come nearer, at the same time laying his hand on the animal’s back; a moment’s recollection convinced him, that there could be no more danger nearer, than where he was, and he stepped boldly up beside the negro, and he believed he should have laid his hand on the lion the next moment, but the beast, after looking carelessly at him, brushed past his legs, broke the ring, overturning several who stood before him, and bounded off to another part, where there were fewer people.

It remained that Major Denham should be introduced to the sultan, in his royal residence at Birnie, where all the real state and pomp of the kingdom, with none of its real power were concentrated.  On the 2nd March, the English accompanied Boo Khaloom to that city, and on their arrival, the following day was fixed for the interview.  Fashion 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