persons—wives, children, slaves, etc. The number of his wives is said to be fully one thousand. Many of these, however, are only nominally so, for according to a custom among them, the wives of a father at his death become the wives of his son, and frequently we find very old women calling themselves, on account of the position in society it gives them, the wives of one or other of the kings or chiefs, who in reality were only the wives of the grandfathers of such.
It was necessary to send a messenger the day before, to announce to Fufu, the king's lieutenant, our intended visit to his majesty, as, because we were strangers he would only receive us in state, and required due notice to effect the necessary preparations. He was seated under an acabi, one of the turret-like arrangements already mentioned, surrounded by his wives, his head reclining on one, his feet resting on another; one fanned him, another wiped the perspiration from his face; one held an umbrella of many colors over his head, and another a small vessel care-fully covered up, in which his majesty occasionally de-posited his salivary secretions,[1] which accumulated fast in consequence of the quantity of snuff he takes in the
- ↑ They have a superstition that their enemies can hurt them by procuring their spittle and subjecting it to certain manipulations.
