— 17 —
hundred : so that a man's spirit is judged by the number of jaw bones that he can display. We too were wont to profit by the devouring
of a victim, inasmuch as the cannibals place
the man they purposed to eat upon a pile of wood
which they then set on fire, and we used to put our
corn upon the wood and underneath the body, so
that the corn might be nicely roasted. The cannibals
did not eat the nails of their victims, but removed them as we remove the talons of a chicken.
When the Sultan dies, his sons dig a
large pit and place in it his Makunga, or hooked
sword, his long pipe, shield, and his best loved wife,
who has her hands and feet broken. A little fire is
then placed in the hole, which is next filled in by
the sons. When this has been finished, each of the
sons rushes back to the Sultan's compound, when he
sticks his spears into some special house, the girl
inside becoming his bride unless she chance to be
his own mother.*
SECOND RETURN TO KHARTOUM AND WANDERINGS ON THE JOURNEY, 1863.
Now when the eighteenth day of March, in
the year 1863, was already come I obtained permis-
sion from the Sultan Tikma to depart. .So I left
with my goods for Khartoum, and I ceased not in
*Not altogether unlike the custom of the Bedaiat tribe described
by Slatin Pasha p. 38.