As we advanced, we perceived at a distance a vast building, and made toward it. We found it to be a palace, elegantly built, and very lofty, with a gate of ebony, which we opened. Entering, we saw before us a large apartment, with a porch, having on one side a heap of human bones, and on the other a vast number of roasting spits. We trembled at this spectacle, and were seized with deadly apprehension, when suddenly a door of the apartment opened with a loud crash, and there appeared the horrible figure of a black man, as tall as a palm tree. He had but one eye, and that in the middle of his forehead, where it blazed bright as a burning coal. His fore-teeth were very long and sharp, and stood out of his mouth, which was as deep as that of a horse. His upper lip hung down upon his breast. His ears resembled those of an elephant, and covered his shoulders; and his nails were as long and crooked as the talons of the greatest bird. At the sight of so frightful a creature, we become insensible and lay like dead men.
At last we came to ourselves, and saw him sitting on the porch looking at us. Next he advanced toward us, and laying his hand upon me, took me up by the nape of my neck, and turned me around, as a butcher would do a sheep’s head. After having examined me, and perceiving me to be so lean that I was nothing but skin and bone, he let me go. He took up the rest one by one, and viewed them in the same manner. The captain being the fattest, he held him with one
273
