FROM WHYDAH TO ALLADÁ, THE HALF-WAY HOUSE.
Comm. Ruxton left Whydah December 10, and our departure appeared
imminent. Unfortunately, certain Wen-san-gun,[97] or royal messengers,
announced their arrival; they had walked from the capital in three days,
and though fire would not have made them own it, they required rest.
The King had despatched two of his Akho ’si,[98] or eunuchs, and the
senior, Mr. “De-adan-de,” was a person of some dignity: had he been his
master he could not have displayed it more haughtily; but when we saw
him at Agbome, his deportment became all servility. The junior, Ya-mo-ji
’a, was remarkable only for the sable blackness of his skin, and for a
compound prognathism, supernal and infernal, which, in the profile of
his muzzle, suggested porcinity. These _castrati_ spoke with manly
organs, probably because they had been neutered at a late age; moreover,
in tropical latitudes, the painful change called the breaking of the
voice, is by no means the infliction of which the temperate climates
complain.
This _par nobile_ of officials was accompanied by the Kakopwe,[99] one
of the King’s head servants, sent “to the outside” when great officers
are to be summoned on “King’s palaver” to the capital. The next in rank
was fat So-kun,[100] the English guide, a nephew of the Meu, or second
minister; his “father,” or patron, is the Buko-no, the English
“landlord.” So-kun was duly provided with Bu-ko, his spy, from the
“landlord’s” household, a sharp and obliging lad, and this pair would
keep the royal servants in check. As all caboceers hold their places _ad
placitum regis_, our bevy of officials, amounting to ten in number, soon
arranged about porters, hammock-men, and similar small fry.
There is little to notice in the palaver which the messengers’ arrival
necessitated. We passed the usual compliments, and we drank the normal
toasts. De-adan-de, before “giving King’s word,” produced his
credentials, in the shape of a “shark stick,[101]” a tomahawk about two
feet long, ending in a knob carved into a conventional Squalus, a bit of
iron like a broken axe-edge protruding below the jaw; an equally
grotesque effigy of the “tiger of the deep,” beaten out of a dollar,
being tacked on to the upper part of the handle. “Cannot-get-such-a-son-
to-be-born” had a carved “lion stick,[102]” whose shape is not easily
distinguished from the aquatic animal. These emblems of valour are
preferred by the present ruler to the “crocodile stick,[103]” or the
nail-armed crook,[104] with which the late Gezo used to present his
captains.
The royal messengers sent every day to inquire after our healths and the
slave that bore the cane expected for such suit and service a glass of
trade rum. This, at the capital, will be done by all the great officers,
and most regularly from the palace. It is hardly probable that the King
knows anything about it; and if the process becomes troublesome, it may
readily be arrested, by telling the storekeeper to stop the liquor. As a
rule, the Wen-san-gun delay the stranger for at least a week by the most
specious pretences. They draw from him “subsistence money,”—the old
local word,—at about the rate of four-pence a day each; and when the
journey ends they expect a piece of cloth, at the employer’s discretion.
Such are the paltry considerations which here waste the visitor’s
precious time.
I gave the messengers to understand that if they were not ready in three
days, they must remain behind, and afterwards overtake us. This put them
on their mettle. Already our heavy luggage, carried by twenty-two
porters, had been sent forward to the first stage, followed by a second
gang of thirty-seven. Four sets, or thirty hammock-men, completed the
equipage, making a total of ninety-nine mouths, including the messengers
and guides, and not including interpreters and body servants.[105]
On December 13th, all was ready. Before setting out, however, I must
briefly sketch the party. Mr. Bernasko was accompanied by his son Tom, a
small boy of eleven, who already spoke half-a-dozen of the coast
dialects; and Tom had his ’kla,[106] in the shape of “Dick,” _alias_
Richard Dosu, an imp ten years old, and looking five, whose devilries
were a comedy. There were two interpreters, on the Dahoman principle.
The first was John Mark, popularly called Márĭki, or Mádĭki,[107] the
Hun-to,[108] or nominal head of the English town, Whydah. He is the son
of Mark Lemon, whom Commander Forbes describes as a “perfect Dahoman,
too big a fool to be a rogue,” and in whom Mr. Vice-Consul Frazer found
a very fair average of rascality. John is great-grandson of an English
corporal who commanded the fort under the second Governor James. After
the fashion of the country, the founder of the family is buried in an
inner room of his own home, and a table is annually “spread” for his old
ghost to come and feed. I found John good-natured, obliging, and more
than usually intelligent; indeed, after a little drilling and scolding,
he became a tolerable language master and interpreter. He has, however,
no weight with the King, and—he is confessedly though partly an
Englishman—it made my blood boil to see the contempt with which he was
treated by the negro officers, and the patience opposed by him to their
injuriousness.
The second interpreter was a very different man. Mr. Beecham was a Makhi
slave “dashed” to the Wesleyan Mission, and sent to Cape Coast Castle
for education. With the ready cunning of the servile, he at once
introduced himself there as “Prince Bah”; and, such was his power of
“brass,” it was long before his base origin was found out. Returning to
Agbome after many years, he made an impudent attempt to assist in
rescuing from the palace two Dahoman girls, who, having also been
brought up on the Gold Coast, could not endure a return home. The
“prince” was seized, and handed over to the Meu or second minister, who
in these lands is governor of Horsemonger Lane. It was a treat to see
the face with which he described the horrors of his three days’
incarceration—the heavy chains, the handful of grain, the cup of dirty
water once per diem, and the nights on the hard floor, bitten by the Iwe
worm,[109] which, in dread of a terrible bastinado, he dared not kill.
The imprisonment, however, had completely cowed him; he used to weep
with fear if ordered to go anywhere, or to say anything, from which his
vivid fancy could distil danger, and nothing but the strongest drink,
constantly adhibited, carried him through his trials.
The others were of less importance. Mr. Hilton, coloured tailor and
barber, from the Gold Coast, called himself the ensign, and carried the
flag of St. George. Having served on board an American ship, he had
preserved the twang. He was also idle, useless, impudent, and, of
course, a drunkard. On one occasion his cups led him to break into the
King’s harim, and but for the respect paid to his missionary master, he
would have lost his head. John Valentine, formerly of the Mission, and
the son of a white soldier, was the spy upon all our movements. Joseph
was a Popo rascal, who had once before deserted and left me in the lurch
at Agwe. And Menza Cook was, like most of the Gold Coast people, able in
his art. The rest were the usual “tail,” coming up, as the natives say,
“to eat.” These were, a youth from Danish Accra, called Hansen, because
he had no other name; Josè Pinto, a Portuguese orphan, who was already
no mean linguist; and various catechumens, the slave boys of English
Town, dashed by the King to Mr. Bernasco, and named Philip, Isaac Nahum,
Laja (Elijah) Hoole, Sosu, and so forth. They were hideous to behold, as
the African “hobbledehoy” always is; and their gigantic joints and
extremities, of which the head only was dwindled, seemed connected with
their limbs by loose wires. Their other qualities were hunger,
nakedness, filth, and idleness. They spent nearly two months eating and
drinking, sleeping and dozing, talking and laughing, quarrelling and
gambling, before they put up for themselves a shed. It was one day’s
work. They never finished it. The first thing an African convert does is
to claim, like the modern English convict, a life of utter sloth.
The sun was already warming when our _cortège_ wound, in the misty
morning air, through the town entrance on the north.[110] It is
sentinelled by an enormous Bombax, useless, but of a beauty and a
grandeur well meriting the golden chains with which the nature-loving
Persian hung his favourite plane. Its every branch is a tree, and its
buttressing base measures 150 feet in circumference: under its ample
shade the ground is kept cleared for Fetish meetings.[111] The natives
call it Atin-daho, the Big Tree, or Atin Li-’hun, the “Cotton Tree (of
the place) Li,” the latter being a local name. Our six hammocks,
including those of John, Mark, and the sharp boy Tom, were preceded by
the youth Bu-ko, who, bearing the King’s cane and a hide-whip, easily
cleared the path by driving all the carriers into the bush, and by
dispersing even the juveniles, whose modesty was a phenomenon in African
puerology. We traversed the town in a few minutes. The last house
belongs to one Sogro, a caboceer or captain, called, like all others,
“King’s cousin”: here travellers returning from the interior halt for a
few minutes, enabling their canes and party to precede them. Like most
establishments of some pretensions in Dahome, the house has a tall
entrance with a weather-thatch, and a few matted roofs project a little
above the mud walls of the enceinte.
The hammock in Dahome is not an unpleasant conveyance, especially when
the warmed back is at times cooled by walking. These barbarians,
however, have not, like the Hindus, invented a regular four-in-hand; two
men are easily tired, especially by standing still, which is wearisome
to them as to loaded camels. When they reach a rough place, another
pair, diving in between the usual number, roughly clutch the cloth at
the rider’s shoulders and heels, bumping, if possible, his pate against
the pole. This explains the old traveller’s complaint about being
“trussed in a bag and tossed on negroes’ heads.” They do not carry on
the shoulder, but on their skulls: the notably short and sturdy African
negro neck[112] dictates the choice, and a thin coil of rags or dry
leaves amply suffices for the defence of craniums formed rather for
butting than for beauty. Our hammocks are of modest cottons, whereas the
old factors used silks and broadcloths: before appearing in state,
however, we shall find something gaudy with red and blue. The cloths are
nine feet long by four to five in breadth, and at both ends small
lashings draw the conveyance together like the old net purse. A noose
passes through these lashings, and the clews are then rove tight to pegs
inserted into the frond of a bamboo tree (_Raphia vinifera_). This pole
is objectionable; the brittle material often gives way, when a bad fall
on the occiput is the result: it is better to send for a good Maderan
article, which is strengthened with iron hooks instead of being weakened
by peg-holes. The pole is nine feet long: over it is shipped a fringed
or valanced awning, fortified by three cross laths, and provided with a
running line to tilt it down on the side next the sun. The noisier the
hammock men are, and the more they abuse their employer—in their mother
tongues—the better for him.
Beyond Sogro’s place, with its maize-fields, and the scattered line of
lofty Bombax and umbrella-trees, which backs the town, we issued upon a
rolling plain, open and fair to view. The tall thick Guinea grass, which
is being burned down before the dry-season sowing, rises from old ridges
that evidence no remote clearing in a land ever liable to be overflowed
with bush like the waves of the sea. The bright leek-green vegetation of
the young herbage stands out gaudily from the black charred stems and
from the red loam of the ground. The road is excellent, ten to twelve
feet wide, sandy, and lately cleared of grass: it is thronged with
carriers in Indian file, mostly women, bearing huge loads lashed to the
usual Yoruba basket. The monotony of the surface is relieved by clumps
and groves of palm-tree, which are stunted in the open, and which tower
in the bush to exceeding height, seeking good light, air, and sun. In
other places the palmyra (_P. nobilis_ or _Borassus flabelliformis_),
and the oil-palm (_Elæis Guineensis_), are scattered like the trees of
an English orchard, all the latter being numbered, with a view to
revenue.[113] The palmyra (locally called cocoa, and by Mr. Duncan
“cabbage palm”) is a noble tree, useful as ornamental. The hard wood
makes excellent cabinet-work, and is so durable that after 200 years
rafters remain as sound as when first cut. Of course it is barbarously
wasted. The fruit, which hangs in picturesque corymbs about the rounded
neck, resembles a bunch of red and rusty oranges, but four times the
size; hard and stringy, it is still edible, with a slight flavour of
gingerbread, and after bush fires it strews the ground with a faint
perfume of the mango. Here the people, unlike those of the Congo River,
do not draw wine from the palmyra. When young the head of the bulging
stem is often twice as thick as at the foot, giving to the tree an
inverted appearance. When full grown, the central and symmetrical wave
adds, as in the Grecian column, greatly to its beauty and solidity. In
old age, it often loses its head-tuft, and appears from afar like a huge
flag-staff. There is music also in the fan-palm: its flabelliform leaves
rustle in the sea-breeze like the rushing of waters or the pattering of
rain upon thick foliage—delicious sounds in a thirsty land.
After a quarter of an hour we had crossed a bulge of grassy ground whose
inland counterslope leads down to a narrow but a dense transverse line
of bush, Bombax, and broad-leaved figs. Here the smell of the hardly
eatable wild mango mingles with many a baser savour. The jungle-strip
through which our path winds may be 200 yards in breadth, and is the
result of the superior humidity diffused by the Agbana water. This
marigot runs from east to west. In May, I found it thigh deep with brown
horsepond lying upon a fetid black bed of vegetable decay: in December,
it wets the calf; in February, it will show only caked mud, and during
the rains it will be troublesome to travellers. The reader will remember
that I have already shown him[114] a miniature facsimile of this
country.
The foul marigot was easily crossed: we then ascended another wave of
ground, and found on its flat surface the little village of Yonu-Pakhon,
half buried in the plantain-bush to our right. Another descent led into
a thick copse, where, during the inundations, water must run strongly in
a hollow parallel with the road. Again a gentle ascent to clear and
level ground placed us amongst the small plantations outlying the grey
thatches and the mat huts of Savi. Mixed with a large proportion of
bush, were poor maize and wilted cassava, which, in the form of the
insipid and unnutritious farinha,[115] is the staff of life at Whydah,
and in Southern Dahome. There are also mangoes, plantains, a few cocoa-
nuts, oranges, the African apple growing almost wild, and orchards of
well-trimmed oil-palms.
The sound of drumming now halted us to form up for a ceremonious
entrance; at two hours before noon the sun made me regret the
comfortable obscurity of my former march. But “it had to be done.” Our
stools—the traveller must not forget these articles when visiting
Dahome—were ranged under shady trees, and presently the envoys of
Akponi, the Caboceer, who is under the Yevo-gan of Whydah, came out
dancing and tabouring a welcome. We remounted, and entering Savi took
post under a tall but thin-leaved ficus. In the most public part of the
town, we could see nothing but “compounds,” huts, and hovels of weather-
browned palm-thatch, with here and there a white calico flag emerging
from the bush or the fruit trees.[116] This, however, is a
characteristic of all Dahoman towns, which are made to look meanest from
the road. The grandees, like the sub-regulus Chyudaton, who are ever
liable to be summoned north, here have “palaces” for inns. I was shown a
fine house of red swish, banded with red and blue pigments, in an
enceinte containing all sorts of conveniences for white travellers, with
a detached kitchen, feeding rooms, and sleeping huts for servants. The
aneroid proved that Savi is 44 feet higher than Whydah town; and we
tasted, the last for a time, the vivifying sea breeze.
“Savi” is written “Savee” by Commander Forbes; Sabi, or Sabec (the
latter is probably a misprint, copied into the Ethiopic Directory), by
others; and Xavier, by Mr. Norris.[117] It was the ancient capital of
the kingdom of Hwe-dah, Fidah, or Whydah, a royaume not exceeding the
principality of Lichtenstein, but provided with an army of 200,000, not
of seventy, soldiers.[118] Bosman, Barbot, and Phillips, at the end of
the last century, dwelt lengthily upon its wealth, its fertility, and
its wonderful populousness, the rascality of its people, and the villany
of its royal animalculæ. In 1722 the despot of Whydah, upon whose court
that of modern Dahome seems to have been modelled, could afford to
“dash” a half-hundred weight of gold-dust to Captain, afterwards Sir
Challoner Ogle, for capturing off Cape Lopez, and duly hanging, the
pirate Roberts, in his ship, aptly named the “Royal Fortune.” Savi was
separated from its northern neighbour, Allada (Ardrah), by a dangerous
swamp, which we shall presently cross. In these lands, where there are
neither streets nor public buildings, and where the best houses are of
swish, we must not expect an approach to architectural antiquities;
nothing now remains of the ancient glories of Savi; even in A.D. 1772,
we are told, only the moats of the many European forts could be traced.
A long trench, with a tall growth of trees, was the sole remnant of the
palace occupied by the Whydah kings, whose descendants, even in their
exile, held their ancient capital sacred. Savi is now a fine large
village, a market, and a halting-place for travellers; its population
has been rated at 4000, which I would reduce by one cypher.[119]
Our reception at Savi must be described; it will save the trouble of
repetition. At every village, even where only two dancers could be
mustered, upon us was the ceremony inflicted. Advancing in our hammocks,
which were preceded by men capering, firing, and shouting songs of
welcome, we saw the Caboceer Akponi prepared to receive us in state
under the ragged ficus on the west of the town. Shaded by a tattered and
battered old white calico umbrella, he sat upon a tall Gold-Coast stool,
with a smaller edition cut out of the same block supporting his naked
feet. He was a quiet-looking senior, in a striped waist-cloth; a single
blue Popo bead,[120] strung with a human incisor to a thread—a Chiefly
decoration,—represented the rest of his toilette. Our seats were ranged
opposite the Caboceer,—mine in the centre, Mr. Cruikshank’s on the
right, the Yewe-no[121] on my left, the interpreters behind, and the
rest anywhere. After greetings and compliments, ensued a ceremony never
afterwards neglected—the “King’s wife” was whispered by the chief, and
frequently she returned with a large calabash, covered by a drinking cup
of the same material, full of pure water.[122] De-Adan-de explained to
the interpreter, who reported to us, that this luxury was sent to wash
our mouths and to cool our hearts after the march. The officer first
tasted it, and we all followed his example. The xenium, or guest-gift,
was then placed before us. It varied with the wealth of the place. In a
thriving town it consisted of a huge pot of water, a calabash of poor
palm-oil, and a bowl of purer stuff, baskets of oranges and papaws,
boiled maize, beans, and yams, cooked manioc, “akansan” wrapped in
leaves, “cankey,” “agidi,” “fufu,” and a very tasty pudding, called
“wo.[123]” A chicken, a fowl, or a goat denote a rich man. Where the
King has palaces the wives forward dishes of palaver sauce, stews of
pork and poultry, rich with the Occro,[124] and similar savoury dishes.
The return was rum or gin. Owing, however, to the carelessness of So-
kun, our boxes were hurried forwards, and we were obliged to borrow
liquor on the road. The guides expect a glass every morning and evening
when they come to salute, and the hammock-men also have a ration of rum.
So So-kun’s hours were duly made bitter.
After the offering was given and acknowledged, the dance began. As at
Whydah, most of the fighting men had gone to the capital for the annual
“Customs,” and the largest number found in any village on the route was
sixteen. Dressed in war tunics and armed with muskets, they were aligned
by the master of ceremonies, horsetail in hand, opposite the band, which
consisted of the usual Chingufu or cymbals, horns, rattles, and drums.
The latter, in a full band, comprises the “grande caisse,” supported
between the performer’s legs, and beaten with two clubs a foot and a
half long: the treble to this bass is a tom-tom or tabour, suspended to
the musician’s neck, and tapped with the hand palm. There is also a
connecting link between the two, a drum four to five feet long by one in
diameter, open behind, and supported on bamboo trestles. The head is
smeared with “awon,” the gum of a tree, and it is operated upon by means
of a stick in the right hand, and in the other a dwarf rattan bow with a
leathern thong, the part applied. At the King’s levées we shall meet
with other drums.
Amongst the two hundred spectators were seven of the chief’s elder
wives, mostly fat, one white with leper spots, and all clad in simple
blue baft. They passed to our right, and, presenting their backs, danced
opposite a branch band of four rattles and otabals, seated upon the
ground. They performed mincingly, threatened to raise their clothes by
slightly lifting the corners, and they were presently joined by the
youngest children, whose diminutive limbs tottered over the loose dusty
ground.
Meanwhile, the twelve warriors carried us back to the days of the
Curetes. They began with the “agility dance,” all advancing in line.
Then one would spring to the fore, paddling, stamping, agitating the
lower part of his person; above jerking his elbows as if he wished to
make the bones dash together; and pirouetting with legs far apart, one
raised, and after the turning, brought down to the ground, not on toe-
tip, but on the whole length and breadth of the vasty sole, he would
call forth the general applause of the lookers-on, who clapped with
their palms time for the band and humoured the whims of the performer.
When perspiration made every coat shine like a sealion’s hide, the men
stood and the women sat to sing the chorus, which was,
“The flesh liveth not without the bone.”
This part was worthy of the Italian opera. There was the same time-
honoured action, the same meaningless head-shaking of the artists when
addressing one another about nothing, the identical extending and waving
the right arm to no purpose, and the veritable Shakspeare-old stride and
stand,—as if human being out of Bedlam ever progressed in that way. All
was professional as a chorus of peasants in Sonnambula.
Akponi then paraded stridingly before his men, boasting of his devotion
to the King, and his readiness to serve the Akhosu-Jono, the “King’s
strangers.” Coming forward, he interpellated me. I was safe within my
slave’s lands. If I ordered him to jump (suiting the action to the
word), jump he must; if told to fly (fluttering his arms), he must
become a bird; and if sent beneath the earth (smoothing the dust with
his hand), he must go there. Dahomans delight in these ridiculous
displays, which are those of the Court, and such is the true African’s
innate vanity, the King takes equal pleasure in hearing the absurdest
vaunts, whilst the most Hibernian “blarney” is most prodigally spouted
at him by his lieges.
The speeches were delivered with immense vehemence of voice and gesture:
at times a screaming question was addressed to the bystanders, who
replied with a loud long-drawn groan of general assent and applause. At
times the normal Dahoman “present arms” varied the proceedings. It was
acknowledged by removing the hat and thrice waving the arm. As the
“decapitation dance” began, we excused ourselves on account of the sun,
and retired to breakfast. If the performance take place at a late hour,
it is better to give the chief a rendezvous at one’s quarters in the
evening; for the chorus will be followed by a dance, and the dance by
another chorus, and so on till the village can no more.
When the sun began to slope, we took ceremonious leave of Akponi, the
Caboceer, who preceded us with umbrella and band, whilst the musketeers
followed our hammocks. A few paces over descending ground led us through
the rude market, where a knot of women sat before their baskets of
edibles. Then we struck into the beginning of the bush (or forest) land,
which, with a few clearings, extends from Savi to Allada: it is so thick
that axes would be required by those wishing to leave the path. We
halted at the De-nun, or octroi-house, ever the entrance and exit of
Dahoman, and, indeed, of all Yoruba towns. The place of profit was
denoted by a Jo-susu, or wind-luck,[125] which commonly appears at gates
and entrances. It is a gallery of three thin poles, under which the road
passes. From the horizontal limb depends a mat four feet square, painted
with a St. Andrew’s cross in red, in black, or in both mixed, and where
the four arms meet, a cock is crucified, like St. Peter, head downwards.
As will appear, tricks are played with crucifixes in Dahome, and it is
impossible to judge whether the Jo-susu is an aboriginal or an imported
idea distorted. The unoffending “bird that warned Peter of his fall,”
appears in public always gagged by a thong passed between the mandibles
and tied behind the head: a rooster may crow in the house, but if he
give tongue on the highway or in the market-place, he is confiscated to
the “market master,” or to the fetish man. I could find no reason for
the custom, but “we custom”: it is probably only an item of the
whimsical perquisites which form part of the plundering system of all
semi-barbarous hierarchical communities. The turnpike is universal
throughout these lands. A rope is stretched by the collector across the
road, and is not let down till all have paid their cowries.[126] The
octroi is not unreasonable,[127] but most of the market folk being
women, there is always a tremendous clatter. Fetish and taxpaying, I
have said, go together. We were greeted by Ahopanu, the head publican,
and the priest, who presented us with water and two fowls. They
apologised for there being no food, and declared that, expecting us,
they had cooked five days ago,—which was probably true.
After leaving the De-nun, we came to a wall of stiff grass, and to a
short descent leading to the Nyinsin[128] Swamp. It is now about 150
feet broad, and waist deep; during the rains it is much worse. The banks
are a forest of fern of light green pandanus, and of dull herbaceous
shrubs: the water is dark as coffee-grounds, reposing upon foul and
feculent black mud, into which the porters sink to mid-calf. To the
right is a corduroy road, rudely made with rugged tree trunks, of which
men avail themselves when arrived at the deepest part. During my last
visit it was almost impracticable; it is now a little better, and
somewhat like the old “railway” of the western states of the Union; in
February we shall find it repaired. The swamp flows, after rains, out of
and again into the Whydah Lagoon, thus converting at that time the site
of the modern Whydah town into a “continental island.” This was known to
the old mappers, who, however, have either made the northern arm of the
lake stream too considerable, or that feature has in the lapse of time
greatly shrunk. Mr. Norris (1772) speaks of it as a pretty deep and
rapid river, with shelter for numerous elephants, and in old times it
was bridged over with wooden piles, covered with faggots and hurdles,
and annually repaired.
The Nyin-sin swamp, which separates the old kingdom of Whydah from its
northern neighbours, Toli and Allada, is a historical feature. The last
king of Savi was Kufon, the Boabdil of his country; he had ascended the
throne at the age of eighteen, and he had speedily sunk into an
effeminate and bloated debauchee. In 1708, when the old king died, there
had been a great civil war for the succession, many had fled, and
others, especially the chiefs, had been killed; for years the race,
demoralised by coast life, had shunned arms, and only plebeians would
consent to be generals over slave-soldiers: Whydah was thus ripe for the
gathering.
The warrior King, Agaja Dosu of Agbome, after taking Allada with
dreadful slaughter in 1724,[129] determined to subjugate Whydah. Kufon
contented himself with declaring that he would turn his enemy into a
menial slave. Whereupon Agaja attacked the northern provinces of Whydah,
which were under the hereditary government of a great caboceer called
“Appragah.[130]” The latter applied for assistance to head-quarters, and
enemies at court caused him to be ignored: after a weak defence he
submitted to Dahome, who received him kindly and presently restored him
to his possessions.
Agaja then encamped upon the northern edge of this Nyin-sin swamp. He
had no boats, his army could pass the river only by fording, and even
this was impracticable except at the present path, where 500 resolute
men could have repulsed a host. The infatuated Whydahs, however, instead
of defending their frontier line, were contented to place with great
ceremony Danh, the fetish snake, Dan-like, in the path.
Agaja had retired upon Allada to levy his whole force, leaving the field
army under his general. The latter seeing only a snake to oppose
progress, ordered 200 resolute fellows to try the ford. They not only
crossed it unimpeded, but were able to penetrate into the capital.
The outguards of the town were asleep, it being 3 P.M., and when they
were awakened by the shouting and sounds of martial music, all fled,
crying that the Dahoman army had passed the river. The massacre rivalled
that of Allada, the altars of the gods and the ancestral tombs were
deluged with the blood of 4000 men. Kofun, however, and many of his
train, escaped to the English fort, Whydah, after which they found their
way to the islands near Popo.
Thus Savi and Whydah, in the beginning of March, 1727, became part of
the empire of Dahome.
Crossing the Nyin-sin swamp, which requires five to fifteen minutes,
according to the state of the bridge, we found ourselves once more on a
solid path of red sand, rising regularly to a country of bush, of
clearings, and of thin palmyra forest. The sun began to burn, and we
looked in vain for shade, which the broad road rendered impossible. The
_termites arborum_ showed us their large nests hanging like huge black
wens from the white throats of the trunks and boughs. After crossing
another serration of thick strong bush, tall grass walls, and wild
trees, we fell into a densely wooded descent, whose sole is occupied by
the Adangwin[131] or Toli Water: it was approached by fetish huts and
charred trees. We found it almost dry; so will it be in February: in
last May and June, however, it was a mixture of peat-bog and of
horsepond, almost as black and filthy as its neighbour. Then began a
regular ascent of steps in the land upon whose summit a loud drumming
and singing informed us that we were approaching the terminus of the
stage—Toli. The aneroid denoted a decided rise (140 feet) from Savi. The
best and thickest part of the town lies to the east of the road: we
were, however, led round the western suburbs, where we found the
“corrobory” in full force, and not a few of the performers “unco’ fou.”
There were two umbrellas under a shady tree. The blue belonged to a
silver-armletted[132] caboceer, Ahwanho, or “war belly,” a blear-eyed
senior hard to deal with, as are all King Gezo’s ancient officials. The
white was of Wubikha, junior governor, and reputed to be our friend: a
dark, fat, smiling, “jolly” individual, with a loose pig-tail of white
cotton threads, each rove on to one of his many necklaces of beads and
coral, and hanging half way down his spine. As we took our seats before
the band and snapped fingers with the chiefs, the circle lengthened into
an oval, broken where women were singing at the opposite end. There was
some peculiarity in the dance, which was opened in the usual way by the
two governors. Came the blacksmith[133] bringing his anvil, and holding
with pincers the hot iron which he had been hammering: he showed us the
bullets with which his master was preparing for war, and capered with
his craft-instruments held high above his head. The missiles were badly-
fitting bits of cut bar, subcircular, and all facets; they must fly
wide, and they cannot hit hard. Then rushed up the carpenter, saw and
plane in hand, made an address, and danced with his tools _en l’air_.
Followed the elephant hunters, braves, with blackened frontispieces; the
bards, who are also captains; and the women, who performed rather
prettily—compared with Savi. Lastly, the chorus gave us a taste of its
quality. After half-an-hour we bowed to the caboceers, and escorted by
Wubikha, who promised the rest of the ballet in the evening, we retired
from the sun.
Toli, also written Tollee, Toree, and by Barbot Torry,[134] was in old
times an independent state measuring about four leagues in
circumference. Kingdoms in this part of Africa were not unlike those of
England when she numbered 16 of E. Saxons, 14 of E. Angles, and 17 in
Kent; and kings are like those of Ireland in the days of St. Patrick,
when 200 were killed in one battle. It is now impossible to find the
site of “Foulan or Foulaen, the seaport or principal town of the Torry
country, seated on the Torry river, which runs almost east and west to
Great Popo.” The latter feature, however, can be nothing but the
Adangwin swamp, which, after nearly two centuries of filling up, is now
stagnant. Possibly, also, there may be upheaval in the land. Dahome has
lately felt an earthquake, and already during my short stay on the West
African coast, the shore about Accra is hardly to be recognised.
Toli is now a large market: the interior is fully equal to Savi, which
it a little excels in population. The position, at the head of a
plateau, with its fine view of the terminal fall to the south, is
beautiful, and at dawn the thermometer showed 70 deg. (F.) The air is
said to be unusually healthy.
We found lodgings at the house of Antonio Dosu, known as Dosu Yevo, or
the “after-twin white man[135]”: he was lying ill with Guinea worm at
Whydah, and his establishment was not in a flourishing condition. The
flibbertygibbet, Richard Dosu, his son, soon brought us the necessaries
for dinner, and, being in no want of time, we resolved to pass the night
at Toli.
After the event of the day, we were conducted by Wubikha, the good-
tempered, to see the end of the dance. It was the merriest evening spent
on the march—perhaps during the whole of our stay in Dahome. Dr. M‘Leod
would have compared it to the “revelry of devils and witches as
witnessed by poor Tam O’Shanter in Halloway Kirk.” I confess to have
enjoyed the “demoniac scene.” All the best-looking girls were habited in
men’s straw hats, with breast-cloths girt crosswise to imitate the
soldieresses of the capital, and a little attention to them took
wonderful effect. The airs were simple but harmonious, and could reform
any recitative save that of the Gran’ Maestro Verdi, on whom all Europe
delights beyond the _minimâ contentos nocte Britannos_. And when we
clapped palms to the measure, the buoyant gaiety of the caboceers knew
no bounds; it became a _manifesta phrenesis_. The chiefs placed their
weapons in our hands as a call to dance, but explaining that the King
must first see the novelty, we passed on, as is the custom, the knives
to our servants, who performed vicariously. The crisis was when double
flasks of gin were presented to the _danseurs_ and the _danseuses_: we
retired deafened by the din. The tough nerve and the hard brain of the
negro find excitement only in the loudest and shrillest sounds; he is
like the children in England, who, at all times delighted with blowing
off powder, will grease the gun’s muzzle to increase the report. What
causes headache and cerebral fatigue to the white man, only titillates
the callous African sensoria.
After sunrise we set out down a path ten feet wide, _en route_ to
Azohwe, our resting-place. Beyond Toli, around which there are great
fires before planting for the rainy season, grass disappeared except in
the clearings. There were traces of cardamoms in the dense bush[136];
the shrubs and tall trees formed deep lanes which promised a cool march.
Hardly had we left the town, when we were stopped by four fetish men,
drumming, singing, and capering in the raw clammy morning air; the
exercise appeared as inappropriate to the hour as that “dawn-wine” of
which the Persian poets sing so lovingly. There was a pretty maize
plantation on our left, with a tall fence of matted palm-leaves, and a
door of the same material. The road narrowed from ten feet to three, and
assumed the semblance of the noble natural avenues that beautify the
lower parts of Fernando Po. Nothing could be softer and more picturesque
than the contrast of the tall white spars with the twisted spiral
creepers; nothing could be more delicate than the transparent lacery and
filigree of the upper foliage picked out from the milky blue background
of the heavenly vault that lent to the verdure a portion of its own
azure. The shadow of the smallest shrub purpled the earth with a lovely
distinctness, and the play of light and shade in the forest made a study
fit for Claude Lorraine. After the normal stage, which never exceeded
six miles, we reached a little marketplace called Azohwe; it was
approached by a decided fall, although the aneroid showed but a trifling
descent.
Azohwe, the half-way house between Toli and Allada, derives its name
from a man who ruled there in the days of Agaja the Conqueror. It lies
on the left of the way showing a few thatches above a wall of red clay,
and it is everywhere girt by a noble forest. The market is held outside
the settlement under the ficus and fetish trees that form its approach;
at that hour it was poorly attended. We were kindly received by the
people, and an old woman from English Town, Whydah, made us exceedingly
comfortable. After breakfasting in a cool hut, and enduring the
necessary amount of dancing and drumming, drinking and wasting powder,
we bade adieu to Azohwe.
The road became a lane of shrubbery with the brightest flowers, red and
blue, pink and yellow, governed here and there by a queenly white lily.
We saw none of the “blossoms of the air,” the gorgeous butterflies,
which I had admired before the rains; all were modest white and yellow.
The animal which typifies the human animula, acquires strange bad habits
in these lands; no one would sing “I’d be a butterfly,” after disturbing
one of its repasts.[137]
Ensued sundry long flats and well-wooded ascents, terminating in a large
grass clearing, which, here and there patched with palms, bush, and
forest, showed that we were entering an extensive place. At noon we
cried Do-ddo[138]! at a cleanly swept De-nun, where fetish sheds
swarmed. We were welcomed with water and provisions by the well-meaning
old publican So-kun Do-gan, who brought in person a _carafon_ of
muscadel wine for ourselves, and a bottle of gin for those thirsty
souls, our attendants.
After _force complimens_ we resumed hammocks and traversed the maize
plantations; on our left were detached houses and long palaver sheds,
dark verandahs formed by the thatched eaves. A few minutes took us to
the great square, a copy _in parvo_ of the _grande place_ at Agbome. The
parallelogram had scatters of trees and fetish huts, and on the south-
west was a Singbo[139] or double-storied tenement of red clay, with five
shuttered windows over the royal gateway. This, out of Whydah, is a
royal style of abode, and is not permitted to strangers or to subjects.
The palace compound appears to be a mass of bush and palm; as usual, it
cannot be entered, because the King’s women and female slaves occupy it,
and every gap is sedulously closed. At the north-west end, under the
normal shed projecting from the palace wall, were three umbrellas, light
blue, dark blue, and white, denoting the several dignities of the
owners.
In compliment to the royal abode we were carried three times round the
square, a large and noisy band following my hammock. Then dismounting,
we exchanged greetings with the acting chief caboceer, the Menjo-
ten.[140] He was a fine middle-aged man with silver bracelets, his
colleagues wearing brass. These, like the Tunisian decorations, show the
differences of rank. He is said to be friendly to the English, and he
certainly proved himself so on that occasion. Remarking the extreme
solar heat, he led us at once to the house of the old Meu, four bare
walls apparently converted into a _caravanserai_. Here we definitively
learned, to the general sorrow, that all our boxes had been, by the
stupidity or rascality of the English guide, carried on to the capital.
Allada is called by older authors Ardrah,[141] another instance of
lambdacism, confusing the L and the R.[142] The Ethiopic Directory gives
Essaam[143] and Aratakassu or Alatakassu. It is the ancient capital of a
kingdom somewhat larger than Whydah, bounded on the north by the Agrime
swamp, and southwards by Toli. The Dahomans look upon it with reverence
as the cradle of their race. The king does not build his own palace of
swish till he has sat on the sacred stool of his ancestors in Allada
House, and has been invested with a fine silk coat, which completes his
inauguration.[144]
The tradition touching Allada, which is not found in books, but is known
to every boy in the kingdom, is this, and it explains how the error of
making two Ardrahs arose. About A.D. 1620, an old and wealthy king of
Allada proper died, and left his property to his three sons. These
agreed that the eldest should reign in his father’s stead, which he did,
in peace and prosperity, under the name of Allada ’Khosu, or King of
Allada.[145] “Dé,” the youngest, or some say the second, rounded the
Upper Nohwe or Denham Waters of our charts, and founded Hwebonu, which
we have since known as Little Ardrah and Porto Novo. Hence the Dahoman
king still calls him of Hwebonu “brother.” The cadet Lako (the
“Tacoodoonou” of our histories) went north, crossed the Agrime swamp,
settled at a place called “Uhwawe,” and less correctly, Hawowi,[146]
between Kana and Agbome, where the Adan-we palace was afterwards built.
Hence the History tells us that “the original capital of Dahome was
‘Dawhee,[147]’ between the towns of Calmina (Kana) and Abomey, at about
ninety miles from the sea coast.”
Uhwawe belonged to a chief named Awesu, who allowed the ambitious
stranger to settle there. Dako, by degrees becoming powerful, encroached
upon a neighbouring kinglet, named Danh, the Snake or Rainbow. As his
followers greatly increased in number, and as he was ever asking more
ground from Danh, the latter exclaimed, in wrath, “Soon thou wilt build
in my belly!” Dako bided his time, slew the king, and erected over his
corpse the old palace of Dahome,[148] “in Danh’s (or the Snake’s)
belly.” Hereupon the Ffons[149] changed their name to Dahomans[150];
and, thus, about 1625, arose the once great military empire familiar to
the ears of Europe.
The kingdoms of Dahome and Allada were friendly, as became brethren,
till 1724, when Agaja, the Scourge of God in these regions, resolved to
open a road from the interior to the sea. Mr. Bulfinch Lambe, to whom
allusion has been made, described in his short account of that war
(“that resulted in the capture of Ardrah, of which he was an unwilling
witness”), the savage power and state of the conquering northerner.
Being “shut up in a house by the king and old Blanco, as soon as the cry
of war came,” the white man narrowly escaped the death which hundreds
found in the flames. A fellow hauled him over the wall, and he was
carried through the town to the king’s quarters, where the general was,
and though that officer was in a great hurry, and flushed with victory,
he took the stranger kindly by the hand, and gave him a dram, “which was
some comfort to him.” When Mr. Lambe went out, “there was no stirring
for bodies without heads, and had it rained blood, it could not have
lain thicker on the ground,” whilst the slaves were being counted by
giving a “bouge[151]” to each. After this he was led by the conqueror to
the capital. He appears to have been a poor-spirited thing; he whines,
curlike, about his confinement, and he is not ashamed to write to the
English governor at Whydah,—“If there is any cast-off women, either
white or mulatto, that can be persuaded to come to this country, either
to be the king’s wife or else practise her old trade, I should gain his
majesty’s heart entirely by it, and he will believe anything I say about
my going and returning again with more white men from the Company.[152]”
One of Agaja’s “strong names” or titles is Allada Kho, or Lord of
Allada. The town, however, once said to be nine miles round, never
recovered after the dreadful slaughter of its inhabitants, and, unlike
Whydah, quietly submitted to incorporation with Dahome. It is now a
large market, and a village more important than Toli, but nothing more.
Allada is well situated on a platform, and its climate is comparatively
salubrious. Drinking water is said to be procurable, after half-an-
hour’s walk, from a deep hollow to the east and south-east; it is not
only plentiful, but sweeter and clearer than any found between Whydah
and Agbome. The stranger, however, must obtain royal permission to visit
the place, and will probably fail. There may be a stream flowing to the
Nohwe or Denham Waters, but the mysterious fetish town, buried in the
bush, and hidden from white eyes, is, I think, a fiction of the English
fort, Whydah.
Allada is the Tours or the Sienna of Dahome, where the purest Ffon is
spoken. At Agbome the aspirates and gutturals are exaggerated, the
effect, perhaps, of a colder climate and a more rugged land. Whydah, on
the contrary, unduly softens the articulation; as in Egypt, this may be
attributed to the damp heat and consequent languor of the seaboard. At
the port town, as may be imagined, there is a debased European _patois_.
A Whydah man will say to you, “Naõ tem cowries pour choppy choppy.”
The evening concluded with the usual presents, and dancing on a very
small scale. The caboceers joined their slaves, hence the polish of
these barbarians, compared with our poor churlish clowns. The small
boys, armed with _sabre de bois_,—the ξύλιναν μάχαιραν—mingled amongst
their elders, _sans_ shyness or _mauvaise honte_, the Britannic curse.
As usual, the dance was all antics, very excellent fooling. Few people,
and no warriors, appeared. Six weeks afterwards, we learned that a large
body of male and female soldiery, marching to attack Jabatan, a frontier
town, were lurking behind the palace walls.
The night was calm, clear, and cool, with an exceedingly heavy dew.
During the day, the trees had been blackened and the sky speckled by
flights of reddish bats,[153] swarming like gnats or flies. The queer
chirp of these modern pterodactyles, and the melodious
_gazouillement_[154] of birds in the brake, awoke us at the earliest
dawn.
[Footnote 97: The French have dubbed these officers _Racadère_, for what
reason I know not. The English of old times called them “Half-heads,”
from their shaving off a moiety of their wool; in those days they wore a
demi-dozen strings of human teeth over the shoulder to the knee. Now few
can display such decoration. Dr. M‘Leod appropriately termed them the
_mortal messengers_, in contradistinction to the _immortals_, sent, as
will presently be explained, to the Shades.]
[Footnote 98: Akho ’si properly means king’s wife; it is applied to the
eunuchs, who, as customary throughout Yoruba, form part of the royal
establishment. Mr. Duncan (vol. i. p. 275) signally mistakes the meaning
of “king’s wife.” The operation is performed in the palace, at the age
of eighteen to twenty, by evulsion, others say by scission and
extraction, and the victims remain anorchides. Of course many die;
sometimes, it is said, five out of six. There is great difficulty in
Dahome about gaining information touching these matters; the boldest
speak in whispers when a stranger begins to question concerning what
takes place “within.” The names of our eunuch envoys were as follow: De
(here), adan (brave); De (here) means “He is valiant in Dahome.” Ya-mo-
ji ’a is supposed to signify, “Cannot-get-such-a-son-to-be-born.”]
[Footnote 99: Kakopwe (in Forbes, Koao-peh) must not be confounded with
the Kan-gbo-de (in Forbes, Camboodee), the King’s body attendant, whose
lieutenant he is.]
[Footnote 100: So-kun is an unintelligible name in the “Bo-fetish.”]
[Footnote 101: Wa (shark), and kpo (a stick).]
[Footnote 102: Kini-kini (lion), and kpo (a stick).]
[Footnote 103: Logun (crocodile), and kpo (a stick).]
[Footnote 104: Má (knob), and kpo (a stick). Mr. Duncan (vol. i. p. 226)
gives sketches of these weapons.]
[Footnote 105: In Appendix II. the reader will find a list of presents,
supplies, and expenses required and incurred during six weeks’ to two
months’ stay with the King of Dahome.]
[Footnote 106: On the Gold Coast a confidential slave, who is killed
when his master dies.]
[Footnote 107: The Dahoman cannot articulate any terminal consonant,
except the highly nasalized n; he says “Tomú” for Tom, “Gunái ’tú”
(goo’-nait’oo) for good night, and so forth.]
[Footnote 108: Literally “canoe father,” a title given to merchant
captains, governors of petty places, head singers and drummers. Uhun or
Hun is the generic name for a vessel: thus yevo-hun is a white man’s
ship; ajo-hun, a trading vessel; ahwan-hun, a man-of-war, and zo-hun, a
fire-ship, or steamer.]
[Footnote 109: The Iwe is probably the Italle of the Egbas, a grub bred
in or issuing from mud floors, and celebrated for attacking those who
lie down.]
[Footnote 110: For the distances, altitudes, and other purely
geographical features of the march, the reader is referred to Appendix
I.]
[Footnote 111: The characteristic feature of the East African “park-
land” is the vivid ring of luscious verdure invariably sheltered under
the shade of each large tree. Here, as in England, vegetation in such
places is generally deficient.]
[Footnote 112: The shortness of the pure negro’s neck is one of his most
characteristic features: hence he and his female in European attire
always appear high-shouldered.]
[Footnote 113: This variety everywhere yields the best palm wine, which
is superior to the finest cider; but as the people fell the trees like
Krumen, they are forbidden by a paternal government, which encourages
the growth for exporting oil, to make it, except “in the bush.” When
rumless, they must content themselves with bamboo-wine, which tastes
like soapsuds laced with vinegar. Although one might hardly expect it,
the yield of the cocoa-nut tree is by no means well-flavoured. The palm,
after being felled, is allowed to lie for a couple of days, the cabbage
is removed for food, and in its place a pipe, generally a bit of papaw-
stalk, conducts the sap into the calabash below. At times, to make the
juice flow more freely, a lighted stick is thrust into the hole, which
is afterwards scraped clear of charred wood. This “toddy” is the drink
of the maritime regions, where it is most impudently watered, and we
shall not taste it beyond the Agrime swamp. The oil-palm extends from
the sea to the north of Agbome, at least fifty-two direct miles, but how
much further I cannot say. It usually bears fruit twice per annum, in
six to eight bunches at a time, especially during a wet year. The nut is
best here when gathered during the rains; whereas in the Bight of
Biafra, at that time it becomes watery, and the yield is trodden out by
both sexes, in canoe-shaped troughs. The palm oil of Dahome is of
excellent quality, and a Mohammed Ali would soon make the land too rich
for slave-exporting. But these are negroes.]
[Footnote 114: Chapter III.]
[Footnote 115: The full phrase is Farinha de paõ (wood-meal), being
exceedingly like saw-dust. The History (Introd. p. 4) sensibly remarks,
“It is the cheapest and least nutritious of all the substitutes for
bread in the tropical climates; although it has lately been introduced
into this country (England), and is now sold by the grocers and
apothecaries at a high price, as a pretended remedy for consumption,
under the name of _tapioca_.” The same words, nearly a century
afterwards, will apply to the Revalenta Arabica, the flour of “Adas,” or
lentils, which no Egyptian Fellah will eat if he can help it. And yet
“this nutritious and delicious food,” &c.]
[Footnote 116: Commander Forbes writes of Savi:—“It has one peculiarity:
in Whydah all the houses are of clay; in Savee, of palm-branches, and
very low.” Had he wandered through the town, he would have found many
tenements of the same description as, and some even better than, those
of Whydah.]
[Footnote 117: See Preface. It is not a little curious that the map and
the orthography of 1772 are still copied into our best charts of 1864.]
[Footnote 118: In quoting these apparently impossible forces, it must
ever be remembered that the African army consists of the whole of the
male population between eighteen and fifty. Thus it would be easy to
raise 200,000 men from a total of 2,000,000 souls—in Negroland, not in
Europe.]
[Footnote 119: Mr. Duncan rates the population of “Savay” at 150 souls.]
[Footnote 120: A semi-mineral bead of many kinds, dug up in this part of
the world, and a subject of some discussion. Every West African book
alludes to it, and I have no new information that would justify a
detailed description.]
[Footnote 121: Yewe-no, or God-mother, _i.e._, God man, is the name
taken by Protestant missionaries, to distinguish themselves from Vodun-
no, Fetish-mother, or Fetish man. The French seem to prefer Mau-no,
which is, as will be found, equally objectionable.]
[Footnote 122: The water on this road is generally white as milk, and
sometimes bitter to boot. The price, during the dry season, varies from
forty cowries, or one string, to four times that sum, per gallon, in a
country where a man can feed himself for 120 shells a day.]
[Footnote 123: Akansan is corn (maize), finely levigated by means of
cankey stones, which resembles the “rubstones” of Ireland. Here, as in
Europe, the instrument precedes the “quern”; it is the rudest and the
most laborious way of grinding, but the best. The nether stone is a
smooth granite slab, convex behind, and above hollowed into a concavity
by use: it is disposed at an angle, sloping from the grinder, so as to
allow the ground material to fall off. Some thirty to forty grains of
well-soaked maize are placed upon it, to be bruised and pounded with a
circular stone rubber or pestle, tapering, for a handle, at both ends.
The housewives work like painters grinding colours, often stopping to
wet the corn with water, and they are unpleasant to behold. The material
is then placed in wallets like cowrie-bags, and during one day is
allowed to ferment in the sun. It is afterwards mixed with water boiled
in country pots, and laboured till the sediment, which is good for
fattening sheep, goats, and pigs, subsides. The clearer portion is again
strained, and boiled to the consistency of gruel. It hardens like blanc
mange when it cools; and, lastly, it is packed in leaves. This African
succedaneum for bread is wholesome, nutritious, cooling, and slightly
acidulated—the sour and the bitter are instinctively preferred in hot,
damp, and bile-exciting climates. It is almost always procurable in
Yoruba, a few cowries per diem support a man, and if well made, as by
the women of Hausa and the parts adjoining, it will be relished by the
traveller after a week’s practice. Mixed with water and drunk, it forms
a cool subacid drink, suitable for hot weather. I cannot but suspect
that the “Akassa Creek,” which connects the Brass and Nun rivers,
derives its name from this “staff of life.” Agidi and cankey are coarser
stuffs; lió is stronger than akansan: káji is the smallest and highest
flavoured, and there are other varieties, as numerous as our breads.
Fufu is mashed yam. “Wo,” pronounced Waw, and by some travellers written
Dab-a-dab, or Dabb-adab, is a kind of hasty pudding, eaten cold; a thick
pancake of maize or Guinea corn-flour, mixed with boiling water, and
stirred about with sticks till thickened to the consistency of batter;
it is then picked out with bits of gourd, and moulded till cold in a
shallow calabash. We found it by no means unpalatable, especially when
it came from “the palace.” The Dahomans, it will be seen, are anti-
Banting, and fond of azymous food.]
[Footnote 124: Hibiscus esculentus, in Whydah, called Nye ’un; in
Agbome, Nenun.]
[Footnote 125: Jo or Jo-hun means the wind; Susu, luck or good fortune.
It is a charm to prevent a bad wind (in the Kisawahili tongue, P’hepo,
wind and demon or bad ghost, are synonymous) entering the house, and the
fowl is crucified as a scapegoat. One was placed by the landlord over
the gate of our house at Agbome, but I “abolished” it.]
[Footnote 126: Cowries, it must be remembered, are merchandise, and the
price varies accordingly: at present they are abundant, and therefore
cheap. The dollar (4s. 6d.) now buys 2½ heads at Whydah and at Agbome, 3
heads and 20 strings at Lagos and at Abeokuta. The head, therefore, once
worth a dollar, whence its name, now represents in Dahome 1s. 9½d., and
the string, 1½d. and a fraction; whilst 8 cowries are equal to a cent.
There are a number of names for this shell-coin amongst the natives,
beginning with a unit and ending with tens of thousands. Indeed high
numbers can be counted by the natives only with cowrie nomenclature.]
[Footnote 127: The bullock pays 1 head of Zanzibar “blues,” or large
cheap cowries; the goat or sheep 10-15 strings; a basket of a dozen
fowls 5-10 strings; a small pot of palm-oil (5 gallons), or a basket of
grain (30 lbs.), 5 strings; whilst wood and water are not taxed. The
port-dues of Whydah and Godome are of course different; moreover, they
vary with every reign.]
[Footnote 128: This is in the old Whydah language, at present not
intelligible.]
[Footnote 129: The earliest sketch of Dahome is a letter dated Abomey,
November 27, 1724, from Mr. Bulfinch Lambe (not Lamb), agent at Allada
for the English African Company, addressed to Mr. Tinker (not Tucker)
the commandant of the English fort, Whydah. The capture of Allada is
graphically, and in the main faithfully, described; and Commander Forbes
found it so curious and truthful that he reprinted it in his Appendix,
No. 1, from the end of “Smith’s New Voyage to Guinea” (1745). Mr. Lambe
quitted Agbome about April, 1726. According to Captain Snelgrave, he
took with him, by the King’s order, a Jackin negro, named Tom, who had
been made prisoner at Allada, and who, speaking English, was sent to see
England, and to bring back a report for the King’s ears. Instead of this
he sold Tom to a gentleman in Maryland. Then hearing in Antigua, in
1728, that the King had promised to him a shipload of slaves if he came
back in time, he persuaded Tom’s master to give him up, and returned
with him to England in 1731. Finding it was too late to revisit Africa
after five years, Lambe forged a letter from the King of Dahome to
George II., and made Tom Dahoman ambassador, under the name of Prince
Adomo Oroonoko Tomo. “Prince Tom” was a great success till Captain
Snelgrave ridiculed English credulity, the King’s letter was declared
supposititious by the Lords of Trade, and the slave-ambassador was sent
back to his own country, “where, no doubt, he made an advantageous
report of the sagacity and penetration of our countrymen.”]
[Footnote 130: I can learn nothing of this word, which occurs in the
History.]
[Footnote 131: This is also in the old Whydah tongue.]
[Footnote 132: These are made of dollars beaten out thin, hollow
cylinders, half a foot long, fastened with hooks and holes, with plain
surfaces or with grotesque figures. Most of them are made at Agbome;
some show, by the human heads upon them, that they are of European
origin.]
[Footnote 133: The blacksmith in these lands is not an object of
superstition; the highest craftsman is the King’s Huntoji or
silversmith. The instruments are rude in the extreme; the anvil is a
half-buried rock, the bellows are of common African type, the hammer is
a cone of iron held in the hand, and the grindstone is a bit of fine
close granite, shaped like the article with which the English mower
whets his scythe.]
[Footnote 134: Barbot (Book 4) gives a fair account of this little place
in the days of its independence.]
[Footnote 135: Dosu is the general name of a boy born after twins; he is
called Yevo, or white man, from having been educated in a civilized
manner at Bahia.]
[Footnote 136: On the Toffo road we afterwards found them in flower and
fruit; the latter is eaten at Dahome, and, as will be seen, forms part
of the King’s diet on campaigns.]
[Footnote 137: About the bad habits of these “butterfly schools,” see
Mr. Duncan, vol. i. p. 209. He clapped his hat upon the heap, and
secured fifty to sixty of all sorts and colours.]
[Footnote 138: Let down (the hammock), opposed to Zeiji, raise it up!
But Dedde! means, softly! like the Fanti “Bleo.” The monosyllabic verb
in Dahoman when repeated, seems to reduplicate the middle consonant,
_e.g._, Do! Do! becomes Doddo!]
[Footnote 139: Singbo, Singbo-men or Singbo-eji, are terms applied to
all double-storied buildings, as, _e.g._, the forts at Whydah. Hence the
“Simbome” of Commandant Forbes.]
[Footnote 140: Menjo (man born), Ten (in the place). His principal is
the Ak-pulogan. In Dahoman names and titles the following terminations
mostly occur:—
Men (with peculiarly nasal N, sounding like “me”) “in,” as Danh-ho-men,
and Agbo-men. In many local names it appears almost pleonastic, and thus
corresponds with the Ni (in) of the Kisawahili and East African
dialects, _e.g._, Kilima-ni, Mfu ’u-ni.
_-nò_, mother, carrier, master of, &c.
_-nun_, mouth, side, man.
_’Si_, from _Asi_, a wife.
_-ten_, prefix or affix, in the place, _e.g._, ten-che-men, in my place.
Also _-gon_, _e.g._, _Atto-gon_, monkey’s place.
_-to (taw)_, father, or “he who does,” _e.g._, _wu-to_, he who kills.
_-ton_ (with nasal n), belonging to, _e.g._, _Beecham-ton-e_, it is
Beecham’s property.
_-vi_, a child, the son of.]
[Footnote 141: In the oldest authors, Bosman and Barbot, it is called
Great Ardrah, and is placed at the distance of sixteen leagues from its
port, Little Ardrah or Offra, with which it was connected by a good and
spacious road. The latter is clearly our modern “Porto Novo”—New
Haven—which the Yorubas call “Ijashe,” and the Popos “Hwebonu.” Hence
some writers, as Mr. Norris (1772), make Ardrah, or Assem, on the
Lagoon, and Ardrah, or Alladah, in the interior. So Commander Forbes
(vol. i. p. 12) speaks of “Ardrah, whose capital Allahdah still
remains.” “Porto Novo” proper is the old “beach” or port of Hwebonu, and
is mentioned in the History. It lies four to five miles from its main
town, and was rebuilt by M. J. D. Martinez. We have blunderingly
transferred its name to the chief settlement on the Lagoon. Unless read
by this light, the History will in places—for instance, the troubles
between Allada (Porto Novo) and Dahome, in 1786—be unintelligible.]
[Footnote 142: The Popos and Dahomans have the same lallation as the
Chinese, who call rum “lum.” So the Genoese confuse the sounds in the
word “gloria,” and the Neapolitans transpose the letters, as Galibardi
for Garibaldi.]
[Footnote 143: A long account of Allada, and description of the state
and dignity of the King, are given by Barbot (Book 4, chap. ii). But he
derived his description from hearsay. We can hardly accept the spacious
and well-built houses, the fine gardens, the cavalry, and other such
details. The kings, however, appear to have been comparatively
civilized. Alkeny, or Tezy, was educated at S. Thomè, with a tincture of
Christianity, and at the age of seventy he sent one D. Matteo Lopez as
his ambassador-extraordinary to the Court of France. From Barbot we also
learn that about 1700 the Moslems were so powerful at Allada, that their
great “Marabou” had the privilege of seeing the king night and day. This
enables us to explain Essaam or Assem by the Arab, _i.e._, Aazem or the
Greater (town).]
[Footnote 144: The History mentions this ceremony (p. 227). As will be
seen, the present King is not yet duly crowned.]
[Footnote 145: This explains the Alatakassu of the Directory, a
confusion between the King’s title and the name of the place.]
[Footnote 146: It lies on both sides of the road, and the people are
still a distinct race from the Ffons proper or Dahomans.]
[Footnote 147: Which some writers, _e.g._, the author of the Preface to
the History, have determined, much against its grain, to be the Dauma of
Leo Africanus, corrupted in Plancius’ map to “Dauina,” and misprinted by
Commander Forbes “Dauna.”]
[Footnote 148: The legend may arise from the name; one suspiciously like
it (and these things can hardly happen in pairs) will presently be found
in the word Agri-go-men. The “History of Dahomy” explains the word by
“The house in Da’s belly,” remarking in a note, “The belly, in the
Dahoman tongue, is homy.” But the nasal _n_ and the terminal aspirate in
Danh are sensible. Moreover, the English slur at the end of Homy is here
inadmissible. The word Ho, “_venter_” is articulated with the guttural
Arabic Ha (ح) sometimes, though erroneously, confounded with the Spanish
Jota, which is the Semitic Kha (خ). Ho-men (stomach in) means the ilia.
Thus the full compound word would be Da_n_h-_h_o-me_n_ (meaning either
“Danh’s intestines,” or “In Danh’s belly”). The people prefer the
latter. This nasal _n_ being unmanageable, both to reader and printer, I
discard for “Dahome.” The public, however, is requested to pronounce
Dah-ome like Ashan-ti instead of Dahómy and Ashantí. The Portuguese, who
are weak at gutturals, get over the Semitic Ha by changing it into
g,—“Dagomé.”]
[Footnote 149: The History informs us that the Dahomans were formerly
called Foys, and other authors have changed the word to Fohi, Fay, and
Fouin. It is clearly derived from Ffon, which some write Ffun and Efun,
the old national name for the Dahoman and his language. I am unable to
state whether it has a common derivation with the so-called Efong people
of Kakanda, living between Yoruba proper and the Niger and Kwara rivers.
What makes me suspect a mysterious and forgotten connection is the
prevalence of the Afa practice (see chapter xii.) in Dahome, which arose
in Ife of Kakanda (Wanderings in West Africa, Abeokuta, chapter v.).
Ffon must not be confounded with Efŭtŭ, the language of a single tribe,
Winnebah, on the Gold Coast. Those writers are in error who call the
Dahoman tongue “Ewe.”]
[Footnote 150: In their vernacular, Da_n_h-_h_o-me_n_-nu_n_ is a Dahome
man, a Dahoman. The word Dahome is applied first and primarily to the
old palace: secondly, to the capital, Agbome: thirdly, to the whole
empire.]
[Footnote 151: A corruption of the Portuguese “buso,” cowrie. The names
used by Mr. Lambe and his contemporaries for measures of shells, are:—
40 Bouges = 1 Toky (or Toki), _i.e._, a string.
5 Toky = 1 Gallinha (because it was the price of a fowl), corresponding
with our “bunch.”
5 Gallinhas = 1 Ackey, then worth 2s. 6d.
4 Ackeys = 1 Grand Cabess (_i.e._, Cabeça or head), worth 10s.
It is a pleasant money, requiring a man to carry £2.]
[Footnote 152: Even in West Africa the new American doctrine of
miscegenation, in which the white woman must succumb to the “splendours
of imperial (negro) manhood,” though at times practised by the vilest of
slavers, has been ever generally despised.]
[Footnote 153: Captain Phillips notices bats the size of a blackbird at
Savi. They abound between Whydah and Agbome; at the latter place they
always flew from north to south over our heads about an hour before
sunset. The Egbas have a distinct word for fruit eaten by bats, showing
that the animal extends through Southern Yoruba. It is a fine large
species, two feet across the wings, and is very lengthily described by
Mr. Duncan, vol. i. pp. 129-131.]
[Footnote 154: This is a French word, but I cannot help it—let reviewers
say what they will. The sound of z in the song of West African birds is
salient; our insipid “warbling” is tolerable and not to be endured. I
distinctly deny that English or any other language contains all the
desirable shades of expression; and I cannot see why, in these days,
when French is familiar to us as in the times of William the Conqueror,
we should be condemned for borrowing from it. “Rot your Italianos; I
loves a simple English ballad,” appears to underlie the feeling.]