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Updated: May 15, 2025
It is, however, stated, on the authority of Lander, that when a king of Youriba dies, the caboceer of Jannah, three other head caboceers, four women, and a great many favourite slaves and women, are obliged to swallow poison, given by fetish men in a parrot's egg; should this not take effect, the person is provided with a rope to hang himself in his own house.
In the evening, however, a caboceer arrived with a large escort of horse and foot from Katunga, the capital of Youriba, and having shaken hands with the travellers, immediately rubbed his whole body, that the blessing of their touch might be spread all over him. The escort was so numerous, that they ate up all the provisions of the town.
Here the same favourable impression respecting the whites was found to prevail as at Chaki. The walls were crowded with people, and the caboceer, with his wives and head men, came forth to welcome the strangers.
The caboceer was seated on the outside of his house, surrounded by his ladies, his singing men, and singing women, his drums, fifes, and gong-gongs. He was a good-looking man, about fifty years of age, with a pleasing countenance.
He certainly, as it would have been highly unbecoming in him, did not solicit the hand of any of the expectant beauties, and therefore, giving him all due credit for his extreme bashfulness and insuperable modesty, they were determined to solicit his; he was first twirled round by one beauty, then by another; at one moment he found himself in a state of juxta position with the old caboceer; at another, his animated partner was nearly driving him into a state of positive collision with his own master; in fact he was, like Tom at Almack's, putting the whole of the dancers into confusion, from his ignorance of the intricacies of the African dance, and his total inability to compete with his partner in her gymnastic evolutions.
Leaving their medical friend, the caboceer of Adja, they proceeded to Loko, which is also a considerable walled town; and on proceeding about four miles further, they came to a groupe of three towns, one walled and two without walls, all bearing the name of Soloo.
Everyone extolled the feat, called me a hero and a great captain. I filed my teeth, and I became a man. "From that day I ranked among the warriors, and, as soon as my wounds were healed, I went out to battle. In three fights I had gained five skulls, and when I returned they weighed me out gold. I then had a house and wives, and my father appointed me a Caboceer.
On being told only one, he seemed much astonished, and laughed greatly, as did all his people. "What does he do," said he, "when one of his wives has a child? Our caboceer has two thousand!!" On leaving Chaka, the caboceer escorted them several miles, attended by upwards of two hundred of his wives, one of whom was young and handsome.
Some of his half-heads, who may very appropriately be termed his mortal messengers, in contradistinction to the immortals sent to the shades, arrived at the fort, and, with the Coke, a stern and hardhearted villain, who, in the absence of the yavougah, was the next caboceer, demanded admittance in the king's name, prostrating themselves as usual, and covering their heads with dust.
However, it was the etiquette of the court, and every court, from the Cape of Good Hope to the country of Boothia, that is, if a court were ever held in the latter place, is cursed with the ridiculous forms of ceremony and etiquette; it must be repeated, that at the court which his highness the caboceer of Jannah, in the plenitude of his official importance, held at that place, it was a rule of etiquette, that every stranger, of whatever rank or nation, should choose for himself a partner, wherewith to dance an African fandango or bolero; and it may be easily supposed that, when the Europeans looked around them, and saw the African beauties squatting on their haunches, or reclining, in graceful negligence, on banks of mud, a great difficulty existed as to whom they should select to be their partners in the African quadrille.
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