f what?" said I.

"Queen of Africa," replied Corny. "At least a part of it,--she would be,
I mean, if she had stayed there. We went over that way, out to the very
edge of the town, and there we found a whole colony of real native
Africans,--just the kind Livingstone and Stanley discovered,--only they
wear clothes like us."

"Oh, my!" exclaimed Rectus.

"I don't mean exactly that," said Corny; "but coats and trousers and
frocks, awfully old and patched. And nearly all the grown-up people
there were born in Africa, and rescued by an English man-of-war from a
slave-ship that was taking them into slavery, and were brought here and
set free. And here they are, and they talk their own language,--only
some of them know English, for they've been here over thirty years,--and
they all keep together, and have a governor of their own, with a
flag-pole before his house, and among them is a real queen, of royal
blood!"

"How did you find out that?" I asked.

"Oh, we heard about the African settlement this morning, at the hotel,
and we went down there, right after dinner. We went into two or three of
the houses and talked to the people, and they all told us the same
thing, and one woman took us to see the queen."

"In her palace?" said I.

"No," said Corny, "she don't live in a palace. She lives in one of the
funniest little huts you ever saw, with only two rooms. And it's too
bad; they all know she's a queen, and yet they don't pay her one bit of
honor. The African governor knows it, but he lives in his house with his
flag-pole in front of it, and rules her people, while she sits on a
stone in front of her door and sells red peppers and bits of
sugar-cane."

"Shameful!" said I; "you don't mean that?"

"Yes, she does," put in Rectus. "We saw her, and bought some sugar-cane.
She didn't think we knew her rank, for she put her things away when the
women told her, in African, why we came to see her."

"What did she say to you?" I asked, beginning to be a good deal
interested in this royal colored person.

"Nothing at all," said Corny; "she can't talk a word of English. If she
could, she might get along better. I suppose her people want somebody
over them who can talk English. And so they've just left her to sell
peppers, and get along as well as she can."

"It's a good deal of a come-down, I must say," said I. "I wonder how she
likes it?"

"Judging from her looks," said Rectus, "I don't believe she likes it at
all."

"