable 
even to the riders, while to the bearers it must 
have been exceedingly laborious. The men 
selected for this duty, which was considered the 
most honourable post next to that of bearers of 
the gods, were generally exempted from labour, 
and, as they seldom did any thing else, were not 
perhaps much incommoded by their office; and 
although the seat occupied by those they bore was 
not perhaps the most easy, yet as it was a mark 
of the highest dignity in the nation, and as none 
but the king and queen, and occasionally their 
nearest relatives, were allowed the distinction it 
exhibited, they felt probably a corresponding sa¬ 
tisfaction and complacency in thus appearing 
