“Good heavens! Then you heard what I said, and you never raised an eyelash!” “No, since you did not suppose that I understood you.” I looked at him for a minute or two to find out whether he had been irritated or not. He smiled diplomatically and I felt that we should be friends. I was dancing at Marseilles at that time. He came to the theatre to see me after the performance. “What can we do that will give you pleasure in exchange for the great satisfaction that your dances have just brought us?” he asked me. I thought the matter over a minute. “I should like it very much if I might be present at one of your religious ceremonies.” The black chief promised to come to my hotel, and to give me an idea of the ritualistic practices of his country. The next day, accordingly, I made preparations for a tea-party in the hotel garden. Rugs were spread on the grass and everything was in readiness to receive the monarch. “When will the ceremony begin?” I asked the king as soon as he had arrived. “We shall say our prayer at six o’clock, just at sunset.” As night came on I observed that the king and his followers began to survey the sky in every direction, and I wondered why. Noting my wonderment, the king told me that they were endeavouring to get their bearings in order to be certain of the point toward which the sun was tending at the end of his journey. “We are required,” he said, “always to pray with our faces toward the setting sun.” He gave the order to begin the ceremony then and there. I wish I could describe it as perfectly as I saw it. The unity of the motions of all these men was simply wonderful. All together they said the same brief prayer, and with mechanical precision made the same movement, which, from the point of view of devotion, seemed to have similar importance to the words of their ritual. The large white cloaks, spread over long blue blouses, waved round their bodies. The men prostrated themselves, touched the ground with their foreheads and then raised themselves together. The rhythm and precision were most impressive. It was really very, very beautiful. After the prayers the king told me that his father had been dethroned and then exiled from Senegal by the French Government. As for himself, in his turn he had been nominated chief of his tribe, for in reality there was no longer a king. He was a French subject, and in his country, which was tributory to France, he was no more than chief of his clan. But the majesty remained, nevertheless, magnificently expressed in his features. While we were conversing I asked permission to put some indiscreet questions. After he had consented, all the while smiling his peculiarly winning smile, I asked him if he was married? He replied in the affirmative. He had four wives. As I appeared to be surprised to note that he travelled without them, especially in a country where there are so many pretty women, he, in his turn, looked at me for some time, and replied: