BOOKS.

CAPTAIN FORBES'S DAHOMEY AND TRE DA 1101dANS.* ArrEn the late John Duncan returned from his successful expedi- tion to the Kong Mountains, he was appointed Tice-Consul at the court of his former friend the King of Dahomey. Consular business could only turn up at the Dahoman port of Whydah, and that with British subjects supplying goods to the slavers ; but Mr. Duncan was directed to proceed to the capital, charged with some mission about the slave-trade. When the Consul arrived upon the coast, he wished a naval officer to accompany him to court: Captain Forbes had been longing for the journey, he volun- teered his services and was permitted to join. }rem Why- dah to Abomey, the capital, is only a few days' journey, and by providing relays of bearers it may be done in fourteen hours. Under royal patronage, the mission reached Abomey comfortably enough ; and there they were hospitably entertained ; made their presents, which were graciously received ; accepted an invitation to be present at the King's Customs or national fetes and games, in the spring of 1850; when his Majesty said he should be able to get up a palaver and give an answer to the proposition. On the return of the Mission, poor Duncan was taken ill : he was got on board with some difficulty on reaching Whydah, and died soon af- terwards, of a liver complaint, caused, no doubt, by his African exposure in the Buxton Niger expedition' and his various travels in Dahomey. To the Customs, therefore, Captain Forbes returned alone, and as sole envoy. His volumes contain an account of his two journies to Abomey, and of what he saw there ; a description of the features and productions of the country, as well as of the manners and customs of the people, together with sketches of the history of Dahomey. An appendix contains some illustrative de- tails, chiefly statistical, with extracts from previous sojourners in the country: the author's own ideas upon the A frican slave-trade,

and the various vexed questions connected therewith, are ex- pounded in various places.

To some extent, Duncan's account of his expedition to the Kona- Mountains has forestalled the novelty of Dahomey and the Doh:- mans : the freshness of Captain Forbes's observations depends less upon the matter than the circumstances under which the matter was observed. There is something, too, in the almost childish nature of the African mind, which renders it devoid of strength of charac- ter; so that social descriptions or personal portraits furnish little variety or interest : one is a type of all. In reviewing Duncan's work,-j- we observed upon the strange instability of power in Africa, where a few years have witnessed the downfall of the Fellatah empire and the reduction of Ashantee to a second-rate kingdom ; Dahomey seeming to have risen upon their ruin, most likely to sink in turn on the death of the present able sove- reign. Notwithstanding this uncertainty of kingdoms and the childish mind of individuals, the social institutions of this part of Africa appear worthy of a more philosophical observation than they have yet received by men whose forte is action rather than speculation, and whose sole medium of communication is an in- terpreter with feeble intelligence and imperfect language. The Dahomans, like many other barbarous people, have not only the germs of a regular but even of a constitutional government. The King is despotic enough in the power of taking life, but this is the custom of the country. Every great man has slaves slaughtered on his death, like our Scandinavian ancestors of yore ; and his fa- vourite wife is expected to commit suicide. No quarter is given to enemies, unless a profit can be made of them as slaves ; and war is a constant craving with monarch and people, as it was in the middle ages of Europe, and from much the same stimulants— love of gain and glory. Justice is prompt, and often doubtless works as much wrong as delay elsewhere ; and punishments are bloody : but great allowances are to be made for the savage mind, which looks upon mildness as weakness and can only be controlled by fear. The skulls that surround the palaces and figure in the heraldry of the Dahomans, are barbarous to our notions ; but Eu-

rope had something like it formerly, and Oriental nations as long as they remained powerful. To count the victims who are an- nually sacrificed by royal command at the Customs, "watering the graves" as it is technically termed, the King would seem a bloody barbarian ; but, despot as he is, he cannot help it. Captain Forbes could only save the lives of three victims by buying them off, and the King dared not sell him any more ; it was "as much as his place was worth." According to etiquette, his two chief Ministers (one of whom, by the by, is royal executioner) grovel in the dust before him, but the two united have more power than the King. The postponement of the business of the Mission on its first arrival might originate in a diplomatic ruse ; but there is no doubt that the power of the chiefs in " palaver " is very great ; in fact, nothing can with safety be ventured upon against their opinion, or without it in any new matter. The King, in short, is despotic for popular evil, powerless for good. Give lum an order for any num- ber of slaves, and it will be promptly executed; ask him to abolish the slave-trade, and the absolute monarch would find his power slip away. Unluckily, while the monarch is indifferent or at best diplomatically civil, his great men are all engaged in the business. "The mayo called. He is a little old man, with good Roman features, nothing of the Negro, about seventy-five years of age, and a confirmed slave-

• Dahomey and the Dahomans • • being the Journals of two Missions to the King of Dahomey, and Residence at hisCapital, in the years 1849 and 18,50. By Frederick E. Forbes, Commander R.N., &c., Author of "Five Years in China," Inc. 8r.e. 19

two volumes. Published by Longman and Co. + 4Dectator, 1847; page.9178.

dealer ; his forefathers were, and he has been such all his life. Here is a difficulty : the power of the mayo is very great ; the monarch dare not enter I into a treaty unless the miegan and the mayo coincide. The nnegan, a man of forty, is also a slave-dealer by descent; as also are the camboedee and ee-a-voo-g,an, reaping all the benefits and deriving luxuries from a trade of which they have not sense to know the horrors. In conversation, the minis- ter complained that British goods could not be had in the same quality as those sold in former years; and, producing a piece half silk half cotton, he :said the King had had it twenty years, and had directed him to ask if we could procure more. Having explained to him that an honest-minded Bri- tish merchant would not trade with slave-dealers, and that such as did trade could not be expected to offer good articles, we promised to make a note of the royal wish.

" Mr. Beccroft showed him some silk handkerchiefs, such as are bartered on the rivers, and told him if he would grow palm-oil he might have ship- loads of such; and explained to him tho position of the natives in those countries that had relinquished the barbarous infamous slave-trade, and had become civilized by intercourse with honest traders and the all-civilizing powers of trade : but I fear to little purpose. Pocketing two gold rings and a handkerchief, he bid us good-by, explaining that the slave-trade was very lucrative, and it would take some time to grow the palm-trees."

The Customs, where the courtiers, the army, and vast numbers of the people were all assembled together, to be present at the " waterings," to join in or witness the reviews and processions, and to partake of the King's hospitality, or whatever might be going on, supply some novelty. At a review, his Majesty himself bore a part in the ceremony, in a manner contrary to our ideas of fitness, but of which similar examples are not wanting in heroic or patriarchal times.

"The king took his seat under a canopy of umbrellas, and placed us on , his right : about the royal person were the ministers and high military offi- cers; at the foot of the throne sat the too-noo.noo; and now in the distance, ready at call, appeared the niae-hae-pah, a soldier too. As soon as the king was seated, the troops, male and female, marched past in quick time ; seventy- seven banners and one hundred and sixty huge umbrellas enlivening die scene ; while fifty-five discordant bands, and the shouts of the soldiers as they hailed the king en passant, almost deafened the observers.

"The royal male regiments, separating from the main body, headed by an emblem of a leopard on a staff, skirmished towards the royal canopy, keep- ing up a constant independent fire. In advance was a band of blunderbuss- men in long green grass cloaks, for bush service. Halting in front, they held aloft their muskets with one hand, while with the other they rattled a small metal bell, which each soldier carried, and yelled and shouted. Some having light ornamented pieces, flung them into the air, to catch them again. This is the Dahonian salute ; and in answer to it, his Majesty left his war-stool, and, placing himself at their head, danced a war-dance. First, he received a musket and fired it ; then danced, advanced, and retired ; he then crept cautiously forward, and standing on tiptoe, reconnoitered ; this he did several times, dancing each time a retreat : at last, making certain of the position of the enemy, he received and fired a musket ; and this was the signal for all, with a war-cry, to rush on and recommence firing. On their recall, having again saluted, the king returned to his tent, and told us he

had been to war." * •

"After much firing, the amazons took position to the left, and having formed a canopy in the centre for their officers, who sat on stools, squatted on their hams. In this undignified but usual position, with their long Da- nish muskets standing up like a forest, they remained observers of the re- mainder of the operation. This now became a sort of military levee, at which each chief prostrated before the king, introduced his officers, and re- ported the numbers of his retainers.

"Having taken ground at the further end of the field, one at a time, the squadrons enfiladed between two fetish houses, and commenced an independ- ent open fire, and deploying into line, passed to the right of the royal stool, while the officers came up at double quick time, prostrated themselves, danced, fired muskets, and then received each as a mark of favour a bottle of rum. After the cabooceers had thus passed, the ministers performed the same ceremony. Among them was Seiler Ignatio Da Souza, the slave- dealer and eabooceer, at the head of his brother the cha-cha's levies. As they danced down towards the royal seat, the King left his throne and went out and danced with him.

"A regiment advanced guarding the idols of the military fetishes ; the King again left his stool, and poured some ruin on black puddings of human blood, which were carried by the fetish priests. At seven the last body had passed, that of the mayo's company of three hundred men, which ended the review.

"Order and discipline were observable throughout, uniform and good accoutrements general; and, except in the most civilized countries in the world, and even there as regarded the order of the multitude, no review could have gone off better. There was no delay, no awkwardness, no acci- dent: aides-de-camp were rushing about with orders ; it was noble and ex- tremely interesting. Every facility was offered us towards acquiring in- formation, and, except an exaggeration in numbers, truly given. The King has great pride in his army-, and often turned to us with an inquiring eye as the amazons went through their evolutions : he is justly proud of these fe- male guards, who appear in every way to rival the male."

Like most British officers who have served on the coast, Captain Forbes has his schemes for abolishing the slave-trade. They are not of a very feasible kind, and are hardly consistent with each other, or with his data. He speaks of education and moral means, and undervalues coercion, as useless in putting a complete stop to the trade, and therefore as aggravating its horrors : yet he has a project for a still snore extensive blockade by means of decked boats, and contemplates more forts, and an attack upon those European,residents or their agents at Whydah, whom he alleges to be concerned in die trade. The blockade, however, is only in- tended to be partial ; and there is consequently the risk, if not the certainty, of the trade breaking out afresh. If it be true, as Captain Forbes states, that the slave-dealers will turn out of a barracoon, as "dangerous," any man who can read, it is possible that if all Africa were educated the slave-trade might be put an end to ; but it might not, any more than, work was put an end to (as some of our forefathers predicted it would be) when the "lower classes" -were taught reading and writing. But who is to bell the eat? The climate is a bar to Europeans, and the author's own pictures of many liberated Africans do not promise much from them. Li- beria, from which such great results were expected, is not alto- gether a country of the free. "The Liberian people are doubtless held up as an example to tbe ge- neral state of the African; but I prefer not instancing that state further than to prove I have not overlooked it. For in Liberia there is as much, if not more, domestic slavery—that is tho buying and selling of God's image as in the parent states of America, over which flaunts the flag of Libert • (%) It is difficult to see the necessity or the justice of the Negro who escapes from slavery on one side, crossing the Atlantic to enslave his sable prototype on the other ; yet such is the ease : and so long as it lasts, notwithstanding the attractive reports that emanate from this new republic, it cannot be held as an example of future good, but, if possible, should be remodelled, even if at the expense of internal revolution, or even total annihilation. I doubt if many benevolent Christians in this country are aware, that the Model Republic is in reality a new name and form for slavery in enslaved Afri- ca, and, until the system be altered, totally undeserving d the high support and liberal charity it receives from the benevolence of Englishmen."

The English residents, according to Captain Forbes, are not much better; and his assertions lead to the question, whether, in a state of society where slavery has long existed, any service can be procured or work be performed without a power of coercion.

"The system of domestic slavery is by no means confined to the Liberian portion of civilized Africa. Pawns (as the fashion terms the slaves on the Gold Coast) are received and held by Englishmen indirectly, and arc to all intents and purposes their slaves. The plan adopted is this. The merchant takes unto himself a femme du pays, and she nian_oanes his establishment. Nor does he inquire how she hires his servants. Her mode is to accept pawns, i.e. purchase slaves, by receiving num, woman, and child, in liqui- dation of debt ; in other words, selling goods to native merchants, who for convenience leave slaves in payment. These pawns are as directly slaves to their master as any slaves in the United States, but cannot be sold out of the country. I myself am aware of one femme du pays of a British merchant being the owner of forty pawns, who perform the household and other ser- vices of the master, and are, except in name, his slaves. His money pur- chased them ; and they obey his commands on pain of corporal punishment, and draw him to and fro in his carriage when taking exercise. How far is this removed from actual slavery ?"

Captain Forbes adduces the Bonny, as an example of what can be done by legitimate trade ; for there the merchant-kings import silks, &c. and drink champagne : but his instance is not conclusive. Bonny is the focus of a great water communication, and has for years been the head-quarters of a commerce which grew up na- turally, though the blockade may have given it artificial encourage- ment.