Among more savage tribes, again, Islamism has other recommendations, for the missionaries of that religion, the merchants from the sea-coast who journey in to the interior of Africa, are immeasurably more affluent than the chiefs whose territories they visit. Besides, the imposing effect of publicly praying, the apparent devotion of their many genuflections and prostrations, the splendid finery of their large rosaries, added to which, their great ostentation of wealth where personal security is assured, soon influence the poor, ignorant, and wondering natives. The Islam factor is confessedly the greatest man among them; and his manners are copied, and his creed adopted, by the operation of the same human feelings, which in England or France make a _lion_ or constitute a fashion, with this recommendation on the part of the savages, that their admiration is by far the most permanent. CHAPTER IX. Court dress.--Palace of Angolahlah.--Interview with Negoos.-- Memolagee.--Invited to house of Tinta.--Supplies from palace.--Return to Ankobar. _June 30th._--This morning, after a breakfast of bread and cayenne pottage, which proved to be the contents of the little earthenware jar carried back from the palace the day before, I was sent for, to present myself immediately before the Negoos. Understanding that it was etiquette to appear before royalty either with the upper part of the body, above the waist, quite naked, or else, on the contrary, closely clothed up, I chose the latter alternative, and put over my blowse dress my black Arab cloak, and following the messenger, walked up the side of the low hill upon which the Palace of Angolahlah stands. This ridge, scarcely one hundred feet high, is a red ferruginous basaltic dyke, which has here protruded through the general surface rock of grey columnar porphyry. The rock of which it consists contains so much iron as to render the compass completely useless in taking bearings, and the oxidization, where it is exposed to the action of the atmosphere, occasions the bright red colour of the hill. The circumscribed, but nearly level summit, is occupied by the several courts of the royal residence, the palace buildings, long thatched houses, standing in the centre of all. An irregular stockade of splintered _ted_ (a juniper pine), twelve or fourteen feet high, is carried around the edge of the ridge, and the enclosed area, in its longest direction, exceeds three hundred yards. This is subdivided into courts, the first of which is entered from the town by a low gateway that scarcely affords passage to a person mounted upon a mule, although it is a privilege of the principal courtiers to ride so far before they dismount, when they visit the Negoos.