shion
even in the most refined European courts, does not always follow the
absolute guidance of taste or reason, and her magic power is often
displayed in converting deformities into beauties, but there is
certainly no court, of which the taste is so absurd, grotesque, and
monstrous, as that to which Major Denham was now introduced. An
enormous protruding belly, and a huge misshapen head, are the two
features, without which it is vain to aspire to the rank of a
courtier, or fine gentleman. The form, valued perhaps as the type of
abundance and luxury, is esteemed so essential, that where nature has
not bestowed, and the most excessive feeding and cramming cannot
supply it, wadding is employed, and a false belly produced, which in
riding appears to hang over the saddle. Turbans are also wrapped
round the head, in fold after fold, till it appears swelled on one
side to the most unnatural dimensions, and only one half of the face
remains visible. The fictitious bulk of the lords of Bornou is still
further augmented by drawing round them, even in this burning
climate, ten or twelve successive robes of cotton or silk, while the
whole is covered with numberless charms enclosed in green leathern
cases. Yet under all these incumbrances, they do sometimes mount and
take the field, but the idea of such unwieldy hogsheads being of any
avail in the day of battle, appeared altogether ridiculous, and it
proved accordingly, that on such high occasions, they merely
exhibited themselves as ornaments, without making even a show of
encountering the enemy.

With about three hundred of this puissant chivalry before and around
him, the sultan was himself seated in a sort of cage of cane or wood
near the door of his garden, on a seat, which at the distance
appeared to be covered with silk or satin, and through the railing
looked upon the assembly before him, who formed a kind of semicircle,
extending from his seat to nearly where the English were waiting. The
courtiers having taken their seats in due form, the embassy was
allowed to approach within about pistol shot of the spot where the
sultan was sitting, and desired to sit down, when the ugliest black
that can be imagined, his chief eunuch, the only person who
approached the sultan's seat, asked for the presents. Boo Khaloom's
were produced in a large shawl, and were carried unopened to the
presence. The glimpse which the English obtained of the sultan, was
but a faint one, through the la