Bibliography:
23. A Mission to the King of Dahome. 2 vols., 1864. 24. Notes on Marcy's
Prairie Traveller. Anthropological Review, 1864.
47. Whydah and its Deity. 29th November 1863.
In November 1863 the welcome intelligence reached Burton that the
British Government had appointed him commissioner and bearer of a
message to Gelele, King of Dahomey. He was to take presents from Queen
Victoria and to endeavour to induce Gelele to discontinue both human
sacrifices and the sale of slaves. Mrs. Burton sadly wanted to accompany
him. She thought that with a magic lantern and some slides representing
New Testament scenes she could convert Gelele and his court from
Fetishism to Catholicism. [204] But Burton, who was quite sure that he
could get on better alone, objected that her lantern would probably be
regarded as a work of magic, and that consequently both he and she would
run the risk of being put to death for witchcraft. So, very reluctantly,
she abandoned the idea. Burton left Fernando Po in the "Antelope"
on 29th November 1863, and, on account of the importance attached by
savages to pageantry, entered Whydah, the port of Dahomey, in some
state. While waiting for the royal permit to start up country he amused
himself by looking round the town. Its lions were the Great Market and
the Boa Temple. The latter was a small mud hut, with a thatched roof;
and of the 'boas,' which tuned out to be pythons, he counted seven, each
about five feet long. The most popular deity of Whydah, however, was the
Priapic Legba, a horrid mass of red clay moulded into an imitation man
with the abnormalities of the Roman deity. "The figure," he tells us,
"is squat, crouched, as it were, before its own attributes, with arms
longer than a gorilla's. The head is of mud or wood rising conically to
an almost pointed poll; a dab of clay represents the nose; the mouth
is a gash from ear to ear. This deity almost fills a temple of dwarf
thatch, open at the sides. ...Legba is of either sex, but rarely
feminine.... In this point Legba differs from the classical Pan and
Priapus, but the idea involved is the same. The Dahoman, like almost all
semi-barbarians, considers a numerous family the highest blessing."
The peculiar worship of Legba consisted of propitiating his or her
characteristics by unctions of palm oil, and near every native door
stood a clay Legba-pot of cooked maize and palm oil, which got eaten
by the turkey-buzzard or vulture. This loathsome fowl, perched upon
the topmost stick of a blasted calabash tree, struck Burton as the most
appropriate emblem of rotten and hopeless Dahomey.
48. The Amazons.
Gelele's permit having arrived, the mission lost no time in proceeding
northward. Burton was accompanied by Dr. Cruikshank of the "Antelope,"
a coloured Wesleyan minister of Whydah, named Bernisco, and a hundred
servants. At every halting place the natives capered before them and
tabored a welcome, while at Kama, where Gelele was staying, they not
only played, but burst out with an extemporaneous couplet in Burton's
honour:
"Batunu [205]he hath seen the world with its kings and caboceers,
He now cometh to Dahomey, and he shall see everything here."
Burton presently caught sight of Gelele's body-guard of 1,000 women--the
famous Amazons, who were armed with muskets, and habited in tunics and
white calottes. With great protruding lips, and no chin to speak of,
they were surely the ugliest women in the world. Of their strength,
however, there was no question, and Burton says that all the women
of Dahomey are physically superior to the men, which accounts for the
employment of so many of them as soldiers. The Amazons were bound
to celibacy, and they adhered to it so scrupulously that when Burton
arrived, there were only 150 under confinement for breaking their vow.
Gelele who was 45 years of age, and six feet high, sat under the shade
of a shed-gate, smoking a pipe, with a throng of his wives squatted in
a semi-circle round him. All were ugly to a wonder, but they atoned for
their deplorable looks by their extreme devotion to, or rather adulation
of their master. When perspiration appeared upon the royal brow, one
of them at once removed it with the softest cloth, if his dress was
disarranged it was instantly adjusted, when he drank every lip uttered
an exclamation of blessing. Gelele, drowsy with incense, received Burton
kindly, and treated him during the whole of his stay with hospitality.
He also made some display of pageantry, though it was but a tawdry
show. At the capital, Abomey, "Batunu" was housed with a salacious old
"Afa-diviner" [206] called Buko-no, who was perpetually begging for
aphrodisiacs.
49. "The Customs."
Upon Gelele's arrival at Abomey the presents from the Queen were
delivered; and on December 28th what was called "The Customs" began,
that is the slaughtering of criminals and persons captured in war.
Burton begged off some of the victims, and he declared that he would
turn back at once if any person was killed before his eyes. He tells us,
however, that in the case of the King of Dahomey, human sacrifice is not
attributable to cruelty. "It is a touching instance of the King's filial
piety, deplorably mistaken, but perfectly sincere." The world to come is
called by the Dahomans "Deadland." It receives the 'nidon' or soul; but
in "Deadland" there are no rewards or punishments. Kings here are
kings there, the slave is a slave for ever and ever; and people occupy
themselves just the same as on earth. As the Dahoman sovereign is
obliged to enter Deadland, his pious successor takes care that the
deceased shall make this entrance in royal state, "accompanied by a
ghostly court of leopard wives, head wives, birthday wives, Afa wives,
eunuchs, singers, drummers, bards and soldiers." Consequently when a
king dies some 500 persons are put to death, their cries being drowned
by the clangour of drums and cymbals. This is called the "Grand
Customs." Every year, moreover, decorum exacts that the firstfruits of
war and all criminals should be sent as recruits to swell the king's
retinue. Hence the ordinary "Annual Customs," at which some 80 perish.
Burton thus describes the horrors of the approach to the "palace"--that
is to say, a great thatched shed--on the fifth day of the "Customs."
"Four corpses, attired in their criminal's shirts and night-caps, were
sitting in pairs upon Gold Coast stools, supported by a double-storied
scaffold, about forty feet high, of rough beams, two perpendiculars
and as many connecting horizontals. At a little distance on a similar
erection, but made for half the number, were two victims, one above the
other. Between these substantial structures was a gallows of thin posts,
some thirty feet tall, with a single victim hanging by the heels head
downwards." Hard by were two others dangling side by side. The corpses
were nude and the vultures were preying upon them, and squabbling over
their hideous repast. All this was grisly enough, but there was no
preventing it. Then came the Court revels. The king danced in public,
and at his request, Burton and Dr. Cruikshank also favoured the company.
Bernisco, when called upon, produced a concertina and played "O, let us
be joyful, when we meet to part no more." The idea, however, of getting
to any place where he would never be separated from Gelele, his brutish
court, his corpses and his vultures severely tried Burton's gravity.
Gelele, who was preparing for an unprovoked attack upon Abeokuta, the
capital of the neighbouring state of Lagos, now made some grandiose and
rhapsodical war speeches and spoke vauntingly of the deeds that he and
his warriors meant to perform, while every now and then the younger
bloods, eager to flesh their spears, burst out with:
"When we go to war we must slay men,
And so must Abeokuta be destroyed."
The leave-taking between Gelele and "Batunu" was affecting. Burton
presented his host with a few not very valuable presents, and Gelele in
return pressed upon his guest a cheap counterpane and a slave boy who
promptly absconded.
Whydah was reached again on 18th February 1864, and within a week came
news that Gelele, puffed up with confidence and vainglory, had set
out for Abeokuta, and was harrying that district. He and his Amazons,
however, being thoroughly defeated before the walls of the town, had to
return home in what to any other power would have been utter disgrace.
They manage things differently, however, in Dahomey, for Gelele during
his retreat purchased a number of slaves, and re-entered his capital a
triumphing conqueror. Burton considered Gelele, despite his butcherings
and vapourings, as, on the whole, quite a phoenix for an African.
Indeed, some months after his mission, in conversations with Froude, the
historian, he became even warm when speaking of the lenity, benevolence
and enlightenment of this excellent king. Froude naturally enquired why,
if the king was so benevolent, he did not alter the murderous "Customs."
Burton looked up with astonishment. "Alter the Customs!" he said, "Would
you have the Archbishop of Canterbury alter the Liturgy!"
To a friend who observed that the customs of Dahomey were very shocking,
Burton replied: "Not more so than those of England."
"But you admit yourself that eighty persons are sacrificed every year."
"True, and the number of deaths in England caused by the crinoline alone
numbers 72." [207]
50. Death of Speke, 15th September 1864.
In August 1864 Burton again obtained a few months' leave, and before
the end of the month he arrived at Liverpool. It will be remembered that
after the Burton and Speke Expedition of 1860 Speke was to go out to
Africa again in company with Captain J. Grant. The expedition not only
explored the western and northern shores of the Victoria Nyanza, but
followed for some distance the river proceeding northwards from it,
which they held, and as we now know, correctly, to be the main stream of
the Nile. Burton, however, was still of the opinion that the honour
of being the head waters of that river belonged to Tanganyika and its
affluents. The subject excited considerable public interest and it
was arranged that at the approaching Bath meeting of the British
Association, Speke and Burton should hold a public disputation upon
the great question. Speke's attitude towards Burton in respect to their
various discoveries had all along been incapable of defence, while
Burton throughout had exhibited noble magnanimity. For example, he had
written on 27th June 1863 from the Bonny River to Staff-Commander C.
George, "Please let me hear all details about Captain Speke's discovery.
He has performed a magnificent feat and now rises at once to the first
rank amongst the explorers of the day." [208] Though estranged, the
two travellers still occasionally communicated, addressing each other,
however, not as "Dear Dick" and "Dear Jack" as aforetime--using, indeed,
not "Dear" at all, but the icy "Sir." Seeing that on public occasions
Speke still continued to talk vaingloriously and to do all in his power
to belittle the work of his old chief, Burton was naturally incensed,
and the disputation promised to be a stormy one. The great day arrived,
and no melodramatic author could have contrived a more startling, a
more shocking denouement. Burton, notes in hand, stood on the platform,
facing the great audience, his brain heavy with arguments and
bursting with sesquipedalian and sledge-hammer words to pulverize his
exasperating opponent. Mrs. Burton, who had dressed with unusual care,
occupied a seat on the platform. "From the time I went in to the time I
came out," says one who was present, "I could do nothing but admire her.
I was dazed by her beauty." The Council and other speakers filed in.
The audience waited expectant. To Burton's surprise Speke was not
there. Silence having been obtained, the President advanced and made
the thrilling announcement that Speke was dead. He had accidentally shot
himself that very morning when out rabbiting.
Burton sank into a chair, and the workings of his face revealed the
terrible emotion he was controlling and the shock he had received. When
he got home he wept like a child. At this point the grotesque trenches
on the tragic. On recovering his calmness, Burton expressed his opinion,
and afterwards circulated it, that Speke had committed suicide in
order to avoid "the exposure of his misstatements in regard to the
Nile sources." In other words, that Speke had destroyed himself lest
arguments, subsequently proved to be fundamentally correct, should
be refuted. But it was eminently characteristic of Burton to make
statements which rested upon insufficient evidence, and we shall notice
it over and over again in his career. That was one of the glorious man's
most noticeable failings. It would here, perhaps, be well to make a
brief reference to the expeditions that settled once and for ever the
questions about Tanganyika and the Nile. In March 1870, Henry M. Stanley
set out from Bagamoro in search of Livingstone, whom he found at Ujiji.
They spent the early months of 1872 together exploring the north end of
Tanganyika, and proved conclusively that the lake had no connection with
the Nile basin. In March 1873, Lieutenant Verney Lovett Cameron, who
was appointed to the command of an expedition to relieve Livingstone,
arrived at Unyanyembe, where he met Livingstone's followers bearing
their master's remains to the coast. Cameron then proceeded to Ujiji,
explored Tanganyika and satisfied himself that this lake was connected
with the Congo system. He then continued his way across the continent
and came out at Banguelo, after a journey which had occupied two years
and eight months, Stanley, who, in 1874, made his famous journey from
Bagamoro via Victoria Nyanza to Tanganyika and then followed the Congo
from Nyangwe, on the Lualaba, to the sea, verified Cameron's conjecture.
At the end of the year 1864 the Burtons made the acquaintance of the
African traveller Winwood Reade; and we next hear of a visit to Ireland,
which included a day at Tuam, where "the name of Burton was big," on
account of the Rector and the Bishop, [209] Burton's grandfather and
uncle.