a slave given to the Wesleyan Mission, and sent
for education to Cape Coast Castle, where he
had introduced himself as "Prince Bah." For
an offence in Dahomey he had suffered three
days' imprisonment, and was cowed for life by
the horror of the heavy chains, the handful of
grain, the cup of dirty water once a day, and
the nights on the hard floor, where he was bitten
by the iwe worm, which, in dread of a terrible
bastinado, he did not dare to kill. "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."

So the procession set out through the misty
morning air, the six hammocks, including those
of the interpreters and of the sharp boy Tom,
being preceded by a youth bearing the king's
cane and a hide-whip wherewith to clear the
way by driving all the carriers into the bush.
The traveller's hammock in Dahomey is
supported rather on the heads than on the shoulders
of the short-necked negroes. An old traveller
complained of being "trussed in a bag and
tossed on negroes' heads;" but the chief
objection is to the brittleness of a pegged bamboo,
which is part of the structure; because, when
that gives way as it often does, the traveller is
suddenly shot head first to the ground. Comes
down, in hunting phrase, "a cropper;" or, in
the language of the lecturer, gets a bad fall on
his occiput.

The way is, by maize-fields and a scattered
line of the lofty bombax (related to the baobab
of Senegal) and umbrella trees backing the
town, over a fair open rolling plain, where the
tall guinea-grass is being burnt down before the
dry season sowing, and the bright leek-green of
the growing herbage stands out gaudily from
the black charred stems and the red loam of the
ground. The road is ten or twelve feet wide,
sandy, well cleared, and thronged with carriers
in Indian file, mostly women, bearing huge
loads lashed to their baskets. The women in
Dahomey are rather of stronger build and larger
size than the men, and, as everybody knows,
take their part in the service of their king and
country, not only as labourers but also as soldiers.
Yet, oddly enough, in that character they say they
have become men, and themselves stigmatise a
coward as a woman.

The monotony of the plain country is relieved
by clumps and groves of palm-trees, stunted
where they grow singly, but in the bush rising to
a great height in search of air and sun. Or the
cocoa and the oil-palm are found scattered like
trees in an English orchard, the oil-palms being
numbered with a view to revenue. The line of
the Agbana water, a foul swamp, is marked by a
jungle strip, two hundred yards broad, of bombax
and broad-leaved figs. Here the smell of the
hardly eatable wild mango mingles with many a
baser savour. Over the marsh runs the road, and
up another wave of ground, with a little village
on the summit half-buried in the plantain-bush,
down into a copse where water runs during the
rains; up again to level ground, and the grey
thatches and mat huts of Savi among small
plantations of maize and cassava, with mangoes,
plantains, a few cocoa-nuts, oranges, the African
apple growing almost wild, and orchards of well-
trimmed oil-palms. At Savi there is a halt for
the cabboceer's greetings of drumming, dancing,
and taboring, drinking of water, and stronger
followings, and gifts of food.

Savi once was the capital of Whydah, and
had a king able to reward Captain Challoner
Ogle with a half-hundred-weight of gold dust
for taking and hanging the pirate Roberts in his
ship the Royal Fortune.

From Savi towards Ardra, which Captain
Burton writes Allada, there is descent again,
and in the hollow is the Nyinsin Swamp, which
flows, after rains, out of, and again into, the
Whydah lagoon. December not being the rainy
season, Captain Burton found this swamp a
hundred and fifty feet broad, and waist deep
with water dark as coffee-grounds, stagnant,
over mud into which the porters sank to mid-
calf. A road of tree-trunks helped the men
over the deepest part. On the banks of the
swamp grew ferns and shrubs. This is the
swamp that the Whydah people neglected to
defend otherwise than by setting up a fetish
snake on their side of it when, in seventeen
'twenty-seven, Savi and Whydah were invaded
and made part of the kingdom of Dahomey.

On the other side of the swamp the country
rises again, and the next wooded descent in the
series of undulations is to the Poli Water, beyond
which there is a regular ascent of steps to Poli,
which is mainly a large market, and stands at
the head of the plateau, with a fine view of the
fall of land to the south. Here there was
lodging for the night, and merry-making,
dancing, gin-drinking, drumming, firing of
powder.

At sunrise next morning the journey onward
was continued down a beautiful narrow path
between foliage of tree and fence to the little
market-place of Azohwe. Thence, after
breakfasting, the way was through a lane of
shrubbery with the brightest flowers, red and blue,
pink and yellow, with here and there a queenly
white lily, to long flats and well-wooded ascents
that led to a large grass clearing, patched here
and there with palms, bark, and forest; so into
Ardra, or Allada, through the maize plantations,
and by the detached houses of the suburb
to the great square, a copy in small of the
great square of Abomey, with a double-storied
palace of red clay, having five shuttered
windows over the royal gateway. In compliment
to this royal abode the procession was carried
with much noise thrice round the square.

The tradition of Allada accounts for the
name and origin of the kingdom of Dahomey.
Nearly two hundred and fifty years ago an old
king of Allada died and left three sons. The eldest
reigned in his father's place. The second son
went away, and founded Hwebonu, since known
by us as Little Ardra and Porto Novo. But Dako,
the youngest brother, went north and settled at