The notable parts of the suite were the swordbearers and the band. The former carried five _afoa_, peculiar weapons, emblems of royalty. The blades are licked when swearing; they are despatched with messengers as a hint to enforce obedience; and they are held, after a fashion, to be holy. I have never seen more conventional, distorted, and useless weapons. Three blades showed the usual chopping-bill shape, pierced, like fish-slicers, with round, semicircular, and angular holes. One, measuring twenty-three inches and three-quarters, was leaf-formed, dotted with a lozenge-pattern and set with copper studs. Another was partially saw-toothed. All were of iron, rusty with the rust of years and hardly sharp enough to cut a pat of butter. The impossible handles were worthy of the blades, bulging grips between two huge balls utterly unfitted for handling; four were covered with thin gold-plate in _repousse_ work, and one with silver. The metal was sewn together with thin wire, and the joints had been hammered to hide them. Cameron sketched them for my coming 'Book of the Sword;' and Ahin Blay kept his promise by sending me a specimen of the weapon with two divergent blades used to cut off noses and ears. Bowdich [Footnote: _Mission_, &c., p. 312] mentions finely-worked double blades springing parallel from a single handle; here nothing was known about them. The band consisted of two horns and three drums. Of the latter one was sheathed in leopard-skin and rubbed, not struck, with two curved sticks. A second was hourglass-shaped; the sticks were bent to right angles, and the drummer carried, by way of cymbal, a small round iron plate adjusted to the fingers with little rings loosely set in the edge. The horns were scrivelloes, elephant-tusks of small size. At times a horrid braying denoted the royal titles, and after every blast the liege lord responded mechanically, 'Kwamina Blay! atinasu marrah' (Monday Blay! here am I).