t the
King has commanded me to do." And Kalulu darted out, spear in hand, his
ostrich plumes trailing over his head far behind.

Perhaps here would be a fit place to intercalate a description of the
native youth whose name forms the title-page to this strange historical
romance.

Since ancient Greece displayed the forms of her noblest, finest youth in
the Olympian games, and gave her Phidias and Praxiteles models to
immortalise in marble, all civilised nations have borrowed their ideas
of manly beauty from the statues left to us by Grecian and Roman
sculptors, because civilised nations seldom can furnish us with models
to compete with the super-excellent types designed by Greece. While
American and English sculptors go to Rome to play with marble and
plaster, and borrow for their patterns of an athlete or perfect human
form, the vulgar, low, and uncouth lazzaroni of Rome, the centre of
Africa teems with finer specimens of manhood than may be found in this
world; such types as would even cause the marble forms of Phidias to
blush, Kalulu was one of the best specimens which the ancient sculptors
would have delighted to imitate in stone. His face or head may not,
perhaps, have kindled any very great admiration, but the body, arms, and
limbs were unmistakably magnificent in shape. He had not an ounce of
flesh too much, yet without the tedious training which the modern
athlete has to undergo, and following nothing but the wild instinct of
his adopted tribe, he was a perfect youthful Apollo in form. The
muscles of his arms stood out like balls, and the muscles of his legs
were as firm as iron. There was not one of the tribe of his age who
could send a spear so far, or draw the bow with so true and steady aim
as he, or could shoot the arrow farther. None had such a springy,
elastic movement as he, none was so swift of foot, none followed the
chase with his ardour, none was so daring in the attack; yet with all
that constant exercise, the following of which had given him these
advantages, his form lost nothing of that surpassing grace of movement
and manly beauty for which he was styled by me, just now, a perfect
youthful Apollo.

If I give him such praise for his elegance of form and free graceful
carriage, I may not continue in the same strain in the description of
his face. Kalulu was a negro, but his colour was not black by any
means, it was a deep brown or bronze. His lips were thick, and,
according to our ide