Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/284

 young fellow, who, following the custom of the country, was the sole inheritor of the parent's goods and possessions, to the exclusion of legitimate children. He prostrated himself before the son of the moon, who raised him with a gracious gesture.

Three-quarters of an hour afterwards, through shady paths in the midst of a luxuriant tropical vegetation, the enthusiastic procession arrived at the palace of the sultan, a kind of square house, called Ititenya, and situated upon the slope of a hill. A species of veranda, made by the straw roof, covered the exterior, and was supported by wooden posts, with some pretension to carving displayed upon them. Long streaks of reddish clay ornamented the walls, attempts to depict men and snakes, the latter being naturally more successful than the former. The roof of this habitation did not rest directly upon the walls, so the air could circulate freely, though there were no windows and scarcely a door.

Doctor Ferguson was received with great honors by the guards and favorites, men of a handsome race, the Unyamwezi, a pure type of the population of Central Africa, strong and healthy, well made, and erect in their bearing. Their hair, divided into a quantity of small curls, fell down upon their shoulders; and by means of incisions colored black or blue, they tattooed their cheeks from the temples to the mouth. Their ears, very much distended, were ornamented with discs of wood and gum copal; they were clothed with emeu, brilliantly colored; the soldiers, well armed with bows and arrows—the latter poisoned and barbed—with cutlasses and "simes," a long saw-toothed sword, and hatchets.

The doctor entered the palace. There, in describing the sultan's symptoms, the hubbub, already great, was redoubled. The doctor remarked on the lintel of the door that tails of hares and zebras' manes were suspended as talismans. He was received by a troop of Her Majesty's ladies to the harmonious accompaniment of the "upatu," a kind of cymbal constructed from the bottom of copper pots, and of the "kilindo," a drum about five feet high, hollowed out from the trunk of a tree, and which is played by two performers, hammering it as hard as possible with their fists.