seen from without, but within squalid and
decaying. Except round the chief market-place,
the houses, with walls not more than seven or
eight feet high, built of the red clay, are
scattered; sometimes an enclosure of acres belongs
to a single property, and there is altogether far
more bush than building. Fires are common,
and after a great fire almost every house is girt
with a fetish charm of dead leaves hanging at
wide intervals from a country rope. Before the
gates also of many a house is set up a scarecrow,
the Vo-sisa, to drive away the evil spirits,
who are supposed to mistake for a terrible man
a pole with an empty calabash on it to imitate
a head and a body of grass thatch, palm-leaves,
fowls' feathers, and shells. Near almost every
door stands also the Legba-pot, or Devil's Dish,
supplied daily with food, eaten by the vulture or
turkey-bustard, the Dahomey scavenger, whose
life is sacred, and who presumes much on the
fact. There used to be in the environs fine
cultivated farms, now there are none, but only
marshes, palm-orchards, and neglected clumps
of wood. The population of the town, which
has decayed with the fortunes of the slave-trade,
is also diminishing. It has been estimated by
the French mission to be no more than twelve
thousand, and even this number is reduced by
one-half in time of war.

There are in Whydah four European forts, or
factories; in order of seniority, French,
Brazilian, English, and Portuguese; there used to be
a Dutch and a Prussian factory, but they have
long since disappeared. The English fort is
now tenanted by the Wesleyan mission,
established rather more than twenty years ago, by
Mr. T. B. Freeman and his companion, Mr.
Dawson. Ten years ago they were followed by
the Reverend Mr. Bernasko, the present
principal, and sole master of the fort, where he has
a congregation of a dozen coloured men and a
school of nearly fifty pupils. Mr. Bernasko,
with small pay and many living at his charge,
is obliged to feed his mission from the produce
of a store for the sale of cloth and pottery,
rum and ammunition, within a few yards of his
chapel.

The native religion sets up horrible clay
images of Legbo, and has, in a little round hut
of mud, whitewashed inside and out, with an
extinguisher-shaped thatch for its roof, an
establishment of sacred snakes, of a kind some
ten feet long, and not poisonous. On the other
side of the road their devotees sit upon tree-
roots, and watch over them. Here also are
fetish schools, where any child touched by the
snake must be taken for a year from its parents,
and, at their expense, taught the songs and
dances proper to snake-worship. To kill a
snake of the sacred sort in Dahomey, even by
accident, used to be death to the killer; now
he is put into a hole under a hut of dry fagots,
thatched with grass that has been well greased
with palm-oil. Fire is set to the hut, and
through the fire he must rush up to make his
way to the nearest running water, followed by
the serpent priests, who beat him mercilessly
with sticks and pelt him with clods. Thus he
suffers by fire and water, besides running the
gauntlet.

Many have died under this ordeal, but the
founder in Whydah of the De Souza family
saved many a victim, by stationing a number of
his slaves round him, with orders to give him, as
he ran, only the semblance of a beating, while
they stood in the way of the sticks of the merciless.
Serpent-worship is a religion of the coast.
When the Dahomans conquered Whydah, they
did so in defiance of the fetish power of a sacred
snake that had been left to defend alone the
passage of a marsh that could have been held
well enough by a few fighting men. Yet liberty
to persist in their snake-worship almost
reconciled the Whydahs to the stern Dahoman
rule.

The De Souza just mentioned was a peasant,
who left Rio Janeiro more than half a century
ago, to see the world. He became in Whydah
governor of the Portuguese fort, and about the
year 'forty-three was raised to the native dignity
of chaca, or principal agent for commerce,
between the king and all strangers. As this
captain of the merchants could admit or exclude
what articles he chose, and had the regulation
of the excise, his power of enriching himself was
considerable, and he used it without scruple.
But, as we have seen, though a publican and a
slave-trader, he was of kindly temper,
discouraging torture, and steadily refused to be
present at any human sacrifice. When
advanced in life, he had the Prince de Joinville
for a guest, and he died in the year 'forty-nine,
leaving a hundred children to contest the
succession to his dignity of chaca. The family is
still numerous, quarrelsome, and influential in
Dahomey.

When Captain Burton was on the point of
advancing to the capital, there arrived at
Whydah, with credentials in the form of a
"shark-stick" and a "lion-stick" (tomahawks
with shark and lion ornaments), two of the King
of Dahomey's eunuchs, with names signifying
Here-brave-here and Cannot-get-such-a-son-to-
be-born. The arrival of these messengers with
their retinue enforced three days' delay for a palaver,
but on the thirteenth of December the start
was made. Captain Burton went in company
with Mr. Bernasko and his son Tom, a small boy
of eleven, who already spoke half a dozen of the
coast dialects. Other personages of the procession
were Tom's 'kla, or confidential negro, an
amusing imp aged ten, who did not look more
than half that age; two interpreters; various
catechumens, and the six slave boys whom the
King of Dahomey allowed Mr. Bernasko to
convert at Whydah; a coloured tailor and barber,
who called himself the ensign, and carried the
flag of St. George; a spy; a Popo rascal; a
cook; and the usual tail of hungry followers.
One of the interpreters was John Mark, son of
Mark Lemon, whom Commander Forbes
describes as a " perfect Dahoman, too big a fool
to be a rogue," and the great-grandson of an
English corporal. The other was Mr. Beccham,