rised to hear, that I was not far more frightened than
he. It would have been natural that I should--being younger and less
courageous, but in reality I was not. In fact, after a little terror
which I experienced at the first shock, I was not frightened at all.

Of course such a wild, hideous spectacle--those three skeleton forms,
with rigid limbs and bodies, and rows of white grinning teeth--was
calculated to produce fear in any one, particularly when discovered in
such a singular place, and seen, as we saw them, under the glaring light
of a torch: and I will not deny, that at the first glance I was as badly
terrified as my companion, and perhaps even worse.

But my terror was short-lived, for almost in the next moment I was quite
free from it; and I stood regarding the skeleton bodies with no other
feelings than those of a keen curiosity--just as if I had been looking
at mummies in a museum.

I know you will be surprised at this exhibition of _sangfroid_ on my
part, and deem it extraordinary; but there is nothing extraordinary
about it. It was easily explained, and I proceed to give the
explanation.

My "wonder book" is again the key--it was to this I was indebted for
ridding me of my fright, and once more giving me the advantage over my
unlettered companion. In that book I remembered having read--of course
in the same chapter that treated of the baobab--how a curious practice
existed among some tribes of negroes, of hollowing out the great trunks
of these trees into vaults or chambers, and there depositing their dead.
It was not those who died naturally who were thus disposed of, but
malefactors--men who had been executed for some great crime; and whose
bodies were denied the right of burial in the regular way; for these
savage people have strong prejudices in such matters, just as we find
among the most Christian and civilised nations.

Instead therefore of flinging the bodies, of those upon whom capital
punishment has been inflicted, to the hyenas and jackals, and leaving
them to be devoured by these voracious brutes, the negroes give them a
species of sepulture; and that is as described, by closing them up in
vaults hewn in trunks of the baobab--and in my opinion a very
comfortable kind of tomb it is. The bodies thus deposited do not
decompose or decay as those buried in the ordinary way; on the contrary,
from some preservative quality in the wood, or the atmosphere of the
place, they become desiccated,