The doctor advanced into the palace, and there, notwithstanding
the sultan's illness, the din, which was terrific before,
redoubled the instant that he arrived. He noticed, at the
lintels of the door, some rabbits' tails and zebras' manes,
suspended as talismans. He was received by the whole troop
of his majesty's wives, to the harmonious accords of the
"upatu," a sort of cymbal made of the bottom of a copper
kettle, and to the uproar of the "kilindo," a drum five feet
high, hollowed out from the trunk of a tree, and hammered by
the ponderous, horny fists of two jet-black virtuosi.
Most of the women were rather good-looking, and they laughed
and chattered merrily as they smoked their tobacco and "thang"
in huge black pipes. They seemed to be well made, too, under
the long robes that they wore gracefully flung about their
persons, and carried a sort of "kilt" woven from the fibres
of calabash fastened around their girdles.
Six of them were not the least merry of the party,
although put aside from the rest, and reserved for a cruel
fate. On the death of the sultan, they were to be buried
alive with him, so as to occupy and divert his mind during
the period of eternal solitude.
Dr. Ferguson, taking in the whole scene at a rapid
glance, approached the wooden couch on which the sultan
lay reclining.
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