DAHOMEY AS IT IS.* THE King of Dahomey is, it
would appear, very anxious to stand well with the English, and as previous visitors to his capital had not, in his opinion, done him justice, he took the opportunity of Mr. Skertchly's visit to exhibit to the full all the characteristics of his rule and pageantry of his Court for our enlightenment. Mr. Skertchly had gone to the country to study its fauna, most of all
* Dahomey as is, being a Narrative of Eight Months Residence in Mat Country. By J. A. Skertchly. London ; Chapman and Hall.
to add to his collection of insects, if we may judge from his fre- quently expressed disappointment at being unable to use his net with advantage. But the King had other ideas, and managed to decoy the entomologist to his capital, under a promise that he would be sent back in eight days. Once there, the King kept him for eight months, "an idle spectator of a savage pageant," and showed him everything, that he might write a book about it, and did everything, even to making him a prince, to give him a favourable impression. We wish Mr. Skertchly had not obeyed the King's behests so religiously, for the barbarous pageant which so wearied him to look at is decidedly wearisome to read about, and the little bits of natural history which we here and there get are so very much more interesting, that we regret all the more that he did not get. to his proper work, and give us a book about that. And when it is all told, we do not find that we know much more of the Dahomans than Burton contrived to tell us ten years ago. The minute picture which Mr. Skertchly gives us of the childish barbarities of the almost endless ceremonial does not lead us to love the King and his. people much more, or to feel more hopeful for their future. In some minor points the earlier traveller's inaccuracy is pointed out,. but in general Mr. Skertchly appears to adopt his opinions, both. on the condition and prospects of the negro race and on the civilising influences brought to bear upon them.
But if Mr. Skertchly has not told us much that is new, he has written his account of what he saw with fullness and some care, so that we possess in it some valuable memorials of a state of things evidently passing away. Dahomey is not what it has been, and even allowing for all the exaggeration of the slave-trade days, it was once a considerable power, a rival of the kingdom of Ashantee,. -which lies contiguous to it westward on the Gulf of Guinea. England may in one sense be held responsible for this decay, for she stopped the slave trade, and nothing has risen to take its place. The land appears to be fertile, and inland by no means unwholesome, but the people are ignorant and debased, quite incapable of initiating any new career, or of devoting themselves to any better industry than slave-catching. The King in con- sequence feels strongly the effects of the stoppage of that trade in a diminished exchequer. Ile apparently still devotes part of his time to man - catching, and unless he can dispose of his slaves inland or to settlers on his own territory, his expeditions bring him no profit. Gelele, as the Europeans call him, is a man of some intelligence, and apparently has some- glimpses of whither things are drifting, but he has no power to lift either himself or his people out of the groove where they have lived for generations. "In Dahomey great things are always going to be done," and ideas do not grow amid the waste of super- stition and barbarity in which all seem to live. Still, as when Burton was there, the war-cry of the people is the " breaking" of Abeokuta, from whose walls they have so often been beaten back ; it was the one theme of the King's reproaches and of the vaunts of the male and female braves at the weary round of ceremonies which Mr. Skertchly was fated to see, and unhappily felt constrained to depict for us in detail. We do not intend to initiate our readers. into these mysteries, but content ourselves with referring them to the book ; the catalogue given there may be useful to those who wish to. know approximately what the habits of our foes in Aahantee are. Except that human sacrifice amongst the latter is reported to be much more common than in Dahomey, the motives and methods of the two peoples appear to be very similar. Unlike many negro or black races, such as some of those Sir Samuel Baker met on the White Nile, the Dahomans and other mixed and conquering races on the West Coast of Africa have an enormous capacity for super- stitious belief, and no little imagination in developing and multi- plying objects of worship. Their faith in a future life is, pro- bably in consequence, very strong and materialistic. Hence one great motive for human sacrifices. The people thus killed are charged with messages, or Bent as servants to. the dead. When a new custom is elaborated, or a new umbrella or tent for the King invented, on the most frivolous- pretext, a messenger or two has to be sent by the King, with his " duty" to his deceased father and information of the fact, into the other world. At the same time, a messenger is usually de- spatched to the birds, beasts, and fishes who have gone to the "shades," a hawk to the one and a cat and an alligator to the others. Formerly great numbers of human victims were executed in this way at the annual " =atoms " or State ceremonies, and when a new King came to the throne ; but whether from poverty or increased humanity, the habit has become much less exacting. Burton estimated that some 500 were slain when he was there ten years ago, but as he did not see many of the executions, he may have been mistaken. At any rate, Mr. Skertchly estimates the number akin annually at about 200, and he witnessed one "custom," more than Burton, got up specially for his benefit, that he might -see everything. The King assured him that none were slain but -criminals, and that he would gladly abolish the system altogether, were he helped to do so from cutside, but that against his people his -own will was powerless. Except so far as they are accompanied by 'human sacrifices, these " customs " are as totally devoid of interest as anything can possibly be. They are simply one long round of useless barbaric pageant, wherein there is much break-neck dancing, much gun-firing and marching, and above all, much -drinking and speechifying. The drinking is indeed amazing. Nothing appears to be done without "trade rum" or other vile 'liquor, and the guests were never allowed to leave "the presence" after a day spent in witnessing these scenes until a private attendant had brought them their "pass ruin" from the King's
own table. There is even a special institution at this Court which -we never heard of anywhere else called the "King's Drunkard," and Mr. Skertchly recounts a ludicrous scene where that worthy -figured, which took place at his first reception The King's Drunkard was then brought forward, and Gelele took up -the vinegar-cruet, which, like all the others, was full of ruin. The Bacchanal kneeled down and opened a month like a hippopotamus on a small scale, and the Ring emptied the contents of the cruet down its -cavernous depth; and proceeded with the remaining ernets. This was all very well with the vinegar-bottles, but the mustard-pot was almost a -*lonelier, as the lid would get in the man's month and almost choke him. The pepper-castor, too, was rather awkward, as the perforated -.top caused the grog to distil in a spiritual rain. I suggested the re- moval of the top, which being acted upon, the emptying of the castor -was more speedily effected. Altogether the Drunkard must have swallowed ;bout a quart of ram."
The drinking habits of the people and the sloth which their yearly -displays foster have, we suspect, more to do with the decay of the kingdom than Mr. Skertchly seems to think. To these annual customs the head men of all the towns and districts of the king- dom gather with their retinues, and spend months in drinking, dancing, and idle palavering.
Mr. Skertchly has much to say about the so-called Amazons or female soldiers, whose numbers and nominally enforced celibacy he accounts the chief causes of the nation's decline. The sacred character of these troops seems in singular contrast with the fighting they have to do, they being guarded with the rigidity almost of an Eastern senana. The appearance and dress of their various corps, their -dances and speeches, and all that concerns their deportment as " soldieresses " are here set down most minutely, with many reflec- tions and other not over lively addenda. Some remarks which the author makes, a propos of this part of his narrative, regarding the use which old maids might be put to in this country, are by no means in good taste, and had better have been left unsaid. The majority of old Maids, we feel sure, do not deserve to have it said of them that "it would in many cases be a happy release from (for ?] their relatives if all the old maids could be enlisted, and trained to vent their feline spite and mischief-making propensities -on the enemies of their country, instead of their neighbours." That may be merely an idle attempt at rough wit, bat whatever it be, it is not manly, and it imputes what is not true.
For the fetish-worship of the people Mr. Skertchly has the greatest contempt, and it is certainly about the grossest form of superstition that we can remember to have heard of. The dis- gusting adjuncts of their worship are not less repulsive than the debasing character of the beliefs. But we think Mr. Skertchly should have made some allowance for these facts when dealing -with the missionaries, for whom he has no good word. Doubtless they are not perfect, nor have they always been very wise, and the -present Methodist native minister at Whydah, the only Pro- testant representative of the Christian teacher in Dahomey, may be the drunken, debased wretch he is painted, but we think the class are to some degree to be forgiven for not perceiving that native shrewdness and intelligence which he blames
them for scouting in their attempts to teach their faith to the people When not scolding these pioneers of religion, no one could give a lower estimate of the mass of the people than Mr. Skertchly him- self. We admit that the first work of the missionaries should be to teach the people the arts of civilised life, and that if the African is ever to be in any degree permanently elevated, men must be found willing to undertake that work. Still that was a truth that tad to be discovered by experience, like many another, and if the 'lesson has been well learned, we are not disposed to bear hardly on those men who failed that we might learn,—the victims of a false -theory and an unreal faith, far more than deliberate .wrong-doers. -Certainly, much help to even the best of missionaries cannot be
loped for, we fear, from the ruin-selling merchants who represent civilisation there now.
We have touched on one or two of the more prominent or debatable points in this book, rather than attempted to convey an outline of its contents, for the latter is a task not possible within the limits of a review. The book is full and pains- taking, though pat together in rather a slipshod and occa- sionally even slangy fashion, in all that relates to the ceremonies at Abomey, the capital, and in details about the King and the fetish-worship, and to those who care for such things it will be in- teresting. But it offers nothing new either as to the past or future of the races who inhabit the country, and the theories of the author on the position of those races and on religion differ little from those promulgated by Burton. What the real position and capacity of the negro is can indeed hardly be determined until we have seen bow he behaves under conditions more favourable than any that have yet fallen to his lot. If the Dahoman be the shrewd person Mr. Skertchly says, there may be hope for him yet, and he may reach a higher scale of being than his detractors yet dream of. England has, we think, much to answer for in regard to these races, and it would be both cowardly and productive of much harm were she, as some advise, to shrink from her duty, and leave them only the anarchy which she had helped to produce as a legacy. Dahomey is capable of paying us for the trouble taken in trying to civilise its inhabitants. The land is good, well wooded, capable of cultivation, and cf exporting much produce, and it seems a pity that we should have no official representative there —after all, the best missionary to begin with—capable of sup- porting the King in reforming measures, and able to teach his people arts which would make them richer than slave-dealing, and the practice of which might be the first step to higher things. A most lamentable account is given here of the state of the English quarters or fort at Whydah, the port. The principal building has the appearance of an English barn, "a few cannon, admirably honeycombed, are mounted on the bastions of the enclosing wall by being stuck in the 'swish,' while others are lying with gaping touch-holes on the side of the ditch." The place is now occupied by some English merchants. This is hardly as it should be.
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