Their arrival at Malela had been announced, of course, and they found an uproarious welcome. All the people of the neighbourhood were assembling for a great feast. While their men built a hut of branches outside the fortifications--for no house was unoccupied--they sat beneath the trees in the central space. Such was the excitement that even white visitors scarcely commanded notice. Chief after chief arrived, sitting crosswise in an ornamented hammock--not lying--his folded arms resting on the bamboo by which it was suspended. A train of spearmen pressed behind him. They marched round the square, displaying their magnificence to the admiration of the crowd, and dismounted at the Prince's door--if that was his title--leaving their retainers outside. The mob of spearmen there numbered hundreds, the common folk thousands, arrayed in their glossiest and showiest lambas of silk or cotton. No small proportion of them were beating tom-toms; others played on the native flutes and fiddles; all shouted. The row was deafening. But doubtless it was a brilliant spectacle.
One part of the vast square, however, remained empty. Beneath a fine tree stood three posts firmly planted. They were nine or ten feet high, squared and polished, each branching at the top into four limbs; tree trunks, in fact, chosen for the regularity of their growth. In front was a very large stone, unworked, standing several feet above the ground. The travellers were familiar with these objects now. They recognised the curious idols of the country and their altar. On each side of the overshadowing tree barrels were ranged, one on tap, and another waiting its turn. This also they recognised. However savage the inland population, however ignorant of the white man's arts, all contrived even then to transport puncheons of rum through swamp and jungle for occasions like this. Now and again persons distinguished from the throng by costlier dress and ornaments were escorted to the spot and they drank with ceremonies. Wilson did not like the prospect. His companion had broken loose once before under a similar temptation. But there was no help.
Presently the Chamberlain, so to call him, approached with a number of officers, and invited them to attend the Prince. They found that potentate sitting at the end of a long file of chiefs. The floor of the hall was covered with snowy mats, which set off the beauty of their many-coloured robes. Beside the Prince squatted a pleasant-looking man in pink vest and white lamba. He wore a broad-brimmed hat of silky felt, black, with a band of gold lace, contrasting at every point with the showily-dressed chiefs around. This, they knew, must be the high priest, the Sikidy. The Prince received them courteously, but since their interpreter knew but little French, and less, as it seems, of the language of this tribe, communication was limited to the forms of politeness. Then slaves brought in the feast, setting great iron dishes on the mats all along the row. Simultaneously the band struck up, and women began singing at the top of their voices.