A MISSION TO DAHOMÉ
1863
IT is a long stride from Salt Lake City to Dahomé, from the Mormons to the Amazons, but I take my visit to the King of Dahomé as next in date. Before, however, beginning my journey to Dahomé let me touch briefly on that much-vexed and little-understood subject—the negro.
Central Intertropical Africa, lying between north latitude 10° and south latitude 20°, at that time contained eight considerable negro circles, which may be called kingdoms. Of these there were three on the west coast north of the Equator, namely:
1st. Ashanti, the land which exports the “Minas” negroes. This despotism has been well known to us since the beginning of the present century. The capital is Kumasi, nearly 133 direct miles from the coast. This empire may be said to rest on two pillars, blood and gold. Human sacrifice was excessive, and the “customs” mean the slaughter of fellow-creatures.
2nd. Benin, a kingdom well known to old travellers, and the place where Belzoni of the Pyramids died. I visited it in August, 1862, and my reception was the crucifixion of a negro. On the night after my arrival a second slave was slain and placed before my doorway. My lodgings commanded a view of the principal square, which was strewn with human bones, green and white.
3rd. Dahomé. From the plain and unvarnished account of this tyranny, which I am about to relate, may be estimated the amount of hopeless misery which awaited the African in Africa. And as it is unsatisfactory to point out a disease without suggesting a remedy, I will propose my panacea at the end of this essay.
We now cross the Equator and find ourselves among the great South African family. Their common origin is proved by their speech. Briefly to characterise their language, the place of our genders are taken by personal and impersonal forms, and all changes of words are made at the beginning, not, as with us, at the end. The Kaffir (Caffre race in South-east Africa) is evidently a mixed breed, and it has nearly annihilated the Bushmen and the Hottentots—the original lords of the land. There is a curious resemblance between the Coptic, or Old Egyptian, and the Hottentot tongues, which suggests that in the prehistoric ages one language extended from the Nile Valley to the Cape of Good Hope. The true negroes, distinguished by their long, ape-like head and projecting jaws, bowed shins and elongated heels and forearms, are all the tribes of Intertropical Africa whose blood is unmixed. This is my definition; but of this point opinions differ.
And here we may stand to view the gleam of light which the future casts across the Dark Continent. Slowly but surely the wave of Moslem conquest rolls down towards the line. Every Moslem is a propagandist, and their traders, unlike ours, carry conversion with them. This fact European missionaries deny, because they do not like it: they would rather preach to heathens than to Moslems, whom Locke describes as unorthodox Christians. They even deny the superiority of El Islam, which forbids the pagan abominations of child-murder, human sacrifice, witch-burning, ordeal-poisons, and horrors innumerable. But we, who look forward to the advent of a higher law, of a nobler humanity, hail with infinite pleasure every sign of progress.
Philanthropists, whose heads are sometimes softer than their hearts, have summed up their opinion of slavery as the “sum of all villainies.” I look upon it as an evil, to the slaveholder even more than to the slave, but a necessary evil, or, rather, a condition of things essentially connected, like polygamy, with the progress of human society, especially in the tropics. The savage hunting tribes slave for themselves; they are at the bottom of the ladder. Advancing to agricultural and settled life, man must have assistants, hands, slaves. As population increases, commerce develops itself and free labour fills the markets; the slave and the serf are emancipated: they have done their task; they disappear from the community, never more to return. Hence every nation, Hindu and Hebrew, English and French, have had slaves; all rose to their present state of civilisation by the “sum of all villainies.” And here, when owning slavery to be an evil, I must guard against being misunderstood. It is an evil to the white man: it is often an incalculable boon to the black. In the case of the negro it is life, it is comfort, it is civilisation; in the case of the white it has done evil by retarding progress, by demoralising society, and by giving rise to a mixed race.
And there is yet another point to be settled when speaking of the negro. In the United States every black man is a negro, or, to speak politely, a “cullard pussun.” Thus the noble races of Northern Africa and the half-Arab Moors, the Nubians and Abyssinians, and the fine Kaffir (Caffre) type of South-eastern Africa are confounded with the anthropoid of Sierra Leone, of the Guinea and of the Congo regions. The families first mentioned differ more from the true negro than they do from the white man.
My first visit to Gelele, then King of Dahomé, was in May and June, 1863. Already in 1861 I had proposed to restore those amicable relations which we had with his father Gezo; but my application was not accepted by the Government. On my return to the West African coast after a six weeks’ visit to England, the journey was made on my own responsibility, and it was not pleasant. I was alone—in such matters negroes do not count as men—and four mortal days upon the Slave Coast lagoons, salt, miry rivers, rich only in mud, miasma, and mosquitoes, with drenching rains and burning suns playing upon a cramping canoe without awning, are unsatisfactory even to remember. Having reached Whydah, the seaport and slave-market of Dahomé, I procured a hammock, and in three days I arrived at Kana, a summer residency for the Court, distant 7,500 miles from Agbomé, the capital.
The human sacrifices called the “nago customs” had lately ended. Twelve men had lost their lives, and, dressed in various attire like reapers, dancers, and musicians, had been exposed on tall scaffolds of strong scantling. “C’est se moquer de l’humanité,” remarked to me the Principal of the French Mission at Whydah. But the corpses had been removed, and during my flying visit of five days nothing offensive was witnessed.
At Kana I met M. Jules Gerard, first “le chasseur,” then “le tueur des lions”: we had sailed together from Europe to Madeira, and he had been sea-sick during the whole voyage. Men who have spent their youth in the excitement of dangerous sport often lose their nerve in middle age. This was the case with the unfortunate lion-hunter; the sight of the “customs” threw him into a fever. Disappointment also weighed upon his spirits. He came to West Africa in the hope that his fame as a killer of lions had preceded him; but the only lion that can exist in that mouldy climate is the British lion, and even he is not a terrible beast to bring amongst the ladies. He expected to find Dahomé a kind of Algiers, and he exchanged a good for a very bad country. He had set his mind upon crossing the northern frontier; but the king at once put an end to that plan, and afterwards played me the same trick. He had also based his hopes upon his good shooting and upon an explosive bullet calculated to do great execution; but many of the king’s women guards could use their guns better than he did, and when the said shell was produced, Gelele sent to his stores and brought out a box-full.
M. Gerard proposed to himself a journey which would have severely tried the health of the strongest man in Europe. He resolved to make his way from the Gulf of Guinea through dangerous Timbuktu (Timbuctos) and the terrible Sahara to Algiers. I advised him to retire to Teneriffe or Madeira and recruit his energies. But he was game to the last. He made another departure through the malarious Sherbro country, south of pestilential Sierra Leone. The next thing we heard of him was when crossing the Jong River he had been drowned by the upsetting of a canoe. Somewhat later came the report that he had been foully murdered. I was rejoiced to hear that a subscription had been raised for his aged and bereaved mother.
Having reported that Dahomé was, under normal circumstances, as safe as most parts of Africa, I received in August, 1863, orders to visit it as Commissioner. My “mission” was to make certain presents to the king, and to preach up cotton and palm oil versus war and human sacrifices. I may begin by saying I lectured hard and talked to the wind.
H.M.’s cruiser Antelope landed me at Whydah in December, the dry season, and the surf was not particularly dangerous. The beach is open; between it and Brazil rolls the broad Atlantic; and near the shore are an outer and inner sandbar with an interval forming a fine breeding-ground for sharks. A girl is occasionally thrown in as an offering to “Hu,” the sea-dog, and this does not diminish the evil.
We entered Whydah in state, paraded and surrounded by chiefs and soldiery in war dress, kilts and silver horns like the giraffe’s: their arms were long guns and short swords for decapitating the wounded. Each troop had its flag, its umbrella, its band of drums and tom-toms, its horns and cymbals. I especially remarked a gourd bottle full of, and covered with, cowries, or pebbles—in fact the celebrated “maraca” of Brazil, which, it has been conjectured, contributed towards the formation of the word America. Every five minutes the warriors halted to drink and dance. The drink is easily described—tafia or bad caxaca. But the dance! I defy mortal man to paint it in words. Let me briefly say that the arms are held up as though the owner were running, the elbows being jerked so as nearly to meet behind the back; the hands paddle like the paws of a swimming dog; the feet shuffle and stamp as though treading water; the body-trunk joins in the play, and the hips move backwards and forwards to the beating time. The jig and the hornpipe are repose compared with this performance. There is also a decapitation dance over an ideal dead enemy, whose head is duly sawn off with the edge of the hand.
At Whydah I lodged at the English fort, a large double-storied building of “taipa,” tenanted by Wesleyan missionaries. It was once a strong place, as the ruined towers and burst guns show.
There were three other forts in the town. The Brazilian, which was nearest the sea, was held by Chico de Souza, the son of the late Francisco Fellis de Souza. This was a remarkable man. Born at Cachoeira, near Bahia, he emigrated to Africa, where by courage and conduct he became the Chacha, or Governor, of the Guild of Merchants, a kind of Board of Trade. He made an enormous fortune, and by his many wives he left about a hundred olive branches. Though a slave-dealer, he was a man of honour and honesty. The English had done him many an injury, yet he was invariably courteous and hospitable to every English traveller. He strongly opposed human sacrifice, and he saved many lives by curious contrivances. Of the same stamp was M. Domingos Martins of Bahia, once celebrated for enormous wealth. He died in the interval between my first and second visits. I regretted his death, for he had been most kind and attentive to me.
The Portuguese fort had also been repaired, and was inhabited by six members of the Lyons Mission, “Le Vicariate Apostolique de Dahomé.” They kept a school, and they were apparently convinced that it was hopeless to attempt the conversion of adults. The superior, Father François Borghero, had several times been ill-treated by the barbarians, and his hatred of idolatry had exposed him to not a little danger. It is rare in those lands to find a highly educated and thoroughly gentlemanly man; and, looking back, I am not surprised that all my time not occupied by study or observation was spent in the Portuguese fort.
Lastly, there was the French fort, in far better condition than the others. It was held in my time by M. Marius Daumas, agent to M. Regis (aîné) of Marseilles, and faute de mieux he was buying and shipping palm oil.
Whydah was easily seen. The houses were red “taipa” with thick thatch, and each had its large and slovenly courtyard. The market-place was a long street of small booths open to the front, where everything from a needle to a moleque (small slave-boy) could be bought. The thoroughfares were studded with small round roofs of grass, which sheltered a hideous deity called Legba. He was made of muddy clay, with holes for eyes and cowries for teeth, and he squatted before a pot in which the faithful placed provisions, which were devoured by the urubu (vulture). The chief temple was dedicated to the danh, or snake, which here was the principal “fetish.” It was a circular hut with two doorless entrances, and the venerated boas curled themselves comfortably on the thickness of the walls. The largest was about six feet long, and it was dangerous only to rats, of which it was very fond. Several foreigners had been killed for injuring these reptiles, and Whydah, once an independent kingdom, lost her liberty through the snakes. When attacked by Dahomé in 1729, her chief defence was to place a serpent on the invaders’ path. The Dahomans killed the guardian genius and slaughtered the Whydahs till the streets ran blood. But, when the conquerors had reduced their neighbour, they gave her leave to adore the snake, and Whydah felt consoled, even happy. It sounds like a traveller’s tale. I am writing history.
At Whydah we complied with the custom of sending up a messenger to report our arrival. After three days came three officials from the palace, who presented their sticks and delivered to me a verbal invitation from their master. The sticks were white sticks, two feet long, adorned with plates of silver, cut into the shapes of lions, sharks, crocodiles, and other savage beasts. These batons served as visiting cards, and were signs of dignity. When the king made me honorary commandant of a corps of life-guardswomen, he sent me two sticks by way of commission or diploma.
We set out en route for the capital on December 13th, 1863. My little party consisted of Mr. George Cruikshank, a naval assistant-surgeon detached to accompany me; the Rev. Mr. Bernasco, Wesleyan missionary and private friend of the king; two negro interpreters, thirty hammock men, and a troop of baggage porters. This made up a total of ninety-nine mouths, which were never idle except when asleep.
Between the seaboard and Kana, the “villegiatura,” or country capital, of the king, there were fifty-two to fifty-three direct miles. The country was here a campo, or rolling grassy prairie: there was a dense and magnificent forest. At every few miles there were settlements, now villages, once capitals which felt the weight of the Dahomé arm. The first was Savé, ancient metropolis of the Whydah kingdom, when the present Whydah, which was properly Gle-hwe, or the Garden House, was only a squalid port. The territory was only thirty miles by seven, but it mustered 200,000 fighting men. This, however, was easily explained. In Africa every male between the ages of seventeen and fifty carried arms: this would be about one-fifth of the population; consequently there was one million inhabitants in an area of two hundred square miles (4,762 souls to each mile).
After Savé came Tevé, also an ex-capital. It was a pretty little village commanded by a Dahoman “caboceer.” This frequently used word is a corruption of a Portuguese corruption, “caboceer,” or, rather, “caboceira,” and means a pillow, a headman, or a chief officer. The etiquette on arriving at such places is as follows. You alight from your hammock before the tree under which the grandee and his party are drawn up to receive you with vociferous shouts, with singing, drumming, and dancing. After the first greetings you pledge him in fresh water, which he has tasted before you. Then you drink spirits and receive an offering of provisions. You make a return of rum and gin, the people drum, dance, sing, and shout their thanks, and you are at liberty to proceed.
On the fourth day we crossed the “Agrime Swamp,” which is hardly practicable in the wet season. The road then entered upon a true continent: we emerged from the false coast, which at one time was under water, and which is raised by secular upheaval. At the little town of Agrime we were delayed till the king, who was in his country capital, sent an escort and permission to advance.
On Friday, December 18th, we entered Kana, a large and scattered town, shaded by magnificent trees. It is about two hundred and seventy feet above sea-level, and the climate is a relief after Whydah. The morrow was fixed for our reception. It was Ember Day, and the date could hardly have been better chosen.
It is hardly possible to form an idea of the peine forte et dure attending the presentation in Africa. It is every negro’s object to keep the white man waiting as long as possible, and the visitor must be very firm and angry if he would not lose all his time.
We were duly warned to be ready at 10 a.m.; but local knowledge kept me in the house till 1 p.m. Then we sat under a tree upon the chairs which we had brought from Whydah, to witness the procession of “caboceers.” Each grandee, preceded by his flag or flags, his band of drums and rattles, and his armed retainers dancing and singing, passed before us, shaded by an enormous umbrella of many colours. Having marched round, he came up to us and snapped fingers (the local style of shaking hands); then he drank with us three toasts, beginning with his master’s health. After the “caboceers” trooped various companies—musicians, eunuchs, and jesters. The last are buffoons, reminding one of our feudal days. Their entertainment consists in “making faces” (cara feia), as children say—wrinkling the forehead, protruding the tongue, and clapping the jaws as apes do. They can tumble a little and “throw the cart wheel” neatly; they dance in a caricatured style, draw in the stomach to show that they are hungry, pretend to be deaf and dumb, smoke a bone by way of a pipe, and imitate my writing by scratching a sweet potato with a stick.
The review over, we made for the palace in a long procession; my men, wearing bright red caps and waist-cloths, carried the flag of St. George. The royal abodes are all on the same pattern: enclosures of “taipa” wall, four courses high, and pierced with eight or ten gates. The irregular square or oblong may be half a mile in circumference. At the principal entrances are thatched sheds like verandahs, one hundred feet long by fourteen to fifteen feet deep. The roof ledge rises sixty to seventy feet high, enough for two stories, whilst the eaves of thick and solidly packed straw rested upon posts barely four feet tall. The inner buildings, as far as they could be seen, corresponded with the external, and the king held his levées in one of these barn-like sheds. The royal sleeping-places, which were often changed, were described to me as neat rooms, divided from the courtyard by a wall with a chevaux de frise of human jawbones. The floors were paved with the skulls of conquered chiefs, forming a descente de lit upon which Gelele had the daily pleasure of trampling.
The complicated reception was typical of the Dahoman military empire. We found, ranged in a line outside the gate, twenty-four umbrellas or brigades belonging to the highest male dignitaries. The army, or, what was here synonymous, the Court, was divided into two portions, male and female, or, rather, female and male, as the women troops took precedence. They occupied the inside of the palace, and they were the king’s bodyguard in peace or war. Each line had a right and a left wing, so called from their position relative to the throne. The former, which is the senior, was commanded by the “min-gau” who cumulated the offices of premier and head executioner. His lieutenant was the adanejan. Dahoman officials, for better espionage, were always in pairs. The general of the left wing was the “meu,” who collected revenue and tribute, declared war, and had charge of all strangers. His alter ego was styled the ben-wan-ton. Under these great men were smaller great men, and all were de facto as well as de jure slaves to the king.
BURTON VISITS THE KING OF DAHOMÉ.
Presently we were summoned to enter the palace. We closed our umbrellas by order, walked hurriedly across a large yard, and halted at a circle of white sand spread upon the clayey ground. Here we bowed to a figure sitting under the shady thatch; and he returned, we were told, the compliment. The chief ministers who accompanied us fell flat upon the sand, kissed it, rolled in it, and threw it by handfuls over their heads and robes of satin and velvet. The ceremony is repeated at every possible opportunity; and when the king drinks, all the subjects turn their backs upon him and shout.
Then we advanced to the clay bench upon which King Gelele sat. After the usual quadruple bows and hand-wavings, he stood up, tucked in his toga, descended to the ground, and, aided by nimble feminine fingers, donned his sandals. He then greeted me with sundry vigorous wrings à la John Bull, and inquired after Queen Victoria, the Ministry, and the people of England, which country is supposed to be like Dahomé, but a little larger and richer.
Our chairs were then placed before the seat, to which he returned, and we drank the normal three toasts to his health. On these occasions it is not necessary to empty the glass, which may be handed to an attendant. Salutes having been fired, we retired a hundred feet from the presence and sat under giant umbrellas.
Gelele was then about forty-five years old, upwards of six feet high, olive complexioned, athletic and well made, with clear signs of African blood. His dress was simple to excess: a loose shirt of plain white stuff edged with green silk, a small smoking-cap, a few iron rings on his arms, and a human tooth strung round his neck. The only splendour was in his gold and scarlet sandals, here distinctive of royalty. They were studded with crosses, also royal emblems. He called himself a Christian, and he was a Moslem as well: like all barbarians, he would rather believe too much than too little, and he would give himself every chance in both worlds.
Under the thatch behind the king were his wives, known by their handsome dresses, silver hair studs, and the absence of weapons. They atoned for want of beauty by excessive devotion to their lord, who apparently did everything by proxy except smoke his long-stemmed clay pipe.
The inner court of the palace reflected the outer, and the women sat in the sun along the external wall of the royal shed with their musket-barrels bristling upwards. The right wing was commanded by a “premieress,” who executed all women; the left was also under the she “meu.” A semicircle of bamboos lying on the ground separated the sexes at levées. The instrument of communication was a woman-messenger, who, walking up to the bamboos, delivered her message on all fours to the “meu.” The latter proclaimed it to the many.
I must here say a few words about the Amazons, or fighting women. The corps was a favourite with the late king, who thus checked the turbulence and treachery of his male subjects. The number was estimated at 10,000 to 12,000; I do not believe it exceeded 2,500. They were divided into blunderbuss-women, elephant-hunters, beheaders, who carry razors four feet long, and the line armed with muskets and short swords.
All the Amazons were ex-officio royal wives, and the first person who made the king a father was one of his soldieresses. It was high treason to touch them even accidentally; they lodged in the palace, and when they went abroad all men, even strangers, had to clear off the road. Gelele often made his visitors honorary commandants of his guard of Amazons (I was made one); but this did not entitle them to inspect companies.
Such a régime makes the Amazons, as might be expected, intolerably fierce. Their sole object in life is blood-spilling and head-snatching. They pride themselves upon not being men, and with reason. The soldiers blink and shrink when they fire their guns; the soldieresses do not. The men run away; the women fight to the bitter end. In the last attack on the city of Abokuta (March 15th, 1864) several of the Amazons of my own regiment scaled the walls; their brethren-in-arms hardly attempted the feat.
Dahomé thus presented the anomaly of an African kingdom in which women took precedence of men. Hence every employé of Government had to choose a “mother”—that is to say, some elderly Amazon officer who would look after his interests at headquarters. Often he had two, an “old mother,” dating from the days of the late king, and a “young mother,” belonging to the actual reign. He had to pay them well, or his affairs were inevitably bad. Thus there was also a Brazilian, an English, and a French “mother”; and visitors of those nations were expected to propitiate their fond and unpleasant parents with presents of cloth, jewelry, perfumes, and so forth.
The levée ended with a kind of parade. A few simple manœuvres and many furious decapitation dances were performed by a select company of the young Amazons. They were decently dressed in long sleeveless waistcoats, petticoats of various coloured cottons, secured at the waist by a sash and extending to the ankles, whilst narrow fillets of ribbon secured their hair and denoted their corps. Their arms were muskets and short swords, and all had belts, bullet bags, and cartridge boxes.
When the sun set a bottle of rum was sent to us. At this hint we rose and prepared to retire. Gelele again descended from his seat and accompanied us to the gate, preceded by a buzzing swarm of courtiers, who smoothed every inch of ground for the royal foot. He finally shook hands with us, and promised to meet us in a few days at Agbomé, the capital.
We lost no time in setting out for Agbomé, and were surprised to find an excellent carriage road, broad and smooth, between the two cities. Agbomé had no hotels, but we managed lodgings at the house of the bukono, a high officer who was doctor and wizard to the Court and curator of strangers, whom he fleeced pitilessly.
I will now touch briefly on the ill-famed “customs” of Dahomé. The word is taken from the Portuguese costume, and here means the royal sacrifices. Many travellers have witnessed them, but no one has attempted to inquire into their origin. I attribute these murderous customs not to love of bloodshed, but simply to filial piety.
The Dahoman, like the ancient Egyptian, holds this world to be his temporary lodging. His own home is Ku-to-men, or Deadman’s Land. It is not a place of rewards and punishments, but a Hades for ghosts, a region of shades, where the king will rule for ever and where the slave will always serve. The idea is ever present to the popular mind. When, for instance, sunshine accompanies rain the Dahoman says the spirits are marketing. In Brazil the fox is marrying; in England the devil is beating his wife.
A deceased king cannot, therefore, be sent to Ku-to-men as a common negro. At his interment a small court must be slain—leopard-wives (that is to say, young and handsome wives), old wives, ministers, friends, soldiers, musicians, men and women. These are the grand customs, which may average one thousand to two thousand deaths. The annual customs, which we were now to witness, reinforce the ghostly court, and number from eighty to one hundred head.
But destruction of life does not end here. All novelties, such as the arrival of an officer in uniform, must be reported to the dead by the living king. A captive or a criminal is summoned, and the message is given to him. He is made to swallow a bottle of rum, whose object is to keep him in a good humour, and his head is then and there struck off. Only on one occasion did the patient object to the journey, saying that he did not know the road to Ku-to-men. “You shall soon find it out!” cried the king, who at once decapitated the wretch without rum. If any portion of the message be forgotten, another victim must be despatched with it. A hard-hearted traveller calls this the postscript.
A Dahoman king neglecting these funeral rites would have been looked upon as the most impious of men, and a powerful priesthood would soon have sent him to Ku-to-men on his own account. It may now be understood how hopeless was my mission. It may be compared, without disrespect, to memorialising the Vatican against masses for the dead. The king’s sole and necessary answer was non possumus.
The “customs” began on December 28th, 1863, and ended on January 25th, 1864. They were of two kinds. The first was performed by Gelele, king of the city; the second are in the name of Addo-Kpon, ruler of the “bush,” or country—also Gelele. The ruler of Dahomé was thus double, two persons in one, and each had his separate palace and property, mothers and ministers, Amazons, officers, and soldiers. I have conjectured that the reason of this strange organisation is that the “bush-king” may buy and sell, which the “city-king” holds to be below his dignity.
The description of a single “custom” will suffice. About midday of December 28th, when summoned to the palace, we passed through the market-place, and we found the victim-shed finished and furnished. This building was a long, wall-less barn one hundred feet long, the roof was a thatch covered with a striped cloth on a blood-red ground and supported by tree trunks. On the west was a two-storied tower, sixty feet high, with four posts in front of each floor. There were on this occasion twenty victims sitting on stools, each before his post, with his arms around it and his wrists lashed together outside it. The confinement was not cruel; each had a slave to flap away the flies, all were fed four times a day, and they were released at night. The dress was a long white nightcap and a calico shirt with blue and crimson patches and bindings. A white man would have tried to escape; these negroes are led like black sheep to the slaughter. They marked time as the bands played, and they chatted together, apparently quizzing us. I may here remark that at my request the king released half of these men, and that not one of them took the trouble to thank me or to beg alms from me.
Hardly were we seated when Gelele, protected by a gorgeous canopy umbrella, came forth from the palace with Amazons and courtiers in a dense, dark stream. Having visited his fetish gods, he greeted us and retired to his seat under the normal shed. As at Kana, his wives crowded together behind and the soldieresses ranged themselves in front. The ceremonies consisted of dancing, drumming, and distributing decorations—necklaces of red and yellow beads. There was fearful boasting about feats of past valour and bravery to come. About sunset the king suddenly approached us, and I thanked him for the spectacle. He then withdrew, and we lost no time in following his example.
Nothing could be poorer than this display: any petty Indian rajah can command more wealth and splendour. All was barren barbarism, and the only “sensation” was produced by a score of human beings condemned to death and enjoying the death show.
On the morrow I sent a message to the palace, officially objecting to be present at any human sacrifice, and declaring that if any murder took place before me I should retire to the coast. The reply was that few were to be executed, that the victims would only be malignant war captives and the worst of criminals, and that all should be killed at night. With this crumb of comfort I was compelled to rest satisfied. Hitherto gangs of victims cruelly gagged had been paraded before visitors, in whose hearing and often before whose sight the murders were committed. Something is gained by diminishing the demoralising prominence of these death scenes. It is not so long ago since it was determined that the “customs” of England should be performed within the prisons, and not further debase the mob of spectators.
The catastrophe took place on what is called the “zan nya nyana,” or the evil night. At intervals we heard the boom of the death-drum announcing some horrible slaughter. It was reported that the king had with his own hand assisted the premier-executioner.
On the next morning we were summoned to the palace, whose approach was a horror. Four corpses, habited in the criminal shirts and nightcaps, sat as though in life upon the usual dwarf stools. The seats were supported upon a two-storied scaffold made of four rough beams, two upright and two horizontal, and about forty feet high. On a similar but smaller erection hard by were two victims, one above the other. Between these substantial erections was a tall gallows of thin posts, from which a single victim dangled by his heels. Lastly, another framework of the same kind was planted close to our path, and attached to the cross-bar, with fine cords round the ankles and above the knees, hung two corpses side by side and head downwards. The bodies, though stiff, showed no signs of violence: the wretches had probably been stifled.
At the south-eastern gate of the palace we found freshly severed heads in two batches of six each, surrounded by a raised rim of ashes. The clean-cut necks were turned upwards, and the features were not visible. Within the entrance were two more heads; all the bodies had been removed, so as not to offend the king.
Thus on Gelele’s “evil night” twenty-three human beings had lost their lives. And this is but one act in the fatal drama called the “customs.” It is said that an equal number of women were slaughtered within the walls of the royal abode, and I had every reason to believe the report.
I was kept waiting more than a month in this den of abominations before the king could enter upon public affairs. He was discontented with the presents sent from England, and he was preparing to attack a huge Nago city—Abeokuta—where, by-the-bye, he was signally defeated.
When my last visit to him took place he stubbornly ignored, even in the least important matters, the wishes of H.M.’s Government. Filled with an exaggerated idea of his own importance, and flattered almost to madness by his courtiers, he proceeded to dictate his own terms. His next thought was an ignoble greed for presents. He bade me a friendly adieu, and asked me to visit him next year with an English carriage and horses, a large silk pavilion, and other such little gifts. I refused to promise, and I resolved not to put my head for the third time into the hyæna’s mouth. For although Gelele has never shed the blood of a white man, he might, at the bidding of his fetishers, send a new kind of messenger to Ku-to-men by means of a cup of coffee or a dish of meat. I was glad when I found myself safely back in the pestilential climate of Fernando Po.