Having had this novel crown placed on the top of his woolly pate, which was much too large for it, the new king hit it an emphatic blow on the top, partly with a view to force it on, and partly, no doubt, with the design of impressing his new subjects with the fact that he was now their rightful sovereign, and that he meant thenceforth to exercise all the authority, and avail himself of all the privileges that his high position conferred on him. He then rose and made a pretty long speech, which was frequently applauded, and which terminated amid a most uproarious demonstration of loyalty on the part of the people.
If you wish to gladden the heart of a black man, reader, get him into the midst of an appalling noise. The negro’s delight is to shout, and laugh, and yell, and beat tin kettles with iron spoons. The greater the noise, the more he enjoys himself. Great guns and musketry, gongs and brass bands, kettledrums and smashing crockery, crashing railway-engines, blending their utmost whistles with the shrieks of a thousand pigs being killed, all going at once, full blast, and as near to him as possible, is a species of Elysium to the sable son of Africa. On their occasions of rejoicing, negroes procure and produce as much noise as is possible, so that the white visitors were soon glad to seek shelter, and find relief to their ears, on board ship.
But even there the sounds of rejoicing reached them, and long after the curtain of night had enshrouded land and sea, the hideous din of royal festivities came swelling out with the soft warm breeze that fanned Ailie’s cheek as she stood on the quarterdeck of the Red Eric, watching the wild antics of the naked savages as they danced round their bright fires, and holding her father’s hand tightly as she related the day’s adventures, and told of the monkeys, crocodiles, and other strange creatures she had seen in the mangrove-swamps and on the mud-banks of the slimy river.
Chapter Ten.
An Inland Journey—Sleeping in the Woods—Wild Beasts Everywhere—Sad Fate of a Gazelle.
The damage sustained by the Red Eric during the storm was found to be more severe than was at first supposed. Part of her false keel had been torn away by a sunken rock, over which the vessel had passed, and scraped so lightly that no one on board was aware of the fact, yet with sufficient force to cause the damage to which we have referred. A slight leak was also discovered, and the injury to the top of the foremast was neither so easily nor so quickly repaired as had been anticipated.
It thus happened that the vessel was detained on this part of the African coast for nearly a couple of weeks, during which time Ailie had frequent opportunities of going on shore, sometimes in charge of Glynn, sometimes with Tim Rokens, and occasionally with her father.
During these little excursions the child lived in a world of romance. Not only were the animals, and plants, and objects of every kind with which she came in contact, entirely new to her, except in so far as she had made their acquaintance in pictures, but she invested everything in the roseate hue peculiar to her own romantic mind. True, she saw many things that caused her a good deal of pain, and she heard a few stories about the terrible cruelty of the negroes to each other, which made her shudder, but unpleasant thoughts did not dwell long on her mind; she soon forgot the little annoyances or frights she experienced, and revelled in the enjoyment of the beautiful sights and sweet perfumes which more than counterbalanced the bad odours and ugly things that came across her path.