[Illustration: GREAT PIPE OF KING OF CHUMBIRI.]
"The king's people were apparently very loyal and devoted to him, and his sons showed remarkable submissiveness. The little snuff-gourd was in constant requisition, and he took immoderate quantities, inhaling a quarter of a teaspoonful at a time from the palm of his hand, to which he pressed his poor nose until it seemed to be forced into his forehead. Immediately after, one of his filially affectionate children would fill his long chibouque, which was six feet in length, decorated with brass tacks and tassels of braided cloth. The bowl was of iron, and large enough to contain half an ounce of tobacco. He would then take two or three long-drawn whiffs, until his cheeks were distended like two hemispheres, and fumigate his charms thoroughly with the smoke. His sons then relieved him of the pipe--at which he snapped his fingers--and distended their cheeks into hemispherical protuberances in like manner, and also in the same way fumigated their little charms; and so the chibouque of peace and sociability went the round of the circle, as though it were a council of Sioux about to hold a pow-wow, and as the pipe passed round there was an interchange of finger-snaps in a decorous, grave, and ceremonious style.
"Our intercourse with the king was very friendly, and it was apparent that we were mutually pleased. The only fault that I, as a stranger, could find in him was an excessive cunning, which approached to the sublime. He had evidently cultivated fraud and duplicity as an art, yet he was suave and wheedling. Could I complain? Never were people so willing to be victimized. Had we been warned that he would victimize us, I do not think that we should have refused his friendship.
"An invitation was extended to us to make his own village our home. We were hungry; and no doubt we were approaching cataracts. It would be welcome knowledge to know what to expect below in that broad defile filled by the great river; what peoples, countries, tribes, villages, rivers we should see; if the tribes were amenable to reason in the unknown country; if white men had ever been heard of; if there were cataracts below, and if they were passable. We accepted the invitation, and crossed the river, drums and double bell-gongs sounding the peaceful advance of our flotilla upon Chumbiri.
