Page:The land of fetish.pdf/73

 *past of the king's wordly goods then takes place, and continues till dark. The most extraordinary and incongruous exhibitions take place. A procession of slaves bearing state-swords, gold and silver ornaments, and articles of great intrinsic value, may be preceded or followed by a band bearing vessels of crockery of the commonest and most homely description. Articles of earthenware that are not usually exhibited in public are here paraded in large numbers, mixed up in the strangest confusion with silks, satins, umbrellas, Manchester prints, clocks, bottles, pipes, tea-pots, cups, saucers, knives, forks, European clothes, and all the miscellaneous rubbish which has been collecting for years in the curiosity shop known as the Royal Treasury. Articles of apparel of the seventeenth century are not uncommonly seen at this custom, and there are many objects of vertu which would delight the heart of a Wardour Street connoisseur, and which were, probably, originally presents to the king from the slave-traders of a century and a-half ago.

The third day of the custom is known as "Ek-gai nu Ahtoh," or "The throwing of cowries from Ahtoh"; Ahtoh being an immense raised platform which is built in the market-place specially for this ceremony. The platform is hung with banners and flags and covered with cloth of every conceivable hue, while