DAHOME AND HER CAPITAL.
The extent and population of Danh-ho-men-to (“the Land of Dahome”) have
been grossly exaggerated. Dr. M‘Leod, who never left Whydah, Commander
Forbes, and M. Wallon, have assigned to this inconsiderable province of
the Great Oyo or Yoruban empire, the wide region between the so-called
Kong Mountains on the north, and the Bight of Benin on the south, a
depth of two hundred miles. The rivers and lagoons of Lagos, others say
the Niger, are made the eastern, while the Volta River and the Ashantis
become the western frontier. This gives a breadth of one hundred and
eighty, making a total area of 36,000 square miles.
Such boundaries may have been, although I greatly doubt them: now we
must reduce Dahome to nearly one-tenth. Her northern frontier, bordering
on the Makhis, is a water called Tevi, eighteen hours of hammock, equal
to forty miles, from Agbome, giving a maximum direct distance of one
hundred miles. On the north-eastward, beyond the tributary Agoni tribes,
are the Iketu and other Nagos or Yorubans, who have been plundered, but
never subjected. To the north-westward are the semi-independent race of
Aja,[207] of Attakpame,[208] and others. The extreme extent, fifty
miles, narrows towards the south, giving the province a pyriform shape.
The base between Godome or Jackin, the easternmost settlement, and the
frontier between Whydah and the turbulent independent Popos, cannot
exceed twenty-five to thirty miles. Assuming, therefore, forty miles as
the medium breadth, we obtain a superficies of 4000 square miles.
Moreover, as has been shown, this small black Sparta is hedged in by
hostile accolents. “Porto Novo” and Badagry, to the eastward, have
fallen into European hands, whilst the Popo republics, on the west, are
safe in their marshes. The people of Agwe “came in” last year, and were
received by the King,[209] but they will add an element of weakness.
Dahome will crumble to pieces under the first heavy shock.
The numbers assigned to the kingdom vary greatly, and are all guess-
work. Commander Forbes proposes 200,000; M. Wallon raises it to 900,000;
Commodore Wilmot reduces it to 180,000, which I would further diminish
to 150,000,[210] of whom, perhaps, four-fifths are women and children.
The population is thus not a third of what the land could support. The
annual withdrawal of both sexes from industry to slave-hunting and the
Customs at the capital, the waste of reproduction in Amazons, and the
losses by disease and defeat, have made the country in parts a desert.
So contemptible is the African power which is perhaps the best known
throughout Europe! And so strong is eccentricity to attract notice!
Agbome first appears upon the stage of history in 1724, and since that
time there has been a regular intercourse between England and Dahome,
which has now a small literature of her own.[211] The _enceinte_ of the
capital is perhaps larger than that of any other Ffon town, but the
population certainly does not exceed that of Whydah. It is, of course,
floating, and perhaps at times may have reached the figures assigned to
it by Commodore Wilmot—20,000 souls. The site, like that of Allada, is a
rolling plain or plateau—these people ever prefer high ground—ending in
short bluffs to the north-west, where it is bounded by a long
depression,[212] suggesting the action of eluvium, grassy, and streaked
with long lines of trees, where water must lie, if not flow, in the wet
season. Scattered over this hollow are the principal pans which scantily
supply the city. Beyond the valley the country again rises towards the
Makhi Hills, whose jagged blue summits look enticingly mysterious to the
traveller. Amongst them, Minefin and Bowule[213] are described by the
people as high, cold, and abounding in game, especially wild hog: their
land wind is cooling and healthy. These hills, which may be considered
the threshold of the so-called Kongo region, supply the granitic and
schistose stones used by the people for grinding grain. A glance at the
map shows that between the Benin Gulf and the Niger the land is
prismoidal, with a long southern slope, and a shorter northern counter-
slope to the Great River.
Let us now circumambulate the _enceinte_ of Agbome, which has already
been partially described. Beginning from the southern, or Ako-chyo Gate,
which issues upon the Komasi Palace and the adjacent suburb of Bwe-kon,
about one mile leads us to the Kana-’gbonun, or eastern gate, by which
we first entered the city. The land between them is grassy, dotted with
palms, and showing by its ridges that the hoe was once active. Crossing
the village of little fetish huts at the Kana Gate, we bend northwards,
leaving to the right a path leading to the Kido, or north-eastern water-
pits. The country continues the same, and amongst the few farmsteads we
are shown Dokon, or Addokon, the Yevogan’s hereditary village. Hugging
the “zun,” or acacia bush of the moat, we pass a hole pierced through it
where the side is shallowest. Here begins a double line of
circumvallation, protecting the settlement from the north-east to the
north-west, including the principal waters, especially the King’s, and
probably intended as a defence against an equestrian enemy.[214] The
extreme distance between the false and the true _enceintes_ is more than
a mile, and the interval is overgrown with bush and grass, with here and
there a hut or a dwarf field. If we follow the outer line of ditch, the
path falls, by a succession of steps, with outcrops of iron-stone, into
the valley between Agbome and the Makhi Mountains. On the way, four or
five tall trees, which here distinguish the moat entrances, point out
the Tohun-’gbonun,[215] or north-western gate, in the false _enceinte_.
It is a small and poor approach, leading to a water called Nyassa.
Crossing, however, the ditch before reaching the Tohun-’gbonun we pursue
a goat track through grass, wild egg-plants, and neglected plantations,
leaving on our right, or northwards, the first slope of the great
depression. After ten minutes we reach the Agesi-’gbonun,[216] or
northern gap, opening upon the direct road to the Diddo or royal water,
and upon a path bending N.-East to the Nyassa pans. Opposite us the
north-western arm of the false _enceinte_, is crossed by the Alo-ma-bli-
nen-’gbonun,[217] built by King Gezo. If we would avoid this, we pass
through the Agesi-’gbonun into the _enceinte_, when a few yards conduct
us to a shrubby and apparently unguarded gap, the Tavosa-’gbonun[218]:
it opens to the N.-West, and the moat is spanned by a clay dyke with a
steep sag. Resuming from this point our walk, after ten minutes of
peasants’ path through neglected fields, we find the Agbo-e-ja-ga,[219]
which conducts to the palace of Tegbwesun (Bossa Ahadi). Here begins the
large exterior suburb, stretching from the N.-West, and spreading over
the country to the S.-West. Agbome, like other cities, is “going out of
town”; and the newer is decidedly the cleaner and the prettier locality.
In this part the _faubourg_ is called Adan-do-kpo-ji. Passing _en route_
the Lise-hun-zo or palace of Sinmenkpen (Adahoonzou II.), lying south of
the former, we find under fine trees a Nesu-hwe, or Nesu temple,
fronting a clear and cleaned space. A little beyond it lies a large
double gate, the Adan-do-kpo-ji, through which the King passes when
visiting the manes of his ancestors. The suburb here straggles out, and
on all sides appear farms and plantations of palm trees, which, however,
grow better inside the _enceinte_, where they are not scorched by bush
fires. Near the entrance is another Adan-blon-no-ten, an open space
where the King sits and swears: a gateless passage over the moat, known
as the E-Oyo-nagba-’gbonun,[220] connects it with the southern extremity
of the inner town and with the Kpo-go-e-ji,[221] a broad street near the
Komasi Palace, where a few market wives daily assemble to sell cankey
and other provisions. There is a similar out-door bazar near the Agbome
Palace, called the Kechli-’li, or “road of Kechi,” a Whydah caboceer.
Continuing our southerly course under a Vo-sisa or Afa charm to prevent
disease, in the shape of a gallows furnished with a dead dog, hung head
downwards, we reached the Uhun-jro market, and the Ako-chyo-’gbonun,
where our walk began. Each King builds his own gate at the time when he
is allowed to raise a palace of swish. Thus the total number, including
the Tohun-’gbonun and the Alo-ma-bli-nen-’gbonun, the sister entrances
through the false _enceinte_, and not including the gap, is eight. The
circumambulation required two hours, equal to five miles.[222]
To one walking round the inner _enceinte_, Agbome appears even to less
advantage. The aggerose surface is pitted with the deep holes common in
Yoruba towns: these earth diggings are alternately filled with offals,
foul vegetation—especially the unwholesome croton plant (_Croton
Tiglium_)—water, and mud, the latter drying, as in Whydah, to the
consistency of common ashlar. The circumference cannot be more than four
miles, occupying an hour and a-half; two-thirds of it is a fine open
country, scattered with trees and fields of bean and vetch, mostly
choked by dense grasses veiling the ancient furrows. To the west and
south-west, the buildings cluster thickest, and _latrinæ_ being unknown,
the ground about them is very foul, the Mosaic precept being utterly
neglected.[223] Agbome is as truly Dahoman as Washington is or was
United States,—a typical place. Somewhat like old and despotic Cairo, it
is a mass of villages, which under any but the present barbarians would
soon grow to be a city. When inspected, however, the composing elements
are found to be the palace carcases and a few large establishments
belonging to the principal officers and their retainers. The conspicuous
feature in the town is the Agbome House, a rude circle, measuring, if we
cut off the various angles, 2560 paces in circumference. The gates of
the Queens are, as has been seen, in the north and north-western walls:
those of the Kings are in the eastern and southern sides. Amongst the
most conspicuous of these are the Patin-sa, the Han-ho-nukun-ji,[224]
the Agrin-go-men, the Cowrie House, the Akwaji, the Singbo-men, and the
Adan-jro-ko-de, which some writers have confused into different
palaces;—they have all been alluded to in previous pages. To the north
of the Agbome, as was said, is the venerable but decrepid Dahome House,
and around both are the “compounds” of the chiefs, miniature copies of
the royal abodes and jealously separated by bush and trees for privacy
and in fear of fire. To the south-west of the Agbome palace is a thick
clump of houses, extending to the town ditch, and divided only by the
Uhun-jro market-place from the Komasi House. The two royal houses in the
Adan-do-kpo-ji are also surrounded by compounds, and the same may be
said of the Bwe-kon-hwe-gbo and the Jegbe Palaces.
The great drawback at Agbome during the dry season, is the deficiency
and the badness of the water. An Artesian well, or at least a Bletonist,
would be a boon. As a rule the supply is white with clay, and must be a
fertile source of dysentery. Often it is chalybeate; and, at the best,
it is stagnant. For some reason, superstitious or despotic, the lieges
are not allowed to dig wells; perhaps the gravelly nature of the soil,
and the depth of excavation required, would place the operation beyond
their powers. Supplies must be fetched, therefore, by the Sin-no, or
water wives, from the great depression bounding the town-plateau to the
north and north-west, where it is found in shallow pits, pans, and holes
cut near the larger pools to filter the element. As the nearest
habitations are distant two, and the farthest five, miles from these
_abreuvoirs_, the path is trodden day and night with heavy monotonous
toil. Those who want the water anywhere near the royal supply must begin
early, the women of the palace issuing after dawn, and keeping all clear
for themselves. Male Dahomans have lately been forbidden the road to
Diddo, the King’s water; holding ourselves, however, not included in
this prohibition, Mr. Cruikshank and I resolved to visit it.
Setting out at four on a misty morning, with two “Naureo,[225]” but
without interpreter or hammocks, we already found a thin string of
carriers on the way. After the Agesi-’gbonun, or northern gate, we
skirted the western arc of the false ditch, and presently fell into the
slope of the great depression. The ground was disposed in little steps,
ridges, and sheets of the usual reddish and large-pored iron-clay stone,
congested as if fused. Half-an-hour’s walk from the city led us to a
thick bush, garnished with huge trees, and the tremendous din of women
who were baling water with calabashes into their jars, told us that we
had arrived at our destination. Some wretches, wearied out, were
sleeping in the cleared places, with pots by their sides, and there had
been many breakages. The principal pits are those on the left of the
arenose path; they are cleaner than those of Nyassa and Kido, which show
an offensive scum, whilst the surrounding swamp savours of decay. After
our inspection we followed the northern road, till we reached a house
built across it, and occupied by Jabwa, warden of the wells. Beyond this
point, but turning to the right, before entering the bush, there is
another water called Danh-to-men.[226]
The “Minister of the Interior” is badly supplied at Agbome, and the
provisions are dearer even than at Whydah. Prices have quadrupled during
the last six years, the effect of an ultra-military policy; and very
often, as in a famine, no inducement will make men part with their
store. We tasted beef once only during our stay; the Tsetse fly abounds,
I believe, in the bush, but in the towns black cattle are plentiful, a
small bullock fetching 10 dols. to 16 dols. The mutton and goat’s-flesh
are equally lean, stringy, and tasteless, and the whole animal must be
bought; the sheep costing 2 dols., or half the price of its more
odiferous congener. Pigs are worth more than goats; in the palace they
are purely fed, elsewhere they find themselves. I never saw horseflesh,
which was eaten of old. Dried fish is sometimes sent up from the sea-
board. Turkeys, rare at Kana and Agbome, fetch 1 dol. 50 cents; Guinea
fowls and Manilla ducks, half-a-crown; and poor thin pullets, two
shillings each. Poultry, however, are seldom to be bought, especially at
the present season, when they are being sacrificed by order of Afa.
There are also a few pigeons. Eggs are not sold, perhaps under the
conviction that they will fetch more as pullets—when obtainable they are
worth 8 cents per dozen. Milk is not used,[227] and animals seem to
labour under a natural agalaxy.
There are, as has been said, four large and many smaller markets. At the
latter, the principal sale seems to be of water, grain, vegetables, and
a few fruits; the former is sold in pots, of various sizes, and,
according to quality, commands, at this season, from a halfpenny to a
penny per gallon. The cankey-ball (Dahome’s quartern loaf) fetched under
the old king, three cowries—it is now worth twelve. The principal, if
not the only, grains are maize and Guinea-corn, whose manifold
preparations have been alluded to. The vegetables are beans and vetches,
of various kinds; yams, tolerable; groundnuts, common; sweet potatoes,
plentiful at Whydah, rare here; manioc, sold boiled as well as raw;
ferine, _i.e._, farinha, “wood-meal,[228]” much used at Agbome and at
Whydah; and many kinds of greens, especially the excellent occro, or
esculent _Hibiscus_, locally called “Fevi,” or “Nye’un”; while chives,
or small onions, are sold in every bazár. The fruits are oranges, mostly
bitter, except those in the royal gardens; plantains and papaws in
plantations; limes, somewhat acerb; cashews and rare cocoas; mangoes,
guavas, and wild pine-apples, which, wanting water, run to leaf. The
tamarind is everywhere disregarded, even in the King’s house. The ginger
is very poor. A little sugar and salt can be bought or borrowed, red
pepper is abundant, and the black variety is unknown. As has been said,
all the liquor is of the vilest, and the traveller should land at
Whydah, where even beer is often unprocurable, with all his stores. It
may be said of the Dahoman as of “poor Paddy,” that he
“On basest food pours down the vilest drink.”
There are small patches of small-boled wild cotton, in the town, giving
false promise of better things to men of strong faith. The wild indigo
is sold in cakes, and is the common cloth-dye of the country; its colour
is excellent, but no amount of demand would produce a regular supply
here.
The list of animals in Dahome is not extensive. Elephants have been
killed out, lions are known only by name; hyænas—the local “resurrection
men”—and bush-cats are common. The people are fond of porcupines, hares,
and of a large grey and sometimes dark-brown rodent, called by Mr.
Norris “Agouti,” and formerly by the blacks “Cabra do matto.[229]” It is
killed by a trap falling upon it, split, skewered, and carbonadoed with
the skin on. An average specimen brings a head of cowries, and the
flesh, as cooked by the natives, is good; I never saw a live specimen.
Small antelopes are found in the bush surrounding the capital, and it
shelters monkeys, which the people gladly devour. There is a yellow
specimen called kra-ve,[230] which seeing the gun before the latter is
fired, causes the barrel to burst—a reason explaining the frequent
accidents. Hunters speak of the Gha (غا), or Inaki of the Egbas, a huge
anthropoid ape, formerly found about Gbezumen, a village one day’s
journey from Whydah, and they make its cry to resemble that of the
gorilla. There are also fabulous animals. The Aziza, for instance, is a
sylvan beast, erect, manlike, and loud-voiced: it teaches the hunter
fetish, and makes him wondrous brave.[231] Many birds have legends
attached to them. Kites (the _Falco Chilla_ of India) are eaten, and
magic medicines are made from the Afunsoko’u, or white-breasted raven
(_Corvus Senegalensis_), also called Aze-khe, or man-eater. It is here
supposed to be a “devil” (bad ghost), and to talk; as with the Egbas, no
rain falls when it lays its eggs, and its flocking denotes impending
war. The owl, too, is an Aze-khe, or cannibal, a messenger of
anthropophagi, who would kill and devour a foe; men and boys will often
be seen carrying these small grey birds by the legs. The turkey-buzzard
is respected for its utility. No one will kill the “King’s bird,” a
small _motacilla_, termed Awáje’khe, which consequently becomes tame as
a wren; the Nago women are supposed to talk to and to understand it. The
cuculine “Scotchman” is a “devil-bird,” causing the gun to burst. Mr.
Cruikshank shot several specimens, but—_n’importe_; it is called “_Wu-
tu-tu_,” an onomatopoetic word, exactly expressing its note.[232] There
is a _muscicapa_ called Berille, which disregards the burning bush, when
attacking the expelled locusts, therefore the soldier is ordered to be
“brave as the Berille.” Ring-doves, large and small, abound through the
country, and were noticed by Phillips. There is a fine spur-fowl known
as Koklo-asso, or bush poultry, heavier birds and darker than the
English partridge, short winged and good runners. They are best killed
with No. 3 shot. In the first year they are good eating, and they are
found in coveys throughout the _enceinte_, when not built over. A single
quail was seen, and the few herons and water birds were very wild. We
could not collect many specimens, being compelled to confine our rambles
to the vicinity of the town.
The tenure of land throughout the empire is in “fee-simple,” allodium,
as amongst us, being unknown. Agriculture is despised, because slaves
are employed in it. The people, however, are not ignorant of husbandry.
The women ridge the ground neatly with their little hoes, and some, more
industrious, dispose over their crofts the huge heaps of kitchen-midden
that have grown about their houses. Were its cultivation enforced, the
oil-palm as has been said, would be a mine of wealth, and the roads to
the coast, except in a few places, are good enough for wheeled vehicles.
But there is scant inducement to amass riches, of which the owner would
assuredly be “squeezed” as often as he could support the operation.
Dahome, like Yoruba, perhaps I may say like eastern and western
intertropical Africa generally, is a red soil,[233] and prodigiously
fertile. This is “dead dries,” when the algid breath of the desert wind
blows strongly, making all a dust. Yet even the poles planted in our
yard put forth green leaves.
Agbome is higher, drier, and less unhealthy than Whydah. After eight
years’ weathering, the swish walls show little damage here. The
Harmattan[234] season lasts from December to January, and is followed by
the hot months of March and April, when tornadoes usher in tolerably
heavy rains. The wet weather begins in May, or sometimes, as in 1863,
late in June. About September there is a break, called the harvest-time
or the Little Dries. October and November are the later rains, generally
accompanied by severe tornadoes, and by tremendous storms of thunder
and lightning. The climate, in fact, is that of inner Yoruba.[235]
The modern Dahomans, I have said, are a mongrel breed, and a bad. They
are Cretan liars, _cretins_ at learning, cowardly and therefore cruel
and bloodthirsty; gamblers, and consequently cheaters; brutal, noisy,
boisterous, unvenerative, and disobedient, dipsas-bitten things, who
deem it a “duty to the gods to be drunk”; a “flatulent, self-conceited
herd of barbarians,” who endeavour to humiliate all those with whom they
deal; in fact, a slave race—vermin with a soul apiece.
Furca, furax, infamis, iners, furiosa ruina,
describes the race. They pride themselves on not being, like the Popos,
addicted to the “dark and dirty crime of poison;” the fact is, they have
been enabled hitherto to carry everything with a high and violent hand.
They are dark in skin, the browns being of xanthous temperament, middle-
sized, slight, and lightly made—my Krumen looked like Englishmen amongst
them[236]—agile, good walkers, and hard dancers, that carry little
weight. Their dress is a godo, or T-bandage, a nun-pwee (undercloth), or
a Ffon chokoto (pair of short drawers), and an owu-chon, or body-cloth,
twelve feet long by four to six broad, worn like the Roman toga, from
which it may possibly be derived.
The women are of the Hastini or elephant-order, described by the
Reverend Koka Pandit, dark, plain, masculine, and, comparatively
speaking, of large, strong, and square build. They are the reapers as
well as the sowers of the field, and can claim the merits of
laboriousness, if of no other quality. They tattoo their skins,
especially the stomach, with alto-relievo patterns; their dress is a
zone of beads, supporting a bandage beneath the do’vo, or scanty loin-
cloth which suffices for the poor and for young girls; the upper classes
added an aga-vo, or over-cloth, two fathoms long, passed under the arms,
and covering all from the bosom to the ankles. The peculiarities of
their _coiffure_ and ornaments have been explained.
Neither sex ever “wears shirt, shoe, or stocking in their lives.” Yet,
as an old traveller remarks, at least this advantage results from their
simplicity of dress, that “of both sides they may see their tackle
before they go to work, and not, as we are forced to do, take wives at
all adventures, without knowing their bodily defects and deformities,
which are covered and concealed by their clothes.” And even those who
deny that climate makes the man will not refuse its claim to making the
tailor. European attire in Africa is as void of the fitness of things as
an African toilette would be in Europe. Here leather perishes,
broadcloth loses nap and stiffens, linen and cotton mildew or change
colour, gloves feed cockroaches, and flannels shrink to half size.
[Footnote 207: The Aja are known by three short cuts on the cheek; the
Nago, by three long, with various combinations. There are sundry sub-
tribes, as Ajabikome, Ajawachi, and Kpese (the “Peshie” of the History),
whence the trade went to the Popo and Quitta countries. They are
described as worshipping thunder; a point of resemblance with Yoruba.
The French call them Les Barbares.]
[Footnote 208: The Attahpahms of Commander Forbes. They must not be
confounded with the proper Takpas of the powerful Nigerian kingdom Nufe.
In Mr. Norris’ map they are made to extend to the north-west of Agbome.
I have met amongst the slaves and bush women lower lips pierced to admit
a bit of coral, and when asking the tribe, was generally answered
“Takpas.”]
[Footnote 209: This took place before the Komasi Palace, when Commander
Wilmot was at the capital. The head men, with their wives, came up and
made obeisance, after which the whole deputation received presents of
rum, cloth, and cowries. Finally they were dismissed to their homes,
with leave to live in peace and quiet till wanted by the King for war.]
[Footnote 210: I judge this from the numerical force of the armies. The
disproportion of sexes is caused by polygamy, and the greater risk and
exposure of the men.]
[Footnote 211: See “History of Dahomy” (pp. 20, 28). Forbes, “Dahomey
and Dahomans” (vol. i. pp. 4, 5), and preface to those volumes.]
[Footnote 212: Not a “deep ravine,” as Commander Forbes calls it.]
[Footnote 213: Possibly the “Boagry” of the History, which the map
places W.N.W. of Agbome. Mr. Duncan (Vol. i. chap. 1) calls it
“Gboowolley.”]
[Footnote 214: We read in the History that when the Oyos attacked Agaja
the Conqueror at Agbome, and were repulsed by him, they filled the deep
moat in the hurry of their flight, and thus made a bridge for the others
to escape by.]
[Footnote 215: To (stream), and hun (the hole whence it issues).
According to some, “Tohun” is a proper name.]
[Footnote 216: So called from some individual.]
[Footnote 217: Alo (hand), má (don’t), bli (roll), nen (virility)—a
queer name for a gate.]
[Footnote 218: Tavosa, also a proper name.]
[Footnote 219: Agbo (gate), e (he), ja-ga (goes out), _i.e._, the
outward-leading gate.]
[Footnote 220: Said to be a proper name, meaning he will break down
Oyo.]
[Footnote 221: Interpreted Palm roof-tree corner.]
[Footnote 222: Commodore Wilmot says “probably seven miles round,” but
this was not after actual inspection.]
[Footnote 223: Deut. xxiii. 13.]
[Footnote 224: The words mean Han (sing), ho (speak), nukun (eyes), ji
(top, or upon).]
[Footnote 225: Here Krumen are so called from the words signifying “good
morning” in their tongue; we left the hammock-men, whose perpetual fear
of punishment after our departure would have laboured hard to mislead
us.]
[Footnote 226: Danh (snake, or rainbow), to (water, sea, pool, or
stream, opposed to sin, drinking water), and men (in).]
[Footnote 227: Dr. M‘Leod (1803) found “milk used as food, a custom not
generally practised on any other part of the south-west coast of this
continent.” In his day, cattle, sheep, goats, and poultry were
exceptionally plentiful.]
[Footnote 228: The root is ground as potatoes for starch: it is again
sun-dried, and partially ground to the consistence of oatmeal, when it
can be eaten dry or with water.]
[Footnote 229: A name formerly applied by the Portuguese to dog’s flesh,
which is still relished here.]
[Footnote 230: Of this animal wonderful tales are rife throughout
Yoruba.]
[Footnote 231: The Aja of the Egbas is a dwarf, who carries off men to
the bush, and teaches them magic and medicine.]
[Footnote 232: This is much as if we were to call a crow a “caw,” and a
sheep a “baa”—expressive but childish.]
[Footnote 233: Hence, in Senegal, the old French name, “Le terrier
rouge,” anglicized by “Red Borough.”]
[Footnote 234: The Harmattan wind, here called Wuo, is a supernatural
being, not unlike the Giant of Egba. This black Æolus is shut in a cave,
under a guardian called Wuo-hun-to, who, after oiling his own body,
which would otherwise be cut up by the wind, opens the gate and lets his
charge issue to torment the world. It is curious to find a Cave of the
Winds in Yoruba.]
[Footnote 235: Mr. Cooley, the self-styled “Opener of Inner Africa,” has
lately (Athenæum, July 18, 1863) informed the world, that “the rainy
season is also the hot season, near the equator.” Is this dotage? Barbot
(book 3, chap. xii.) informs us that the Guinea year has two seasons,
the summer and winter (of the Portuguese and English), called good and
bad by the Dutch; high and low by the French. “Summer (_i.e._ hot dry
weather) begins in September, and lasts the five following months, and
the winter (_i.e._ cold wet season) holds the other six months of the
year, which are also divided into two rainy, two misty and rainy (or
smoky), and two windy and rainy months (our tornadoes).” So of the Great
Bandy (or Bonny River, with which he was personally acquainted), he says
(book 4, chap. viii.), “We reckon the months of October, November, and
December, the worst season, because of the dry scorching heat of the
sun.”]
[Footnote 236: In all wrestling bouts, my Krumen threw the hammock-
bearers on their heads, and on one occasion, during a kind of party
fight, six of them, with fist and stick, held their own against twenty
Dahomans.]