people, and to have obtained his cordial cooperation
and sympathy in a very short time
for soon three canoes appeared conveying about
forty men, under three of his sons, who bore to
us the royal spear, and several royal gifts, such
as palm-wine, a goat, bananas, and a chicken
to us, and a hearty welcome from the old king,
their father, with the addition of a promise that
he would call himself the next day.
About 9 a .m. of the 28th the king of Chumbiri
appeared with eclat. Five canoes filled with
musketeers escorted him. He was a small-eyed man
of about fifty or thereabout, with a well-formed
nose, but wide nostrils, and thin lips, clean-shaved,
or rather clean-plucked, with a quiet yet sociable
demeanour, ceremonious, and mild-voiced, with
the instincts of a greedy trader cropping out of
him at all points, and cunning beyond measure.
The type of his curious hat may be seen on
the head of any Armenian priest. It was formed
out of close-plaited hyphene-palm fibre, sufficiently
durable to outlast his life though he
might live a century. From his left shoulder,
across his chest, was suspended the sword of
the bill-hook pattern, already described in the
passages about Ikengo. Above his shoulder stood
upright the bristles of an elephant’s tail. His
hand was armed with a buffalo’s tail, made into a
fly-flapper, to whisk mosquitoes and gnats off
the royal face. To his wrist were attached the
•j t h e k in g o f chumbiri. 4 5
rFeb. 28, 1877
[ Cbumbin. J
odds and ends which the laws of superstition
had enjoined upon him, such as qharm-gourds,
charm-powders in bits of red and black flannel,
and a collection of wooden antiquities, besides
a snuff-gourd and a parcel of tobacco-leaves.
The king’s people were apparently very loyal
and devoted to him, and his sons showed remarkable
submissiveness. The little snuff-gourd
was in constant requisition, and he took immoderate
quantities, inhaling a quarter of a teaspoonful
at a time from the palm of his hand, to
which he pressed his poor nose until it seemed
to be forced into his forhead. Immediately after,
one of his filially affectionate children would fill
his long chibouque, which was 6 feet in length,
decorated with brass tacks and tassels of braided
cloth. The bowl was of iron, and large enough
to contain half an ounce of tobacco. He would
then take two or three long-drawn whiffs, until
his cheeks were distended like two hemispheres,
and fumigate his charms thoroughly with the
Smoke. His sons then relieved him of the pipe
—at which he snapped his fingers— and distended
their cheeks’ into hemispherical protuberances in
like manner, and also in the same way fumigated
their little charms; and so the chibouque of
peace and sociability went the round of the
circle, as though it was a council of Sioux about
to hold a pow-wow, and as the pipe passed