man or fetich-doctor, and is consulted in cases of sickness and witchcraft. To the cunning of this priest may easily be traced that superstition which I have described as prevalent in Equatorial Africa, that no one dies a natural death. If any one dies in spite of the medicines of the nghombo, he preserves his reputation by declaring that the patient has been bewitched, and obtains more money by discovering the sorcerer. There is another priest named npindi, who officiates as rain-maker; for this, a knowledge. of the seasons, which in Congo never vary more than a few days, is all that is required. The ceremony of rain-making is that of covering mounds with branches of trees and ornaments of fetich, and of walking round these, muttering incantations. It is said that an insect of unknown form will then issue out of the mound, and, rising in the air, bring thunder, lightning, and rain. Besides a great number of priests of different denominations, some of whom pretend to have the power of taming animals, others of raising the dead, but who are merely conjurors and doctors, all dwarfs and albinoes are elevated to a priesthood, who maintain their rule by appealing to the vulgar senses of the mob.

The condition of the women is pretty much the same as in other parts of Africa. The husband, however, sometimes deigns to confer marks of affection upon his wife, which he imprints upon her with a whip made from the skin of the sea-cow. Chacun à sa fantaisie. If the Congo wife is not soundly flogged every now and then, she considers herself an injured woman, and her relatives remonstrate with her husband.

In Congo, however, there is no Salic law; and instances are frequent enough of women ascending the throne. One of these became as famous in her own country as Elizabeth of England or Catharine the Great.

Shinga came to the throne in 1640. As she refused to adopt the ceremonies enjoined by the Portuguese priests, they aided her nephew, and she was forced to fly from her kingdom, having lost three battles.

She settled about a hundred and fifty miles up the country, and made war toward the Jaga country, subduing many towns and villages. Encouraged by this success, she again marched against the Portuguese, by whom she was completely routed and her sisters taken prisoner. But in 1646 she regained her kingdom, and concluded an honorable peace with the Portuguese.

Shinga had become so accustomed to war that she cared for no

T

other occupation, and led an Arabic life with her followers, roving after plunder and conquest. Before she undertook any new enterprise, she would sacrifice the handsomest man that she could find. Clad in skins, with a sword hanging round her neck, an axe at her side, a bow and arrows in her hand, she would dance and sing, striking two iron bells. Then taking a feather, she would put it through the holes in her nose as a sign of war, would cut off the victim's head with her sword, and drink a deep draught of his blood.

She kept fifty or sixty male concubines, and while she always dressed herself as a man, they were compelled to take the names and garments of women. If any of them denied that he was a woman, he was immediately killed. The queen, however, was charitable enough to let them belie their words by their actions; they might have as many wives as they chose, but if a child was born the husband was compelled to kill it with his own hands.

But Shinga was a mere milksop in comparison with Temban dumba, queen of the Jagas.

These Jagas appear to be the Arabs of Western Africa. According to Cavazzi, they first appeared in Congo in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and fell upon the indolent and luxurious Conghese as the Goths fell upon the Romans. With their king, Zimbo, at their head, they made the kingdom of Congo a desert. The Conghese yielded in despair, and joined him as tributaries. He then held a review of his immense army, and, as food began to fail them, he divided it into bands. One of these he sent to ravage the countries of Abyssinia and Mozambique, under the command of his captain, Quizzuva, who carried his conquests to the sea, but was defeated by the Portuguese near Tete. Zimbo, on hearing this, came to his assistance; the Portuguese were de feated; their general killed: the skulls of the white prisoners paved the ground before his house; and a Dominician who fell into his power he murdered with frightful torments, and, putting on his sacerdotal robes, danced before his troops, holding the sa cred chalice in his hands.

Zimbo is even said to have taken the island of Mozambique— a European fleet which bore up to its relief having been dispersed by a tempest-and only to have abandoned it when he found it impossible to obtain provisions for his army. But this Napoleon of Africa found his Waterloo in the kingdom of Melinda, where he was completely routed, and, having lost all his riches, escaped

with a small body of followers. Not daring to return to the countries which he had laid waste as a conqueror, he took unfrequented routes, and is said to have passed from the East Coast by the Cape of Good Hope to the equator, and to have settled on the banks of the River Cuneve, which takes its source in the province of Scella, and enters the sea in 17° lat. There he built a town (called in their language Chilombo), and divided his little army into companies, over which he appointed captains. One of these, named Donji, settled in the kingdom of Matamba with his concubine Mussasa. There he had a daughter, whom he named after Tembandumba, the celebrated wife and companion of Zimbo. Some years afterward Zimbo died. No one was fit to succeed. him, so the empire dissolved into petty principalities, each governed by its chief.

Donji having also died, his wife Mussasa continued his enterprises and conquests. She was a skillful warrior, and extremely cruel and bloodthirsty. She gave her daughter the education of a warrior; and these two women, at the head of their army, were always the first to charge the enemy, and the last to retreat. Mussasa was so struck with her daughter's courage, wisdom, and endurance, that she gave her the command of half the troops, although at that time she was only a girl. Tembandumba, having gained several victories, and now confident of her superior genius, no longer deigned to listen to her mother's advice. A lion in war, she became a tigress in passion; savage in her wantonnessat once voluptuous and bloodthirsty-she admitted a crowd of lovers to her arms, and killed them with the cruelest tortures as soon as her lust was satiated. Her mother having remonstrated with her respecting these excesses, she openly rebelled against her, proclaimed herself Queen of the Jagas, and founded laws so barbarous and cruel, that only the abject fear in which this young girl was held, and the veneration she had won by her marvelous valor, insured her the obedience of her subjects, savages as they were.

It is commonly said that women are always at extremes, and it is difficult to imagine any constitution more barbarous than that which she proposed.

Following in the footsteps of the great Zimbo, she would turn the world into a wilderness; she would kill all living animals; she would burn all forests, grass, and vegetable food. The sustenance of her subjects should be the flesh of man; his blood should be their drink.

She commanded that all male children, all twins, and all infants whose upper teeth appeared before their lower ones, should be killed by their own mothers. From their bodies an ointment should be made in the way which she would show. The female children should be reared and instructed in war; and male prisoners, before being killed and eaten, should be used for purposes of procreation.

Having concluded her harangue, with the publication of other laws of minor importance, this young woman seized her child which was feeding at her breast, flung him into a mortar, and pounded him to a pulp. She flung this into a large earthen pot, adding roots, leaves, and oils, and made the whole into an ointment, with which she rubbed herself before them all, telling them that this would render her invulnerable, and that now she could subdue the universe. Immediately her subjects, seized with a savage enthusiasm, massacred all their male children, and immense quantities of this human ointment were made; and of which, they say, some is still preserved among the Jagas, and is called Magija Samba.

It is clear enough that Tembandumba wished to found an empire of Amazons, such as we read of as existing among the Scythians, in the forests of South America, and in Central Africa. She not only enjoined the massacre of male children; she forbade the eating of woman's flesh. But she had to conquer an instinct in order to carry out her views; she fought against nature, and in time she was subdued.

Mothers used so many arts to preserve the lives of their male infants which women usually cherish more than those of their own sex-that she was obliged to appoint officers who were to be present at all accouchements, and to enforce obedience to her law; but when the disaffection became general, she permitted children taken in war to be sacrificed, and the Magija Samba to be made from their bodies instead.

She subdued immense territories only to lay them waste, to depopulate them, and to bring the scourges of famine and disease upon her own army; but she prevented rebellion by keeping them always at war, in which her valor, her perseverance, and her military genius preserved for her the admiration and adherence of her followers.

As she grew older she became more cruel, more lustful, and more capricious. She embraced a lover one day, she dined off