ificent forests.

On this plain the recognition of the new king was to take place. Here
it was that thousands of prisoners taken during recent razzias were
to be immolated in his honor.

It was about two o'clock when the "Albatross" arrived over the plain
and began to descend among the clouds which still hid her from the
Dahomians.

There were sixteen thousand people at least come from all parts of
the kingdom, from Whydah, and Kerapay, and Ardrah, and Tombory, and
the most distant villages.

The new king--a sturdy fellow named Bou-Nadi--some five-and-twenty
years old, was seated on a hillock shaded by a group of wide-branched
trees. Before him stood his male army, his Amazons, and his people.

At the foot of the mound fifty musicians were playing on their
barbarous instruments, elephants' tusks giving forth a husky note,
deerskin drums, calabashes, guitars, bells struck with an iron
clapper, and bamboo flutes, whose shrill whistle was heard over all.
Every other second came discharges of guns and blunderbusses,
discharges of cannons with the carriages jumping so as to imperil the
lives of the artillery-women, and a general uproar so intense that
even the thunder would be unheard amidst it.

In one corner of the plain, under a guard of soldiers, were grouped
the prisoners destined to accompany the defunct king into the other
world. At the obsequies of Ghozo, the father of Bahadou, his son had
dispatched three thousand, and Bou-Nadi could not do less than his
predecessor. For an hour there was a series of discourses, harangues,
palavers and dances, executed not only by professionals, but by the
Amazons, who displayed much martial grace.

But the time for the hecatomb was approaching. Robur, who knew the
customs of Dahomey, did not lose sight of the men, women, and
children reserved for butchery.

The minghan was standing at the foot of the hillock. He was
brandishing his executioner's sword, with its curved blade surmounted
by a metal bird, whose weight rendered the cut more certain.

This time he was not alone. He could not have performed the task.
Near him were grouped a hundred executioners, all accustomed to cut
off heads at one blow.

The "Albatross" came slowly down in an oblique direction. Soon she
emerged from the bed of clouds which hid her till she was within
three hundred feet of the ground, and for the first time she was
visible from below.

Contrary to what had hitherto happened, the savages s