The king readily granted permission to Irving, to view the palace, excepting, of course, the apartments of the women. Conducted by his friend the grandee, and some other officers of the palace, he found it more extensive than he had supposed, having entered by a private passage. It consisted of several large squares, surrounded with galleries, each of which had a portico or gate, guarded by soldiers. The first gallery on entering the palace is very long, supported on each side by lofty pillars. At the termination of this gallery was a wall with three gates, the centre one ornamented with a turret seventy feet in height; terminated with a figure of a large snake, cast in copper, and very ingeniously carved. These gates opened into an immense area, enclosed also with a wall; then another gallery like the former, into another spacious court; and so on to a fourth, beyond which were the apartments of the king. In this spacious palace the king is sometimes immured for years, until he is crowned; and here, also, many wealthy courtiers spend the whole of their time, leaving trade and agriculture to be executed by their wives and slaves. (Note K.) These go to the circumjacent villages, either to trade in merchandise, or serve for daily wages; but they are obliged to bring the greatest part of what they obtain to their masters, otherwise they make no scruple to sell them for slaves. Irving and his new royal acquaintance had passed their time so convivially, that the negociation for slaves was deferred till the morrow, when he again attended his majesty to a depôt, containing about two hundred; and as they were going to this place, they met nearly as many proceeding to the coast, the king's agents having sold them on the preceding day. Amongst this wretched group, Irving remarked some remarkably handsome men; and found, on enquiry, they were from Molembo, from whence the finest negroes are obtained.