e body in
charge to women, who were to watch it until burial, with cries of
sorrow,--and then retired to Kambia.

On the day of obsequies I came back. At noon a salute was fired by the
guns of the village, which was answered by minute guns from the Feliz
and my factory. Seldom have I heard a sadder sound than the boom of
those cannons through the silent forest and over the waveless water.

Presently, all the neighboring chiefs, princes and kings came in with
their retainers, when the body was brought out into the shade of a
grove, so that all might behold it. Then the procession took up its
line of march, while the thirty wives of the Mongo followed the
coffin, clad in rags, their heads shaven, their bodies lacerated with
burning iron, and filling the air with yells and shrieks until the
senseless clay was laid in the grave.

I could find no English prayer-book or Bible in the village, from
which I might read the service of his church over Ormond's remains,
but I had never forgotten the _Ave Maria_ and _Pater Noster_ I learned
when an infant, and, while I recited them devoutly over the self
murderer, I could not help thinking they were even more than
sufficient for the savage surroundings.

The brief prayer was uttered; but it could not be too brief for the
impatient crowd. Its _amen_ was a signal for _pandemonium_. In a
twinkling, every foot rushed back to the dwelling in Bangalang. The
grove was alive with revelry. Stakes and rocks reeked with roasting
bullocks. Here and there, kettles steamed with boiling rice. Demijohn
after demijohn of _rum_, was served out. Very soon a sham battle was
proposed, and parties were formed. The divisions took their grounds;
and, presently, the scouts appeared, crawling like reptiles on the
earth till they ascertained each other's position, when the armies
rallied forth with guns, bows, arrows, or lances, and, after firing,
shrieking and shouting till they were deaf, retired with captives, and
the war was done. Then came a reinforcement of rum, and then a dance,
so that the bewildering revel continued in all its delirium till rum
and humanity gave out together, and reeled to the earth in drunken
sleep! Such was the requiem of

THE MONGO OF BANGALANG!

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Slaves dropped in slowly at Kambia and Bangalang, though I still had
half the cargo of the Feliz to make up. Time was precious, and there
was no foreigner on the river to aid me. In this strait, I sudd