The old caboceer of Jannah was, according to the report of Lander, a merry, jocose kind of companion.  On one occasion, when he was surrounded by a whole crowd of the natives, and was informed that the English had only one wife, they all broke out into a loud laugh, in which the women in particular joined immoderately.  The vanity of this old negro almost exceeded belief; during the ceremony of the reception of Captain Clapperton and Mr. Houston, he changed his dress three different times, each time, as he thought, increasing the splendour of his appearance.

The whole court in which they were received, although very large, was filled, crowded, and crammed with people, except a place in front, where the august strangers sat, into which his highness led Captain Clapperton and Mr. Houston, in each hand, followed by Lander, who, ever and anon, first to the right, and then to the left, felt a twitch at the tail of his coat, and on looking to ascertain the cause, found it to have proceeded from the fair hands of a bewitching negress, who, casting upon him a look of irresistible fascination, accompanied by a smile from a pair of huge pouting lips, between which appeared a row of teeth, for which one of the toothless grannies at Almack’s would have given half her dowry, seemed to be anxious of trying the experiment of how far the heart of an Englishman was susceptible of the tender passion, especially when excited by objects of such superlative beauty.  It may be supposed that neither Clapperton nor Houston had as yet taken any lessons in the art and mystery of African dancing, and as to waltzing, neither of them felt any great inclination to be encircled in the arms of a negress, who, although she might be young and graceful in her attitudes, had a scent about her of stinking rancid oil, which was not very agreeable to the olfactory nerves of the delicate Europeans.  However, it was the etiquette of the court,—­and every court, from the Cape of Good Hope to the country of Boothia, that is, if a court were ever held in the latter place,—­is cursed with the ridiculous forms of ceremony and etiquette; it must be repeated, that at the court which his highness the caboceer of Jannah, in the plenitude of his official importance, held at that place, it was a rule of etiquette, that every stranger, of whatever rank or nation, should choose for himself a partner, wherewith to dance an African fandango or bolero; and it may be easily supposed that, when the Europeans looked around them, and saw the African beauties squatting on their haunches, or reclining, in graceful negligence, on banks of mud, a great difficulty existed as to whom they should select to be their partners in the African quadrille.  We have ourselves been in a ball-room where the beating of the female heart was almost audible, when the object of its secret attachment approached to lead out the youthful beauty to the dancing circle; and although it cannot be supposed, that, on so short an acquaintance,