Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/541

 ceremonial of the old court, with its ministers, chamberlains, and bodyguards. Before his tent is mounted a gun draped in red, a great fetish, to which all wayfarers have to pay tribute. Heads stuck on stakes round the royal enclosure, and numerous mutilated wretches in attendance on the sovereign, serve to warn his subjects of his terrible presence.

When visited by Lacerda in 1798, the Kazembe's capital, which formerly changed with every reign, was situated north of the Mofwe, a southern continuation

of Lake Moero. The present Kazembe, as it is called from the king's title, lies south of the same basin, near an island inhabited by the Messiras, unmixed descendants of the aborigines conquered by the ancestors of the Kazembe. Lacerda, one of the first martyrs of science in Central Africa, died in 1798 at Nshinda (Lucenda) near Kazembe.