WE REACH THE CAPITAL.
I resolved while life remained to persevere to the last in attempting
an escape.
"'I shall never succeed,' is often the parent of failure" (to quote
Isaac Taylor when writing on character). "'I will not try any more,'
ensures disappointment. 'It is all _chance_, and I am not in luck,'
most commonly leads to disgrace."
Calling his words to memory, I resolved to trust to none of these
fatal phrases, for I had passed through too many perils not to hope
that a few more might be surmounted.
An old writer says, "The King of Benin has men in pay to furnish
travellers with water, and these keep great pots full of that which
is fresh and clear at convenient distances, with a shell to drink it
out of; but no person must take a drop without paying for it; and if
the waterman is absent, they drink, leave the money, and pursue their
way."
It may have been so when old Dapper wrote or romanced, but not a drop
of water found we on the weary track to quench our burning thirst,
save in stagnant tarns by the wayside.
It was towards the close of a day when we had been nearly choked by
the sulphurous heat which filled the air after a violent
thunderstorm, that we approached the city of Benin, and saw its long
lines of huts, or wigwams, each one story high, covering for many
miles the right bank of the Formosa, one of the greatest estuaries
which disgorge their waters into the Bight of Benin.
Groves of beautiful wood, orange, lime trees, cotton and pepper
bushes, spread along the banks of the river, and many floating
islets, covered with flowers and unknown fruit trees, are constantly
borne past by its waters, from the unexplored lands through which
they flow.
The city and its walls too were unlike aught I had ever seen before;
yet their extent was great, and the dusky hordes that peopled them
are probably unnumbered and unknown.
We were admitted through a wooden gate in the ramparts, which were
composed of the trunks of trees pegged together, as palisades are in
America, but loopholed for arrows or musketry; and the guard at this
gate, as at all the others, was composed entirely of women armed with
bows, lances, and old firelocks, for, like his royal brother of
Dahomey, the sovereign of Benin has somewhere about four thousand
wives, whom he has armed and formed into troops, and who--when off
duty--make crocks, pots, and pipkins of clay, from the sale of which
he derives his principal revenue.
They were all stout and handsome negresses, attired in a species of
petticoat which reached below the knee, with a vest to cover the
breast; their hair was dyed into alternate red and white locks, and
they had great rings of polished metal on their otherwise bare arms.
Through this guarded gate our long cavalcade of laden camels,
dromedaries, negroes, and slaves, passed down a populous street of
great width, and nearly three miles in length. The houses, or huts,
on either side, were alike singular in aspect and construction, being
built of red clay, and having behind or around them spacious gardens
and shady groves of lime and orange trees. Vast crowds of male and
female blacks followed us, but in solemn silence, as the cavalcade
bore a double tribute to the dead king and his successor, towards
whose royal palace--if the odd collection of fantastic buildings
could so be called--we now proceeded.
We passed through a kind of square, which Amoo described to me as the
market-place; and there the king's female guards were exposing for
sale great quantities of their clay pots and pipkins, gourd bottles,
calibash basons, wooden spoons and ladles of all sorts and sizes, at
their own prices; for these industrious Amazons enjoyed the entire
monopoly of this branch of trade; and as a hint that none might
interfere with them, there hung by iron hooks upon a gibbet the
headless bodies of four men, in a frightful state of decay, with
turkey buzzards feeding on the fragments that dropped from them, as
they sweltered in the burning sunshine.
In the centre of this market-place rose a pyramid some twenty feet
high, formed entirely of human skulls, bleached white as snow by the
alternate rain and sun--a ghastly and terrible trophy of barbarism
and cruelty, which reminded me of stories I had read of old Mexico,
where similar monuments adorned the cities of the Incas; or of the
tower formed of the skulls of slaughtered Christians, now standing in
the Mohammedan isle of Gerba.
Fascinated by this revolting spectacle, I passed on with the dusky
multitude; and Amoo informed me (while all prostrated their ugly
faces in the dust) that we stood at the gate of the king's palace!
It was a vast collection of rambling wooden houses, which formed the
dwellings of the sovereign, his wives, fiadoors, or officials,
stables for his horses and dromedaries, dens for slaves or prisoners
(a commodity with which he seldom troubled himself), magazines for
stores and plunder. These edifices extended for nearly a mile before
us; and on all those quaint buildings, which were barbarously adorned
with the bones and horns of animals, a grinning human skull was the
chief ornament.
Through a barrier _manned_ by a motley multitude of female guards,
many of whom were armed with bayonets and old brass-butted Tower
muskets, which may have done service under Moore and Wellington, we
were conducted into a court surrounded by copper figures, so
monstrous in aspect and conception, that the eye laboured in vain to
discover whether they were meant to represent men, beasts, or birds.
The crowd who followed were all well armed with spears, bows and
arrows, which, as Amoo informed me, were duly poisoned by the
_fetishers_, or priests. Many of the fiadoors wore gay dresses of
Dutch scarlet cloth, caps edged with civet fur, and necklaces of
jasper and fine coral, or rings of yellow copper, bracelets of lions'
teeth, and bucklers of rhinoceros hide.
Round this court were wooden pillars, curiously carved and painted,
and, in some instances, covered with plates of engraved copper--the
hieroglyphical records of battles, victories, and massacres--the
edifices were roofed with palm canes, and had many fantastic
pinnacles, surmounted by human skulls, or birds dried and prepared,
with their pinions outspread.
In the centre of the court, about twenty negroes, captured from some
hostile tribe, were digging a deep hole, like a vast grave, with
wooden shovels; and they grinned at us malevolently as we passed them.
Amoo now told me "that the time was come to which he had so often
referred, when a great honour would be conferred on me, and when we
must part."
I knew not what all this meant, but bewildered by the scenes through
which I had passed, the strange places in which I found myself,
wearied by the toil of our journey, choked by dust and heat almost to
fainting, I resigned myself to the custody of the negress guard, and
left Amoo, whom hitherto I had considered a species of protector.
Perceiving the dejected state I was in, he gave me a draught from his
gourd bottle; and as I was thrust into my prison, and the door of it
closed upon me, I saw for the last time save once, the dark visage of
this friendly savage, who never forgot that I had rescued his child
from the baboon.
The wooden door was secured upon me; the hum of guttural voices died
away as the cavalcade passed on to some other portion of this vast
and rambling habitation of barbarous royalty; then I was left to my
own reflections, and partly in the dark; at least, there was just
sufficient light to enable me to see a pile of straw, or dried river
grass, on which I threw myself in weariness, if not in despair, as I
knew not what new misfortune fate had in store for me.
Sleep, oblivion, I courted in vain. I was now, though exhausted, in
too high a state of nervous excitement for sleep; and as my eyes
became accustomed to the dim twilight of my prison, I could perceive
the chamber to be fashioned of the trunks of trees, squared,
smoothed, and pegged together, and then painted with barbarous
figures. Above the door by which I had entered were three human
skulls, placed upon the hoofs of hippopotami, as brackets.
A sound as of something rustling in a distant corner attracted my
attention. I approached, and saw upon a pile of straw and dry leaves
a white man extended at full length, and almost destitute of clothing.
I drew nearer softly, for I knew not whether this new companion in
misfortune might be alive or dead.
Then imagine what were my emotions on discovering him to be my
friend, sunk in a profound slumber--my old friend, Robert Hartly,
captain of the fated _Leda_.