[Footnote 27: Those who are acquainted with the history of recent political events, need not go to the centre of Africa for an example of a prince pausing in the midst of massacre to perform those pious duties which public opinion is always ready to set down to the account of the powerful.] [Footnote 28: I cannot again refrain from pointing out the singular similarity which exists between the histories of all nations in which the idea of authority is developed, and in which a man or a family presumes to look upon a whole people as personal property. The fact of this similarity is, perhaps, the only useful information we can derive from a study of the bloody annals of empires, present or past, expiring or nascent.] [Footnote 29: It is amusing to see the right divine of kings asserted in the person of the ferocious Saboun, and how priests of all forms of faith are ready to justify bloodshed in the interest of authority. It must be observed, that the learned men to whom this case was submitted made no allusion to the mild alternative expressed in the last words of the law.] [Footnote 30: This splendid description of how an African prince wades through slaughter to a throne, and at once becomes an idol, is an unconscious satire of some of the great events of modern history.] [Footnote 31: I have preserved with some regret the constant reference to a sacred Name in this Chapter, because the frightful picture it contains, and the terrible code of political morals which it represents, would be otherwise incomplete. The Sheikh, who has no suspicion of wrong, goes on to give his theory of absolute government, and, naturally taking the optimist view, uses the old comparison of the shepherd and the flock. I may remark that it is peculiarly characteristic of the bloodiest despotic governments, and their defenders of all degrees of refinement, to make a wanton use of the Divine Name.] [Footnote 32: M. Fresnel, French consul at Jeddah, has published a memoir on the abou-kern, which he considers to be the unicorn, and not the rhinoceros.—_Perron_. In this case, however, the Sheikh clearly marks that he means the khartit; and in no part of his work makes allusion to the unicorn.] [Footnote 33: This title corresponds to the Ab of Wadaï and Darfur.] [Footnote 34: The Sheikh here enters into considerable details on the revolution by which this change of government took place. Those who have read the “Journal” of Mr. Richardson will be aware that his principal servant was a descendant of the Moknee mentioned in the text.]