Narrative of Discovery and Adventure in Africa, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time by Robert Jameson

Author:Robert Jameson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BiblioLife

declaring they were men, not horses; however, Mr Laird, finding a navigable channel to within nine miles of Funda, contrived to reach that city. He arrived by moonlight, and was shown first to a miserable hovel, but next day to a better house in a broad street. Both night and morning, he was beset and annoyed by immense crowds, who showed the most unbounded curiosity to see a white man; and having brought into his presence a disgusting Albino, they asked if he was his brother. In the afternoon, the king waited upon him in full state, decorated with splendid silk and velvet robes, which covered a person of enormous size; but his countenance bore a sinister expression, not ill answering the reports concerning him. He declared, however, that he had great pleasure in seeing a European; promised abundance of ivory, professing that all he had was Mr Laird's, and promising to secure for him better quarters. His majesty having seated himself on a large tin box containing the traveller's clothes, his attendants immediately stated that it had thereby become royal property, affixed to it the broad arrow, and placed it on their shoulders to convey it to the palace. The wardrobe, however, was rescued by two of the Kroomen, though not till after a fierce altercation.

In the evening the merchant was visited by a raw-boned active-looking man whom he thought he must have seen before, but could not tell where. As this personage became insolent and exacting, the Kroomen were employed to eject him. Next day the traveller having gone to return the royal visit, was waiting in an outer court of the palace, when this very individual came and sat down beside him. After some talk, he inquired for the king, and was astounded to hear that he who sat by him, and whom the night before he had so roughly turned away, was the same person. Our countryman showed an extreme incredulity, founded chiefly on the disappearance of his former enormous dimensions; but these proved to have been an affair of state produced by ample stuffing. Having next refused to the royal request the carpet on which he sat, he parted from his majesty on terms by no means promising.

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