I was always chatting with Umbogo and the various chiefs, especially with my favourite, Kittakara, who was Kabba Rega's most confidential counsellor. They gave me a graphic account of the royal funeral that had taken place a few months ago, when Kamrasi has interred. When a king of Unyoro dies, the body is exposed upon a framework of green wood, like a gigantic gridiron, over a slow fire. It is thus gradually dried, until it resembles an over-roasted hare. Thus mummified, it is wrapped in new bark-cloths, and lies in state within a large house built specially for its reception. The sons fight for the throne. The civil war may last for years, but during this period of anarchy, the late king's body lies still unburied. At length, when victory has decided in favour of one of his sons, the conqueror visits the hut in which his father's body lies in state. He approaches the corpse, and standing by its side, he sticks the butt-end of his spear in the ground, and leaves it thus fixed near the right hand of the dead king. This is symbolical of victory. The son now ascends the throne, and the funeral of his father must be his first duty. An immense pit or trench is dug, capable of containing several hundred people. This pit is neatly lined with new bark-cloths. Several wives of the late king are seated together at the bottom, to bear upon their knees the body of their departed lord. The night previous to the funeral, the king's own regiment or body-guard surround many dwellings and villages, and seize the people indiscriminately as they issue from their doors in the early morning. These captives are brought to the pit's mouth. Their legs and arms are now broken with clubs, and they are pushed into the pit on the top of the king's body and his wives. An immense din of drums, horns, flageolets, whistles, mingled with the yells of a frantic crowd, drown the shrieks of the sufferers, upon whom the earth is shovelled and stamped down by thousands of cruel fanatics, who dance and jump upon the loose mould so as to form it into a compact mass; through which the victims of this horrid sacrifice cannot grope their way, the precaution having been taken to break the bones of their arms and legs. At length the mangled mass is buried and trodden down beneath a tumulus of earth, and all is still. The funeral is over. Upon my return to Egypt I was one day relating this barbarous custom to a friend, when Mr. Kay, of Alexandria, reminded me of the curious coincidence in the description of the travels of Ibn Batuta, written A.D. 1346. I am indebted to Mr. Kay for the following extract from the work of Ibn Batuta, which will go far to prove the extreme conservatism of Africans in all that regards their rites and customs.