had run away from the ill-treatment of her master,
and had taken refuge in the house of a decrepit old man. The two were
brought up for judgment, when the king sentenced them to death, and
decreed that their lives should not be taken at once, but that they
should be fed and dismembered, bit by bit, as rations for his vultures
every day until life was extinct. The dismayed criminals, Speke says,
struggling to be heard, were dragged away to the drowning music of horns
and drums.

After he had been some time in the palace, he was introduced to the
queen dowager. Her majesty was fat, fair, and forty-five. He found her
seated in the front part of her hut, on a carpet, her elbow resting on a
pillow. An iron rod, like a spit, with a cup on the top, charged with
magic powder, and other magic wands were placed before the entrance, and
within the room four Mabandwa sorceresses, or devil-drivers,
fantastically dressed, with a mass of other women, formed the company.
They being dismissed, a band of musicians came in, when _pomba_ was
drunk by the queen, and handed to her visitor and high officers and
attendants. She smoked her pipe, and bid Speke to smoke his. She
required doctoring, and Speke had many opportunities of seeing her, so
completely winning her regard that she insisted on presenting him with
various presents, among others a couple of wives, greatly to his
annoyance. She appeared to be a jovial and intelligent personage. On
another occasion Speke, when introduced, found her surrounded by her
ministers, when a large wooden trough was brought in and filled with
_pomba_. The queen put her head in and drank like a pig from it, her
ministers following her example. If any was spilled by her, they
dabbled their noses in the ground, or grabbed it up with their hands,
that not a particle might be lost, as everything that comes from royalty
must be adored. Musicians and dancers were then introduced, exhibiting
their long, shaggy, goat-skin jackets, sometimes dancing upright, at
others bending or striking the ground with their heels like hornpipe
dancers.

The plaguy little imps of pages were constantly playing tricks, and
seemed to delight in mischief.

One of the great officers of the court having offended the king, they
came with a message to Speke's attendants while he himself was away,
ordering them all to attend the king with their arms. Instead of being
led to the palace, they were guided to the house of the