CHAPTER XV.
In which mutiny, like fire, is quenched for want of fuel and no want of water.
Although we have made the African negro hitherto talk in his own mixed jargon, yet, as we consider that, in a long narration, it will be tedious to the reader, we shall now translate the narrative part into good English, merely leaving the conversation with which it may be broken, in its peculiar dialect.
"The first thing I recollect," said Mesty, "is, that I was carried on the shoulders of a man with my legs hanging down before, and holding on by his head.
"Everyone used to look at me and get out of the way, as I rode through the town and market-place, so loaded with heavy gold ornaments that I could not bear them, and was glad when the women took them off; but as I grew older I became proud of them, because I knew that I was the son of a king.

I lived happy.

I did nothing but shoot my arrows, and I had a little sword which I was taught to handle, and the great captains who were about my father showed me how to kill my enemies.

Sometimes I laid under the shady trees, sometimes I was with the women belonging to my father; sometimes I was with him and played with the skulls, and repeated the names of those to whom they had belonged, for in our country, when we kill our enemies, we keep their skulls as trophies.
"As I grew older, I did as I pleased; I beat the women and the slaves; I think I killed some of the latter--I know I did one, to try whether I could strike well with my two-handed sword made of hard and heavy wood,--but that is nothing in our country.

I longed to be a great captain, and I thought of nothing else but war and fighting, and how many skulls I should have in my possession when I had a house and wives of my own, and I was no longer a boy.