'...Opposite me, at the other end of the esplanade, extended a sort of altar, with several steps leading up to it, covered with a soft carpet; a coat of white paint, veined with bluish lines, gave the whole structure from a distance the appearance of marble.
On the sacred table, which consisted of a long board, fitted half-way up the erection and hidden under a white cloth, could be seen a rectangle of parchment, dotted with hieroglyphics, standing next to a massive cruet, filled with oil.Beside it, a larger sheet bore the title in careful gothic script: Reigning House of Ponukele-Drelshkaf; beneath the heading a round portrait, a delicately coloured miniature, represented two Spanish girls of thirteen or fourteen, wearing on their heads the national mantilla-twin sisters, to judge by the close resemblance between their faces; at first glance. The picture seemed to be an integral part of the document; but closer scrutiny revealed a narrow strip of transparent muslin which, adhering both to the periphery of the painted disc and to the surface fo the stiff vellum, joined as perfectly as possible the two objects, which were in fact independent of each other; on the left hand side of the double effigy, the name 'SUAN' was written in widely spaced capitals; underneath, the paper was covered with a genealogical table comprised of two distinct branches, issuing in parallel descent from the two beautiful Spaniards who formed the top of the tree; one branch ended in the word Extinction, in letters almost as prominent as those of the heading and clearly meant for brutal effect; the other, on the conrary, a little shorter than its companion, seemed to defy the future by the adsence of any final line.
Near the altar, to the right of it, grew a gigantic palm of remarkable foliage which testified to its great age; a board, fastened to its trunk, bore the commemorative phrase: Restoration of the Emperor Talu VII to the Throne of his Fathers. In the shelter of the palm, on one side, a stake had been driven into the earth and on its square top had been placed a soft-boiled egg.
To the left, at an equal distance fron the altar, a tall plant, old and withering, offered a sad contrast to the splendid palm; it was a rubber tree which had no more sap and was almost rotten. A stretcher, made of branches, lay in its shade, bearing the recumbent corpse of the negro king Yaour IX, wearing the traditinal costume of Marguerite in Faust, a pink woollen gown from which hung a short alms purse and a thick golden wig with long plaits which fell over his shoulders and came half-way down to his knees.
On my left, with its back to the row of sycamores, and facing the red theatre, stood a stone-coloured building which looked like a model in miniature on Paris Bourse...'
Extract from 'Impressions of Africa' by Raymond Roussel, Paris 1910
