er my instalment at the Cape, that I accidentally
witnessed the ferocity of this chief. Some trifling "country affair"
caused me to visit the king; but upon landing at Toso I was told he
was abroad. The manner of my informant, however, satisfied me that the
message was untrue; and accordingly, with the usual confidence of a
"white man" in Africa, I searched his premises till I encountered him
in the "palaver-house." The large inclosure was crammed with a mob of
savages, all in perfect silence around the king, who, in an infuriate
manner, with a bloody, knife in his hand, and a foot on the dead body
of a negro, was addressing the carcass. By his side stood a pot of
hissing oil, in which the heart of his enemy was frying!

My sudden and, perhaps, improper entrance, seemed to exasperate the
infidel, who, calling me to his side, knelt on the corpse, and digging
it repeatedly with his knife, exclaimed with trembling passion, that
it was his bitterest and oldest foe's! For twenty years he had
butchered his people, sold his subjects, violated his daughters, slain
his sons, and burnt his towns;--and with each charge, the savage
enforced his assertion by a stab.

I learned that the slaughtered captive was too brave and wary to be
taken alive in open conflict. He had been kidnapped by treachery, and
as he could not be forced to walk to Toso, the king's trappers had
cooped him in a huge basket, which they bore on their shoulders to the
Cape. No sooner was the brute in his captor's presence, than he broke
a silence of three days by imprecations on Fana-Toro. In a short
space, his fate was decided in the scene I had witnessed, while his
body was immediately burnt to prevent it from taking the form of some
ferocious beast which might vex the remaining years of his royal
executioner!

This was the only instance of Fana-Toro's barbarity that came under my
notice, and in its perpetration he merely followed the example of his
ancestors in obedience to African ferocity. Yet, of his intrepidity
and nobler endurance, I will relate an anecdote which was told me by
reliable persons. Some twenty years before my arrival at the Cape,
large bands of mercenary bushmen had joined his enemies along the
beach, and after desolating his territory, sat down to beleaguer the
stockade of Toso. For many a day thirst and hunger were quietly
suffered under the resolute command of the king, but at length, when
their pangs became unendurable, and the people