formed line opposite her Britannic Majesty's
commissioner, and sang:

Burton (pronounced Batunu) he hath seen all the
              world with its kings and cabboceers:

He now cometh to see Dahomey, and he shall see
              everything here.

In the king's presence, where he sits in the
deep shade of a sort of barn-gate, there is a
circle of white sand for those who approach
to rub their faces in. His Majesty King
Gelele, son of King Gezo, by a northern slave
girl or a mulatto from the French factory at
Whydah, is over six feet tall, well made,
except the cucumber-shaped shin, and several
shades lighter than his courtiers. He is about
forty-five years old, slightly bald, with peppercorn
hair generally close shaven, scanty eyebrows,
thin beard, thinner moustaches, a square
jowl, red bleared eyes, and a turned-up nose,
"looking, in fact, as if all the lines had been
turned the wrong way," but not much flattened,
and not wholly without a bridge. He is strongly
pock-marked, and has the Dahoman mark in
three short parallel and perpendicular lancet cuts
between the scalp and the eyebrows. He dresses
simply, is often bareheaded, wears a single
human tooth and blue bead attached to a thread
as neck ornament and Bo-fetish against sickness,
prefers iron to silver arm-rings, wore at
Kana a white body-cloth of plain fine stuff
with a narrow edging of watered green silk,
over drawers of purple-flowered silk that hardly
reached to mid thigh. His Moslem sandals
were of gold-embroidered scarlet, and he smoked
detestable tobacco.

A throng of royal spouses stood behind to
wipe off instantly any drop of perspiration from
the royal face, to hold the spittoon immediately
when the royal mouth indicated a nascent
disposition to spit, and all ready to rub the ground
with their foreheads whenever his Majesty
sneezed. When his Majesty drinks, no vulgar
eye must see him do anything so ignoble; he
wheels suddenly round to them, with his back
to the court; the wives hide him from view
with umbrellas; drums beat; distracting noises
of all sorts are made, and all heads are averted,
or the courtiers, if standing, dance like bears, or
paddle their hands like the fore feet of a
swimming dog. Amongst some tribes in the Congo
country the chief's big toes are pulled when he
drinks. Protected and not choked by all such
ceremonial, a king of Dahomey is a long-lived
animal. Eight successive kings of the present
dynasty have occupied the throne during two
hundred and fifty-two years. "Thus," says
Captain Burton, "rivalling the seven Roman
monarchs whose rule extended over nearly the
same period, and had caused them to be held
fabulous or typical."

The flower of the host brought forward to
grace this reception was the mixed company of
about two hundred young Amazons lately raised
by the king. The whole court did not show a
gathering of more than a thousand. Some,
however, were away, attacking a village; all
who were there expressed in oration, and song,
and shout, and dance, determination to deal
terribly with the Abeokutans, against whom a
great expedition was intended. It has since
turned out that the Dahomans were very
seriously worsted in that expedition. Three skulls
of conquered chiefs, in various typical settings,
were brought out as part of the more solemn
paraphernalia of Dahoman royalty. One, for
example, was the skull of a neighbouring chief,
who, on the death of Gezo, Gelele's father,
sent word that all men were now truly joyful,
that the sea had dried up, and that the world
had seen the bottom of Dahomey. He was
attacked and killed, and his skull, boiled beautifully
white and polished, is mounted on a ship of
thin brass, a foot long. There is always water
enough in Dahomey to float it with the mocker's
skull for freight, is the grim jest intended.
These skulls are without the lower jaw. The
lower jaw of an enemy is prized in Dahomey for
umbrellas, sword-handles, and other purposes.
It is cut and torn with horrible cruelty out of
the face of the still living victim.

In the presence of his Majesty the highest
courtiers of Dahomey lie on their sides, and at
times roll over on their bellies, or relieve
themselves by standing on all fours. The king speaks
to his subjects through an official, called the
Meu, to whom his word is carried on all fours
by a ceremonious middle-aged lady, called the
Dakoo; she comes back also on all fours with
any answer that may be intended for the royal
ear.

Through the garden, of Dahomey, Captain
Burton and his party presently marched on
from Kana to the capital, Abomey, or Agbome,
a town with gates—from which it has its name
—and without walls. The great square of
Abomey looks like an assemblage of
farmyards, with a dozen long thatched barns; in
fact, barracks for soldiery. The king entered
his capital next day, and at Agbome, Captain
Burton now resided for two months, including
the period of the king's "So-sin Custom."

The word "custom " is used to mean the
cost or charges paid to the king at a certain
season of the year. The Grand Customs, which
are more bloody than the annual rites, are
performed only after the death of a king, and
deferred by his successor until he is able to go
through them with what he thinks to be
due splendour. The Grand Customs of the
present king in honour of his ancestor, were
celebrated in November, eighteen hundred and
sixty. The Reverend Mr. Bernasko, who was
then present, tells that, on his way to Abomey,
he first met a man nicely dressed as a cabboceer,
who was being taken to the sea, where he would
be thrown in to join the two porters of the
seagate to open it for his Majesty's late father
to enter in and wash himself. The following
passages contain the gist of this gentleman's
trustworthy account of the Grand Customs,
from which it will be seen that, although the
King of Dahomey did not really paddle a canoe
in human blood, the slaughter was yet horrible