But Tembandumba, after all, was not above the weaknesses common to her sex; all her passions were exaggerated, and, like many another heroine, she owed her final overthrow to the God of Love. As a rule she caused her husbands to be treated as Schahriar, in the Arabian Nights, used his wives; but at last she fell really in love with Culemba, a private in the army. Culemba was young, strong, and decidedly good-looking--for a negro. He possessed insinuating manners, and succeeded for a time in gaining some influence over the Queen. But in time she wearied of him, as she had grown tired of her former lovers. Culemba, knowing by experience that she had an unpleasant fancy for dining off her lovers, was determined to be beforehand with her. He was a cruel, ambitious man,--equally crafty as Tembandumba. He invited the Queen to a sumptuous banquet; such an invitation being the highest compliment one Jaga could pay to another. The entertainment was magnificent, the wine delicious; but while drinking a bumper of Lisbon wine from the skull of an old enemy, the Queen of the Jagas fell down dead. Culemba was--of course--inconsolable. With difficulty could he be prevented from slaying himself on the corpse. The funeral was conducted with all the splendour customary at the interment of a native African sovereign; the dead queen was buried in a large vault excavated on the top of a high hill. The corpse was placed in a commanding attitude on a throne, surrounded by skins, stuffs, mats, ostrich feathers, and all her favourite dishes and liquors. * * * * * Dahomey--or, as it is now fashionable to style it, Dahomé--may with truth be called one of the greatest curiosities of the Nineteenth Century. It seems so strange that a large, closely populated country, the monarch of which is anxious to cultivate the friendship of Europe, should be sunk in such gross barbarity. The chief features of its government are the Slave-Trade, the "Customs," or religious festivals, at which the notorious human sacrifices are offered, and the Amazons; and the last are by far the greatest curiosity. Very few rulers, in ancient or modern times, have authorised the keeping up a standing army of women; and none of the native tribes along the coast seem at all inclined to follow the example of Dahomey. But the female sex in Dahomey is, they say, vastly superior to the male; the women are tall--upwards of six feet high, and powerfully built--the men, on the contrary, are, as a general rule, round-limbed and sickly-looking. Captain Burton suggests that it was this physical superiority which originated the custom of employing women-soldiers.