In many of the neighbouring kingdoms, the Monarch himself is the executioner of those criminals on whom his own voice has pronounced the sentence of death; but the Sultan of Bornou, too polished, or too humane, to pollute his hands with the blood of his subjects, commits the care of the execution to the Cadi, who directs his slaves to strike off the head of the prisoner. The _Military_ Force of the Sultan of Bornou consists in the multitude of his horsemen; for his foot soldiers are few in number, and are scarcely considered as contributing to the strength of the battle.[29] The sabre, the lance, the pike, and the bow, constitute their weapons of offence; and a shield of hides composes their defensive armour. Fire-arms, though not entirely unknown to them, for those with which the Merchants of Fezzan occasionally travel, are sufficient to give them an idea of their importance and decisive effect, are neither used nor possessed by the people of Bornou. When the Sovereign prepares for war, and levies an army for the purpose, he is said to have a custom, (the result of idle vanity or of politic ostentation) of directing a date tree to be placed as a threshold to one of the gates of his capital, and of commanding his horsemen to enter the town one by one, that the parting of the tree in the middle, when worn through by the trampling of the horses, may enable him to judge of the sufficiency of their numbers, and operate as a signal that his levy is compleat. In their _Manners_, the people of Bornou are singularly courteous and humane. They will not pass a stranger on the road till they have stopped to salute him: the most violent of their quarrels are only contests of words; and though a part of the business of their husbandry is assigned to the women, yet, as their employment is confined to that of dropping the seed in the furrows, and of removing the weeds with a hoe, it has more of the amusement of occasional occupation, than of the harshness of continued labour. Passionately attached to the tumultuous gratifications of play, yet unacquainted with any game but drafts, they often sit down on the ground, and forming holes to answer the purpose of squares, supply the place of men with dates, or the meaner substitute of stones, or of camel’s dung. On their skill in the management of these rude instruments of the game, they stake their gold dust, their brass money, and even their very cloaths; and as the bye-standers on these occasions constantly obtrude their advice, and sometimes make the moves for the person whose success they wish, their play is usually accompanied by that conflict of abuse, and vehemence of scolding, which mark and terminate the sharpest of their quarrels. Such is the amusement of the lower classes of the people; those of a superior rank are devoted to the more difficult and more interesting game of chess, in which they are eminently skilled.