Still Rumanika could not understand how it was I spent so much and travelled so far, or how it happened such a great country as ours could be ruled by a woman.

He asked the Queen's name, how many children she had, and the mode of succession; then, when fully satisfied, led the way to show me what his father Dagara had done when wishing to know of what the centre of the earth was composed.

At the back of the palace a deep ditch was cut, several yards long, the end of which was carried by a subterranean passage into the palace, where it was ended off with a cavern led into by a very small aperture.

It then appeared that Dagara, having failed, in his own opinion, to arrive any nearer to the object in view, gave the excavating up as a bad job, and turned the cave into a mysterious abode, where it was confidently asserted he spent many days without eating or drinking, and turned sometimes into a young man, and then an old one, alternately, as the humour seized him.
19th to 22d .-- On the 19th I went fishing, but without success, for they said the fish would not take in the lake; and on the following day, as Grant's recovery seemed hopeless, for a long time at least, I went with all the young princes to se what I could do with the hippopotami in the lake, said to inhabit the small island of Conty.

The part was an exceedingly merry one.