ABEOKUTA
A 58211 2
AND THE
CAMAROONS
MOUNTAINS
R.F.BURTON
DT
513
B97
7.1
VOL. I.
TINSLEY BROTHERS

ARTES
21837)
SCIENTIA
LIBRARY
VERITAS
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
E. PLURIBUS UNUM:
TUBBOR
SI-QUAERIS PENINSULAM AMOENAM
CIRCUMSPICE
Table C
6
DT
513
·B97

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ABEOKUTA
LIBRARY
AND
CO THE
༦༤༦, ༡༧
FRESATZ GE MICHIGE
THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS.
An Exploration.
BY
ca
な
​RICHARD F BURTON,
VICE PRES. ANTHROP. SOC. OF LONDON; GOLD MEDALLIST, GEOG. SOCS., PARIS AND LONDON;
F.R.G.S. LONDON; M.A.S.; M.A.S. BOMBAY; M. ETHNO. S. LONDON.
""
Geography, though an earthly study, is a heavenly subject."-Burke.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18 CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.
1863.
[The right of Translation is reserved.]
LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
Red 12-17-34 HOW
ΤΟ
MY BEST FRIEND,
MY WIFE,
THESE PAGES ARE LOVINGLY INSCRIBED.
Sic ego desertis possim bene vivere sylvis,
Quo nulla humano sit via trita pede.
Tu mihi curarum requies, in nocte vel atrâ
Lumen, et in solis tu mihi turba locis.
a 2
PREFACE.
It is an explorer's duty to record as well as to receive
impressions of what appears novel to him. Amongst
the English, Robert Bruce and Mungo Park; Adan-
son and the Abbé Rochon amongst the French; and
amongst the Germans, Humboldt, the 'Prince of Travel-
lers,' were so mindful of this obligation, that they spent
long years in polishing their journals; and they owe at
least as much—if not more—of their enduring celebrity
to their admirable descriptions as to the extent of
their discoveries and the accuracy of their observa-
tions. Let us follow-however humbly-in their
wake without repining. Such, however, is by no
means the case with contemporaries: in these days
every little leader of an expedition, forgetting that
'scribere est agere,' finds a ready salve for sore vanity
by writing as it were under protest, and by assuming
the superiority of one who boasts that it is his peculiar
province to do—not to write.
vi
PREFACE.
But, quorsum hæc tam putida tendunt? Abeokuta
-Understone-the present capital of the Egba or
Aku race, and without comparison the most important
position in the broad lands which we know by the
name of Yoruba, is, as might be expected, a 'trita via.'
Four volumes upon the subject have been alluded to
in the following pages. Two of these are by the
weaker sex; and the authoresses, who are not tra-
vellers, have produced neat little drawing-room
sketches, all couleur de rose; the African as you see
him upon the walls of the Royal Academy, now
dressed up and musqué, now subjected to the old
stock horrors-slave-driving, for instance-which he
is made to endure with all the gestures of a Briton:
it is, in fact, Ethiopia viewed through European eyes
Africa by the 'own artist' of the Illustrated
News.' The other two are in the missionary-African
line; they, of course, run in a well-known groove.
Without quoting the old saw, semper aliquid novi
say upon the well-
ex Africâ,' there is still much to
worn subject of Abeokuta. And the tale of an unen-
thusiastic traveller, who tells the truth as far as
truth lies in him, cannot fail, even when treating of
Yoruba, to convey some novel facts.
The land which for fifteen years has interested us
by its rumoured progress-the reverend and learned
author of 'Westward Ho!' speaks of the blood-stained
PREFACE.
vii
hosts of Dahome being rolled back by Christian
Abeokuta' at a time when there was about one con-
vert, or 'professor,' to one thousand of the heathenry
-and by the equally fanciful reports that it will
supply our idle looms with cotton, has now entered
into fresh and closer relations with the British empire.
Lagos, distant about sixty miles from the head-quar-
ters of the Egbas, has become an English colony, and
will necessarily influence, for weal or for woe, all
adjacent countries. It may extend its moral force
throughout Yoruba, and become valuable, not only as a
depôt of, and an outlet for, trade, but also, by aiding to
abolish slave exportation, and by causing human sa-
crifice and petty wars to cease, it may save our country
a considerable portion of the million sterling annually
expended upon the West African coffin-squadron.'
As yet, however, our steps have not been in the right
direction. It will presently appear that we have
petted our bantling Abeokuta, and that the spoiled
child has waxed fat and kicked-as the proverb
says-against the foreign pricks. We have aroused
the ever wakeful suspicions of the barbarian, and
he has not been slow in entering upon energetic
measures of this, however, more hereafter.
6
I have attempted to point out in these pages the
simple measures—our West African policy has hitherto
erred rather by commission than by omission-which,
viii
PREFACE.
in my humble opinion, will secure our influence upon
the sea-board of Yoruba.
The Second Part of this work has been made a
pendant to the First, and the reader will readily per-
ceive the reason. The Camaroons Mountains, partially
familiar to geographers for the last four hundred years,
have remained, as far as exploration is concerned,
virgin ground with a virgin flora, a virgin climate; in
fact, virginal all. Captain John Adams (p. 178,
Remarks on the Country extending from Cape
Palmas to the River Congo.' London: 1823) may
be quoted to prove this: A few leagues to the south-
ward of Del Rey there are some moderately high
hills, called the high land of Camaroons, the altitudes
of which have been much magnified by some travellers,
who were probably deceived in consequence of the
surrounding country being a few feet only above the
level of the sea, which gave them, in their eyes, a
degree of consequence they would not have merited
had they been placed in an elevated country.' Of
late, two stout-hearted attempts have been made to
scale these glorious heights, but by force of circum-
stances neither of them proved successful. I could
not but break a lance with a foe so formidable; and
fate willed the trial not to end in failure.
It was hardly, however, the mere ambition of leav-
ing my mark, to faire époque on Western Africa,
PREFACE.
ix
that impelled me to the task. The desire of adven-
ture was subsidiary to higher views. I need not
now here enlarge upon the movement lately, set on
foot in British India; suffice it to say, there will not
be, we progressists fondly believe, a single European
regiment stationed permanently, twenty years hence,
on the plains. If it be found advisable in com-
paratively salubrious Hindostan to establish hill
sanitaria, it becomes a necessity for the yellow-
fever haunted coast of Western Africa. And I
hope to make it evident that the Camaroons Moun-
tains tract is admirably adapted, not only for a
sanitarium, but for a convict station, where those ex-
pecting tickets of leave can undergo a fair trial, and
where the incurables can be employed in expiating, by
useful labour, the outrages which they have committed
upon society. And, finally, a colony, selected from
the 45,000 negroes, who, instead of loafing about
Canada a Canadian once told me that if anything
could reconcile him to slavery it was the presence of
these fugitives-might here do valuable work in
lumber cutting, cacao growing, exporting the fibre
and meal of the plaintain, and expressing cocoa-nut
and palm oil.
In the conclusion to Vol. II., I have attempted to
suggest the readiest and most efficient method of at-
taining a result so truly advisable.
X
PREFACE.
The personnel of our 'international expedition,' as
we called it, numbered six members, D. Calvo Atilano
Iturburu, of Fernando Po; Messrs. Saker and Smith,
of the Camaroons Mission;' M. Gustav Mann, Govern-
ment botanist in West Africa; my factotum Selim
Aga, and myself. We assumed the right, concessible
only in a 'no man's land,' of christening the several
peaks the loftiest was honoured with the name of our
Most Gracious Sovereign, and, from the highest Lady
in the kingdom, we gradually descended to friends and
relatives.
:
The brief and popular notices of the vegetation upon
the Camaroons Mountains are exclusively the work of
M. Mann. To the kindness of Sir William Hooker I
owe the list of specimens collected during our visit to
that interesting region; and Dr. Gray has obliged
me with the names of the small animals that were
stuffed by Selim Aga. These important additions
are inserted in the Appendix, and I here record my
gratitude for all favours received.
The daily thermometric observations were registered
by M. Mann, and during his illness by Selim Aga
under my inspection. Many of the bearings taken
for the map, which was protracted by Mr. George, of the
Royal Geographical Society, are the work of the Rev.
A. Saker, whose energetic assistance was one of the
main causes of our success. Without the aid of that
PREFACE.
xi
gentleman, and of Messrs. Johnson and Pinnock, of
Victoria, our progress would indeed have been slow.
Unfortunately we were badly provided with instru-
ments; neither chronometer, anemometer, sympieso-
meter, nor mercurial barometer for correcting ane-
roids were in the camp: I had applied for them, but
they had not arrived. As in the Hydrographic Office
chart the main points visible from the sea have been
laid down by a satisfactory triangulation, we confined
ourselves to the prismatic compass; and I taped the
road with a line supplied by Lieut. Stokes, R.N., H.M.S.
'Bloodhound.' A pathway up the mountains is now,
we may say, permanently opened; Victoria Bay is
within a few hours' sail of Fernando Po; and I may
venture to promise that, if any questions of interest
are forwarded to me from Europe, they shall be an-
swered to the best of my power-life and health en-
during-in the course of the next dry season.
6
I assume nothing on this occasion beyond the modest
character of a reconnoitrer. A writer in the Times
African explorations in
has lately given to my last
Harar and the Lake Regions the title of reconnais-
sances. C'est bien le mot. I accept it as the best
description of my scanty contributions towards the
extension of geographical knowledge in the dark
continent,' and accordingly it is prefixed to the Second
Part of this work.
xii
PREFACE.
It may be satisfactory to my friends to know that,
on this occasion, favoured by his own good fortune,
or rather by the misfortunes of others, an Englishman
was the first who, standing upon Victoria Mountain,
gazed into the gigantic black chasm that yawned at
his feet. And here I speak for my companions-it
is also pleasant to reflect that the name of Europeans
will hereafter be respected in the region through
which we travelled.
The Appendices are-
1st. A description of the Ambozes, or Cama-
roons Country, by M. J. Grazilhier, who in
1699 made a voyage to Old Calabar-ex-
tracted from Barbot.
2nd. The journal of the late Mr. Merrick, of the
Camaroons Mission, who, as far as is known,
first attempted to ascend the mountain: it
is borrowed from the Baptist Missionary
Herald.'
<
3rd. Sir William Hooker's list of the botanical
specimens collected upon the Camaroons.
Mountains by M. Gustav Mann.
4th. Dr. Gray's descriptions of the animals for-
warded to the British Museum, at the end
of the Camaroons explorations.
5th. Letters, official reports, and memorandum,
on the high land of Camaroons, by the late
PREFACE.
xiii
Mr. M'Gregor Laird and the Rev. A. Saker
(reprinted from the Blue Book of 1857).
6th. Meteorological observations, by M. Gustav
Mann and Selim Aga.
7th. Hypsometrical table.
With the firm expectation of seeing, quam primum, a
sanitarium for the feverish denizens of Lagos, the
Oil Rivers, and Fernando Po, established in this region
of health and future plenty, and hoping that the
public will honour my labours with its approval, I
relieve the reader from the tedium of a longer preface.
RICHARD F. BURTON.
Fernando Po, 1863.
CONTENTS.
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
1
CHAPTER II.
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA
61
CHAPTER III.
PRESENTED AT COURT
99
CHAPTER IV.
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS AT ABEOKUTA
158
CHAPTER V.
THE USUAL SKETCH-GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL .
222
xvi
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI.
PAGE
249
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING .
CHAPTER VII.
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT
275
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DE OMNIBUS AND COTTON CHAPTER
299
ABEOKUTA
AND
THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS.
CHAPTER I.
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
6
AFTER a flying survey of the Oil Rivers' in the
amene delta of the lovely Niger, I found myself
stranded at Fernando Po Island, Bight of Biafra,
Gulf of Guinea, Western Intertropical Africa, and
divided by the thinnest of party-walls from Anti-
Paradise. Nothing to do, and no prospect of doing
anything, which pleasant state of things endured
(ohimè!) from Wednesday the 2nd to Wednesday
the 9th of October, 1861—a long, long, a very long
week.
On the day last mentioned the commodore and
senior officer of the West African squadron com-
passionately offered me a lift to Lagos, the nearest
point where certain necessaries-a 'cook-boy' and a
batterie de cuisine, a carpenter, a diwan-the men-
tion of this article nearly revolutionized the colonist
VOL. I.
B
1
2
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
part of the island of Fernando Po-and many other
things were procurable. Before the next mail could
arrive there would be ample time to reach Abeokuta,
and after enforced rest, the prospect of such a visit
was a joy. I had read much and heard more about
the Town under the Stone,' and the glowing hues in
which the subject had been depicted had conjured up
in my mind a host of doubts that could be laid only
by means of that accurate organ, the eye. A nautico-
diplomatico-missionary visitation was, it had been
rumoured, about to take place, so there remained
only to go and see the fun.' May the reader find it
as funny as I did!
6
About sunset-time of Thursday, H.M.S. 'Arrogant,'
with, besides her usual equipage, a certain person
on board, glided out of the little cove called Clarence,
where she had anchored, past the Adelaide Islands,
alias Islas de Santa Isabel; past Cockburn, popu-
larly called Kokpo Cove, and more prettily Ense-
ñada de Venus; past dwarf cliffs of red clay, with
a tall, thick capping of tangled trees; past Coal
Bay, alias Bahia de Carbon; past Point Bullen, alias
Punta de los Frailes, with its chevaux de frise of tree
trunks and its thick back-wall of blackish verdure;
and finally heading W.N.W. out into the open,
where we once more welcomed the bounding waves
and the breathable atmosphere of old Neptune's
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
3
domains. It may be here observed, that there are at
present three known names for every part and por-
tion of the island. The Portuguese and the older
Iberian nomenclature having, as might be expected,
fallen into complete oblivion, the English settlers
naturally called things after their own fashion, neg-
lecting the Bubis, or indigènes, who, as usual with bar-
barians, have a profusion of terminology for every
feature that attracts the eye; whilst, in their turn,
the Spaniards equally and naturally preferred Cas-
tilian to the harsh Runic' of their predecessors.
(
Fernando Po still haunted us with its presence
next morning, though we had run upwards of one
hundred miles: at times it may be distinctly seen from
Corisco Island, distant some forty-five leagues. To
us the only sign of its existence was a mysterious pile
of slaty-blue nimbus looming on the horizon, based
broadly upon the main, and towering and tapering
high into the heavens. Such, doubtless, was the spec-
tacle, Tristao vaz Teyxeyra, called by the king for
honour Tristao,' which terrified the crew whom
stout-hearted Da Camera, surnamed Zargo, com-
manded.* The days sped swiftly among the hospi-
6
* O Capitão João Gonçalvez da Camera, a gentleman of the household of
the then Infante, and nicknamed Zargo, or the one-eyed-he lost the other
at the siege of Tangiers; but others say that Zargo was the name of a Moor
whom he made captive-was sent in 1418 by his lord, O Conquistador, the
Virgin Prince Henry, son of Don John (first of the name, and second king)
B 2
4
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
table 'Arrogants.' On Monday the 14th we were
rocking and swinging in the eternal roll of the Lagos
roadstead, and on Tuesday the certain person, after
kindly farewells, transferred himself on board H.M.S.
'Prometheus,' Commander Bedingfield, R.N.
6
The day after it was nearly full moon-brought
forth a phenomenon whereat I had reason to rejoice.
All'old hands' tell you that the sooner seasoning
fever' introduces himself, the better. After long
delay, he appears in the shape of a bilious remittent,
which probably will see the last of you, and must,
even, if merciful, leave you in a sad state of what is
popularly called 'pull-down.' The attack came on
at 8 A.M. Preceded by full head, dry skin, blue nails,
cold finger tips, and other normal symptoms, it was
succeeded by nausea, by a rigor that lasted barely
thirty minutes, and by the pyrectic stage, which after
by Philippa, grandchild of Edward III. of England, to examine the West
African coast. Returning to Porto Santo, he was informed by the
settlers, whom he had previously left there under the first Donatorio, or
Donee, Bartholomew Perestrello, or Palestrello, that it was 'fama publica'
that in one particular direction the sea was ever overhung with a thick
impenetrable darkness, huma grande sombra,' or as De Barros has it, 'hum
negrum tal e tum medonho e perpetuo que henhum se atrevia a chegar a
elle,' denoting, according to the Jesuit Cordeyro, an abyss, and guarded by
a perpetual smoke and strange noises, which seemed to issue from the mouth
of hell. Zargo was encouraged to explore it by observing that the black-
ness in question disappeared during the changes of the moon.
The crew,
excepting the pilot, were so frightened that they repeatedly begged to be
allowed to return. Queer times when explorers could be frightened by a
fog! Zargo landed in Madeira 2nd July, 1419, the day of Santa Isabel.
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
5
10
an hour and a half passed off in a profuse perspira-
tion. There is nothing unpleasant in these attacks;
rather the contrary. The excitement of the nerves
is like the intoxication produced by a plentiful supply
of strong green tea; the brain becomes uncommonly
active, peopled with a host of visions, and the imagi-
nation is raised almost to Parnassus. There are per-
sons who rhyme under the inspiration of Musa Quar-
tana, and M. Alexandre Dumas père, in the wildest
of his romances, the Voyage au Caucase,' declares
that his artist's most dashing sketch was done with a
pulse beating higher than a hundred. Of course,
the patient pays for it when the fit passes off. The
treatment adopted by Mr. Eales, surgeon of H.M.S.
'Prometheus,' was simple, and so successful that I
am induced to publish it for the benefit of future
feverists.*
**
6
During the first fit, 4 grains ext. colocynth, 4 ditto jalap, 4 ditto
quinine, and gr. tart. emetic-the latter to induce perspiration; followed
by 6 grs. sulph. quinine and 6 grs. sulph. magnesia; and 4 grs. nit.
potash and 6 grs. sulph. magnesia. On the next day 1 dr. Epsom salts
and grs. quinine, every three hours, which will probably settle the affair ;
at least it did in my case.
Of the following the faculty speak very favourably. It is the South
African traveller,
Dr. Livingstone's Remedy for African Fever.
'The medicines, which must be pure and unadulterated, are as follows :
Six or eight grains of resin of jalap, and the same amount of rhubarb, with
four grains of calomel and four of quinine, made into pills with spirit of
cardamoms: the whole is a full dose for a man. On taking effect, quinine
6
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
At 8 A.M. on the morrow, the attack did not re-
turn-it is a favourable sign when it defers itself:
it delayed twelve hours, and then appeared precisely
in the same way, but not nearly so agreeably, pain
in the temples being now a decided characteristic,
and it continued till 12 noon, causing a sleepless
night. Next day showed its effects in a surprising
weakness and languor, which endured for a full week,
making one feel much in the condition of a pony
that has passed its third year in Sierra Leone. The
vigorous treatment completely expelled the fiend it
did not show on the third day, which, with the fifth,
the seventh, and the ninth, is held to be critical. Such
attacks are by no means so dangerous as an English
bronchitis or influenza, but the debility induced by
them often leads to frequent relapses, and people will
act up to the bad old nursery rule, 'starve a fever
and feed a cold.' My experience in East Africa long
ago untaught me that tenet, and I have ever since
preferred to support exhausted nature with essence of
(not the unbleached kind), in four-grain or larger doses, is given every two
hours or so, till the ears ring or deafness ensues; this last is an essential
part of the cure. The prescription, like some others of known value, is
not strictly scientific, and the practice of giving quinine from the very
commencement of the attack is not considered good. I was led into it by
nervous anxiety to save my own children at Lake Ngami, in 1850, and
have experienced its value so frequently since with Africans and Europeans,
that I follow it, though opposed to the teachings of my superiors.'
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
7
6
meat, beef-tea, and, when such things are procurable,
with champagne, brandy-cum-soda, and
ye oldest
hoc in ye cellar,' non sine tobacco if it can be
enjoyed. The Anglo-Indian superstition touching
recurrence at the springs' is here unknown, yet
inveterate habit will make me careful to prepare for
luna piena with a prophylactic-a fortnight of chin-
chonized wine.
6
We were in the depth of the tornado season, and
we were made to feel it. Hardly had we returned to
the 'Prometheus' on the night of the 21st, than rain
from the masses gathering in the north-east-here as
in Fernando Po it is the quarter-began to fall in
the usual sheets and columns. Then came a pre-
monitory thunder-crash, single, and sounding as if
the fractus orbis were falling in. These solitary
outbreaks of violence are common on the coast, but
they appear strange to Europeans. After a few
moments, a flash of lightning filled the firmament
with liquid blue fire, and a queer whizzing, like the
shock of an aëriform mass, or the 'whistling Jack' of
a Lancaster gun, was succeeded by the deafening
booming report of a battery of Armstrongs, and
detached noises like the upsetting of stone waggons
by the thousand. The bolt or fluid had struck the
fore-topmast; neglecting the vane, it had run down
the conductor, which it ripped away from its bear-
00
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
:
ings-what would Sir S. H. think of this?—and
passing along the wire forestay, had separated into
two currents. One traversed the port nightheads, the
other, following the starboard chain-cable into the
locker, filled the deck with rust-dust, and gambolling
playfully within three feet of the powder magazine,
that contained some two tons, made the men on
watch think that they saw smoke, and levant ‘in
short metre.' After taking this improper liberty, the
storm-king hauled off, and we heard him in the
distance grumbling like an old man-of-war's man.
A splinter from the foremast made a very neat
paper-knife for my wife.
The period between the 23rd and the 28th of
October was passed-under the hospitable but not
water-tight roof of my friend Mr. M'Coskry, then
acting-governor of Lagos-in various preparations for
travel, and in the enjoyment of Moslem society. 'A
small knot of us gathered to interchange pleasant
communings, whilst grace gave a fresh intenseness
of longing.' Yet El Islam is under a cloud in these
regions: the young and vigorous creed has still the
proportions of a child. The number of converts
has been stated at 2000; it can hardly exceed
800. The mosque is still a hut, the musical call
of the Muezzin-how much more human and
heart-stirring than the clang of the brazen-tongued
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
9
6
bell!*—is yet unheard, and the women of the Kafirs
are allowed to display their bosoms in the market-
place. There were, however, several of the Safe Faith+
who had pilgrimaged to Meccah, and one man, a ser-
vant of the Caboceer' Kosoko, had resided a dozen
years at El Medinah, and had returned to infidel Ekko,
via Sawakin, Kordofan, Darfur, Wádái, Burnu, and
Rabba. Many had also travelled over the northern
line from Kano and Sokoo to Tarabulus or Tripoli.
There were books amongst those Moslems, a Koran
of Bombay lithography, and sundry risálát (treatises)
of the Maliki school, to which they all belong. Their
manuscripts are written in the curious semi-Cufic
character, which is to them like what the Tondo-
Mezzo-Gotico is to these sheets. The 'Allamah,' or
most learned, was the Muallim Dáudá, who knew a
little of the grammatical sciences, but who had not
reached the height of interpreting the Koran.
As our journey was to be by water, few impedi-
ments were necessary-a collection of pots and pans,
and supplies for the way. Only one servant was
* Whilst the ignorant Moslem believes that bells drive away good spirits
from the abodes of men, the equally ignorant Roman Catholic habitant of
Canada holds himself safe from the devil only when within the sound of
his clocher. Both cannot be in the right perhaps neither is.
† The expression 'saving faith,' applied to El Islam, is apt to convey
an erroneous idea: Moslems are wholly opposed to Christians in their
notions touching salvation. With those, every man is sent into the world
by a beneficent Deity to be blessed; with these, to be damned.
10
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
required, and he was found in the person of Selim
Aga. A native of Tegullet, he had been carried
when of tender years to Egypt, where he had found
a patron in my old friend, the benevolent Mr. Robert
Thurburn of Alexandria, now deceased. He had lived
twelve and a half years in Europe-where he had for-
gotten his mother-tongue-chiefly at a Scotch school
near Murtho, Aberdeenshire, and he returned to Africa
in 1857 with that failure of failures, the Niger expe-
dition. He proved himself perfection; a Figaro, but
-un-Figaro-like-honest, civil, and unpresuming: he
could cook, doctor, shave, valet,' garden, carpenter,
shoot and stuff birds, collect spirit specimens-in fact,
he took all the trouble of life off my hands. I at once
made him my factotum, regretting to see such a man
wasted upon the barbarism of Lagos. Some years.
hence, when we also shall have topographical engi-
neers, and when exploration shall become a profes-
sion, not, as at present, an affair of mere amateurship,
Selim Agas will be useful in cutting a path for the
European pioneer through outer Asia and Central
Africa.*
6
After a fortnight all was ready for departure.
* In 1860 Selim Aga proposed to recover the papers of the late M.
Vogel, who is generally believed to have been killed by the Sultan of
Wádái, a perilous land, which an older hand, Dr. Barth, prudently avoided.
According to the travelling Arab servant, who in 1859 was sent by the
Niger expedition at Bidda, the present capital of Nupe, M. Vogel travelled
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
11
6
The little party consisted of Commander Beding-
field,-who, with that condescension which charac-
terizes every truly great man, had permitted me to
form part of his suite or train - Mr. Eales, and
myself. The dog Sancho must precede Mr. Wil
liams, a sassy,' half-educated Egba interpreter to
the Government at Lagos, who, in his quality of
interpreter, went on in a canoe, preferring, more
Africano, lying at full length to sitting upright, and
who intrigued like a black Talleyrand throughout
the week. Commander Bedingfield, who, and who
only, believing in his own omniscience touching
African affairs, had, as will appear, sundry affairs to
settle, and was destined not to succeed in all and every
of them. The second, Mr. Eales, added to the natural
wish of sight-seeing, the idée fixe that unicorns abound
in Northern Yoruba. He had heard of the animal
from certain merchants resident at Lagos-one of
from Bugharmi to a well-known well on the frontier of Wádái, a halting-
place for pilgrims and trader caravans. He was there left by his servant,
who had travelled with Dr. Barth, and he proceeded to the capital of
Wádái. The Sultan hearing that the white man had gone at night to a
neighbouring hill, with instruments for observing, forbade him strictly to
repeat the operation. M. Vogel disobeyed the orders, and two men were
sent to take off his head. His papers are said to be still in possession of
Sidi Ali, religious chief of Kano, and there ought to be no difficulty in
recovering them. Dr. Baikie, chief of the Niger expedition, proposed to do
this himself. So Selim was thrown out, and Dr. Baikie has not yet
done it.
12
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
them had promised to provide him with a spe-
cimen and he had read of it in the matter-of-fact
and highly imaginative pages of Mr. Bowen.* The
tales reported by this missionary-militant remind one
of the Chinese tiger with nine human heads, the
'intelligent creature of a thousand souls,' the dog-
headed rhinoceros with six horns, the five-headed
crocodile, the bird with one eye, and the horse-like
deer with leopard's spots, white head, and red tail.
We read in Central Africa' of the Alakere, a
tribe three feet high, who surround their towns-as
England is investing her ships-with iron walls.
Beyond them, and eastward of the Niger, are the
Alabiru, also clever smiths, and manufacturers of all
the finest Sudan blades: having inflexible tails,
about six inches long, before sitting down to work
*Central Africa,' Charleston, U. S., 1857-about which work more
presently. The Doko race of which Mr. Bowen speaks is probably a cor-
ruption of 'Donko,' the slave race from the north of Ashanti, well known
on the Gold Coast: a people with a single gash between the eye and the
upper lip, on both cheeks, were shown to me at Abeokuta under this name.
Mr. Bowen describes them as coming from the Mandara region, and having
four eyes. Doko,' in Eastern Africa, is applied to the pigmies called
Kimo in Madagascar, and by the Mombas missionaries, Wabilikimo, i. e.,
men two cubits high. Wayangara, the mythical Christian city, two
months' journey east of Sokoto, or more generally described as lying east
of Yoruba, is inhabited by white men, who are probably what the Hansa
people call Bature Dudu, black-white men, a Grecian-faced race that cross
the African continent, and report that after three months' march they
arrive within a fortnight of the Salt Sea. There is a native tradition that
they inhabit the lands of Gengira, Darmút, and Sidama.
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
13
they with sharp sticks dig holes in the ground. Mr.
Barnum may save himself the 100,000 dollars which,
as the story runs, he has offered to a certain African
traveller who told him how easy it would be to
engraft a simian termination to the human frame.
There is also the ashori-tree, a upas, under which
plants will not grow, and which kills birds when
flying too near. Of course the gorilla exists, and is
called 'nákí.' The Yorubans declare that it tears
asunder the fingers of captives, even as the Mpongwe
of the Gaboon River make it pull the nails from the
human victims' fingers and toes. The chimpanzee is
certainly found in dense forests, and being four feet
high, is feared by the people; as yet, however, we
are so ignorant of the anthropoid apes that the nákí
may
be a new and more formidable species of troglo-
dytes. There are subterranean races, humans, with
four eyes, living south of Mandara; and, finally, the
Alabiwo, men-unicorns, with a small goat-like horn
projecting from the middle of the forehead. They
are black, very intelligent, and when captured,
becoming ashamed of what some men wear with such
complacency, they hide the formation under a ker-
chief.
Yet after all the unicorn, like the great sea-ser-
pent, has its advocates; and it is not a little curious
that many African tribes have a distinct name for
14
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
it.* However it may be, Mr. Eales left Abeokuta
sans unicorn, and he has not yet, I believe, found it.
Three lines of road on the west of the Ogun
River connect Abeokuta with the youngest of our
colonies, Lagos. The shortest, viâ Ota and Agba-
meya, is laid down at sixty-five miles in length.
It is rugged, and unfit for beasts of burden. Fur-
ther west is the middle path, also swampy and com-
paratively useless. The westernmost is the best, and
* Dr. Baikie, writing to the 'Athenæum,' from Bida Nupe, the Nyffe
of Richard Lander, in Central Africa, January 15, 1862, concerning this
romance of natural history,' declares that five years of experience have
shaken his scepticism; and that whereas he once looked upon the unicorn
as a myth, he now 'simply holds that its non-existence is not proven '—a
giant's step on the path of faith. The horn, he has heard, is long, black,
and straight, or nearly straight, and the hunters of the one-horned rhino-
ceros carefully distinguish between this and the equine monoceros. Finally,
he supplies the following list of names by which the animal is called in
various countries, from Lake Chad to the Gulf of Guinea :—
Búndiá-ru and Kamárami in Kanuri (Bornu).
Maríri
•
in Hausa.
Yílifú and Dákarkúlewal. in Fulfulde, or Filáni.
Kárafitu.
Panlili
Agába
Iwú
Tenesek
•
. in Márgí.
. in Núpe.
in Bonu (where a skull is said to be).
. in Yoruba.
in A'zbentsi (Tawárek).
Mr.
M D'Abbadie alludes to it in Kordofan under the name of A'nasa.
Bowen's agbangrere was described as having the form of a sorrel horse with
the feet of a cow, and with a single horn like that of an antelope. A horn
was produced, 'black in colour, coarsely rugose below and smooth towards
the top;' possibly it was a kudu's. The unfortunate slayer is sure to die
within a year.
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
15
can at times be travelled on horseback. All of
these routes, however, are flooded during the rains,
when the waters cut deep ruts in the hard clay.
Even at this season the best is hardly passable,
mud and morass forming the chief obstacles: it
however opens in December, and remains so till
March. It would be worth while to explore for
some line to the east of the Ogun, which might
reduce the land journey from sixty-five to forty-eight
miles. All attempts at road-making, however, in the
present state of independent Africa must fail; the
people, assisted by their climate, would in a few
months reduce the finest macadam to a mere bridle
path—a long, deep cunette threading grassy banks.
Moreover, the Abeokutans are by no means anxious
for a more direct route, which they have been per-
suaded would soon deliver them into the hands of
the great devourer. They have coquetted with us
for years on this point; and although they must
eventually yield to civilized pressure, they will defer
the bad day as long as possible.
We therefore determined to take the usual line from
Lagos to Abeokuta, across the Ikoradu Water, through
the Agboi Creek, and thence up the Ogun River.
At 9.15 A.M. on Tuesday, the 29th October, 1861,
we left our temporary homes in highest spirits, and
were duly escorted to the beach by Mr. M'Coskry
16
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
6
and M. Maser, a most worthy member of what calls
itself The Church Missionary Society. Our convey-
ances were the first and second gigs of H.M.S. ' Pro-
metheus,' manned by Krumen, who, demoralized
by an education at Sierra Leone, and by the over-
pay and the over-kindness of a fighting craft,
proved the idlest and the unhandiest of their tribe.
In the state of nature they will row forty miles
without other refreshment but a snack,' eaten whilst
lying upon their oars. Artificialized, they must
halt, chop water,' and cook after every third hour;
otherwise they will dawdle, give answers, or, with
far-protruded lips, sulk. Our fellows once saw their
captain standing alone on the river bank awaiting his
breakfast, and yet they sat down to 'yam.' I could
not pity him, it was his own doing. But one cannot
wonder that no merchant vessel will employ a Kruboy
who has been known to serve on board a man-of-war.
6
And so we rowed up the Osa, or Victoria Water,
connecting the Ikoradu or Cradoo Lagoon with the
sea, along the pestilent island of Lagos, which, pro-
bably founded by driftage, and finished with eddy-
carried sand, rises a few feet above sea-level.*
* According to Captain John Adams, who, as has been said, wrote in
1823, Lagos Island is a foot only above the level of the lake at high water,
which is so shallow that boats of only 10 or 15 tons burden can approach
the town.' If his observations be correct, the island has risen and the
channel has sunk.
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
17
I
6
Our course after leaving the beach lay westwards,
through slack water, along the densely-wooded
"Takpa's" Point, where, in 1851, El Re Kosoko's pre-
mier had erected chevaux de frise to prevent the
landing of the assaulting Briton. On our right lay
Lagos, which in this, its city end, showed a disorderly
mass of hut and house with mud walls and lumber
walls, barred casements and holes for windows, and
huge sloping roofs of dry palm-leaf, inevitably capital
tinder. Then came Fetish Point, where a growth of
gigantic trees-the Egbas still, like the Canaanites of
old, worship in the bush-notes that the land is holy
ground.' Fetish Point has, like the trans-Temple Bar
region, London, a government all its own, an imperium
in imperio, not subject to the more aristocratic Lagos:
the chief must never be a fetish or reverend man,
and his state is kept up by the voluntary contribu-
tions of the river fishermen, who, at this moment,
are in palaver, having refused to pay church rates.
The unlovely channel was scummed over with a
whitish froth, borne along by the strong embrace
of the tide the surface was broken by long walls
of shrimp baskets, sharp, tapering cones of bamboo
strips, attached to strongly-driven poles, and so
placed that the animals, once inside the camera di
morte, cannot escape by reason of the violent current.
This is a conspicuous feature upon the smoother sur-
VOL. I.
C
18
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
face of the lake beyond: the produce, sun-dried and
packed, is a lucrative branch of native trade, and
penetrates inland far north of Abeokuta. The old
travellers remarked the quantity of shrimps produced
in these streams, and gave their name, Camaroes-
Anglicè, Camaroons-to a river, and to the magnifi-
cent mountain pile which will form the subject
of future pages.
As we emerged from the gut,
conspicuous on our right hand, and boldly heading
the body of Lagos, was the mediatized King Dosu-
mo's palace,' a red-tiled and partially whitewashed
barn, backed by trees of the noblest stature, and
fronted by water perilously deep, from three to four
fathoms, where gunboats have been known to trust
themselves. In equally sunken soundings, and a
little off the town, lay detached pontons,' or lumps
of land, once mangrove-drifts, then sand-banks, and
now clumps of bush: they are three, and presently
they will be four. These are called the 'Sacrifice
Islands,' from the executions common in the good
old times the victim to Oro-of whom more anon-
was fastened to a rude cross, clubbed, and impaled.
The latter operation seems to have been a favourite:
the travellers of the last generation describe the
'horrid custom of impaling alive a young female,'
and this annual sacrifice, which took place about the
vernal equinox, was supposed to breed plenty in the
6
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
19
land.* * But Lagos has learned to hide her horrors.
We no longer observe male dogs which, banished to
the towns beyond, have ventured to revisit their
homes, strangled as fetish against evil influences,
'split, trimmed like sheep, and hung up at the door
of some great man, where rows of the putrid carcases
of their canine brethren are often to be seen;' nor
at the east end of the town do we find large trees
covered with the heads of malefactors, the skulls
nailed to the trunks and large limbs, and presenting
a very appalling spectacle.'† On the left, and nearly
opposite Sacrifice Islands,' lies Bruce's, more mo-
dernly termed Picnic, Island, garden soil beautifully
clad in the green ceiba, or bombax-tree, dotted with the
rose-shaped yellow blossoms of the African mallow.
6
6
*I afterwards saw at Benin city a young woman lashed to a scaffolding
upon the summit of a tall blasted tree, and being devoured by the turkey-
buzzards. The people declared it to be a 'fetish,' or charm for bringing
rain.
This will remind the reader of Richard Lander's celebrated descrip-
tion of the Tree of Death at Badagry; and, as will be seen, the custom
has not yet died out of Yoruba.
On the 25th November, 1851, a force of 260 men in 23 boats, com-
manded by Commander Forbes, H.M.S. 'Philomel,' entered the river to
repress the disorders caused by the 'usurper Kosoko.' They were preceded
by Mr. Beecroft, H.M. Consul for Fernando Po, carrying a flag of truce.
About five thousand people manned the bush, and though a landing was
effected and a few houses were fired, the expedition was 'whipped'—as it
deserved, for not shelling or rocketing the town: two poor fellows were
killed, and several were wounded. In January, 1852, the Commodore,
Captain R. W. Bruce, revenged the affront, and his name has been per-
petuated in Bruce's Island.'
C 2
20
་
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
1
6
Between this cay' and the mainland runs a narrow
channel, crossed by a ferry-boat, and on its banks a
yellow line of clay points out the terminus of the
nearest western route to Abeokuta.
Presently we emerged from the river into the
mirrory expanse of the Lake glistening in the bright
sunshine. North-eastward lay a sea horizon fringed
with dots, denoting tall groves distance-dwarfed and
raised in the air by force of mirage; whilst some ten
miles distant, Point Lambassa, fronted by its own islet,
was poised between sea and sky. The lagoon is
called in our maps the Cradoo Waters, doubtless a
corruption of Ikoradu, a town near its banks, and
readily visited by Europeans. Though unsur-
veyed, it is believed to be of considerable extent, and
to connect the Benin with the Volta River:* the
formation, however, is simple; it is merely a general
reservoir for the numerous streams, which rapidly
pouring down from the mainland, and lacking water-
shed near the coast, here collect within two miles of
the surf, and when swollen by the rains force a
tumultuous passage into the Atlantic. According
to some it is connected with the Ardrah Lake near
Whydah, which they say can thus be made from
Lagos by water: others declare that the continuity
* If this surmise be correct there is an uninterrupted line of natural
canalization between the Volta, the Niger, and the Bonny River, a distance
of nearly 400 direct miles.
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
21
of its arm, the Osa,* or Victoria Lagoon, is broken
at Godemé, a place beyond Porto Novo. It is
shallow, but intersected by channels, some of which
are known to be eight fathoms deep in a setting of
mountain land it would be beautiful; its low shores
and its clay-coloured water, however, render it tame
and uninteresting. The bottom is alternately muddy
and sandy. It produces oysters, differing from the
mangrove species, before which every fresh African
traveller stands with open mouth; and amongst the
variety of its fishes, one locally called the mullet
stands unrivalled.
We advanced steadily, hugging, as much as the
shallows would allow, the right bank of the long
'flash,' or river-bay, where the amphibious vegetation
was indented with covelets, upon whose dwarf pre-
cipices of red clay sprang another and already a less
malarious growth. Presently we descried the market-
place of Ikoradu town, in the land of the Ijebu Remo.†
This is a people with a chief, but without a king,
bordered eastward by rivals and cognates, the Ijebu
Ode, so called because their Awajáli, or monarch,
* Mr. Bowen says that the lagoon, or lake, is called Ossa by the
natives, Cradoo by the English. If I understand them aright, 'Osa' is the
arm which joins the Lagos River, and extends westward to Badagry;
'Cradoo' is the lagoon itself.
† The former word is variously written, and most generally Jaboo or
Jebu: the Germans prefer Dshebu.
22
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
resides at the city of Ode.* In happier times the
Ibadans of the interior made at Ikoradu their bar-
ters of gunpowder and similar necessaries for ivory
and palm-oil. They, however, no longer visit the
coast the war with Abeokuta prevents their taking
the western road, and the eastern, that abuts
at Ekpe, besides being indirect, lies through the
lands of their enemies the Ijebu Ode, who have
fraternized with Abeokuta. The market-place on
the Lake shows a few ragged sheds at the bottom.
of a deep indentation bounded by projecting points,
and looking like the estuary of a considerable stream
-which, as will be seen, it is not. Opposite us was
a tall and uniform forest of mangroves, in whose
dark depths a line of lighter-tinged green, backed by
a deeper hue than usual, was the only sign that a
channel ran through it. Selim was the only one of
the party who knew the way by experience, and
with his aid we shot into the Agboi Creek at 11.20
A.M., after two hours of rowing. The entrance of
this normal short cut must be set down at a distance
somewhat shorter than that usually assigned to it,
twelve miles-our Krumen assuredly did not exceed
five knots an hour.
Before entering the Agboi Creek, a word or two
* Ode lies some 30 miles south of Ibadan. From Lagos you sail 20 miles
eastward upon the Ikoradu waters, and thence march 22 miles north.
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
23
concerning the land formation which we leave behind
us. The coasts of the world have been divided into
the rocky (exclusively or alternating), the coralline,
and the alluvial. The two former are exemplified in
Eastern Africa about the latitudes where we now are:
Zanzibar is essentially coralline, the Ajan is stony.
This portion of the West African coast is at present
• Neither sea
Nor good dry land.'
Essentially alluvial, it is a false coast, a mass of con-
tinental islands fringing the continent, the gift of
the rivers, hardly habitable now, but destined in the
progress of time to become fitted by secular upheaval
for human occupation. It wants only altitude. The
material is the finer sand of an immense drift, whose
coarser particles have been left, and will be met with
inland. The presence of saline matter by no means
affects the soil, which mainly requires clearing, and
in parts much of the ground is as reclaimable as the
alluvial flats of the Nile.
The Agboi Creek, I have said, is a short cut. It
is a chord running directly from the north, whereas
the Ogun River, our destination to-day, bends round
in an arc from north-west to east, and eventually
south-east. This narrow ditch is an excellent study
of mangroves. The tree, whose only object in
life seems to be emergence and escape from the
(
24
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
of
briny,' rises tall, feathery, white-bolled, overarching
the wave, based upon a cone of aërial root and rootlet,
infinitely intricate and cage-like, and steadied by drop-
ping long suckers, which, taking the ground, rise for
themselves in independent sprigs or shoots, whose cap
green leaves nods over the flow of the graveolent
tide. I could not hear that the fruit is here used as
an article of human diet; the trunk, however, makes
excellent firewood, and the bark is used for tanning.
Its complications of bole and branch are further com-
plicated by huge Ilianas, chiefly cucurbitaceous, whose
ropes, sometimes sixty feet long, are so fragile that,
as we shoot the natural bridges of inclined or fallen
trunks, a brush with the gig's awning-stanchions
brings down the long length upon our heads.
The colour of the ditch-water is that of cocoa-
nibs and milk, whilst here and there tufted leaves,
like enormous water-cresses, float down the stream.
Animal life is scarce. At times a sandpiper starts
with its wild twitter, a beautiful little blue marten
(Cypselus) flutters over us, screaming hornbills
(Buceros)-here their heads are worth half a dollar
for charms-form a cross high in the air, or a
pair of glorious purple-robed halcyons (A. Senega-
lensis) occupies a stump to peer curiously below, and
presently to take a ‘header,' like a handful of gems,
into the clayey tide. Now a jumper fish springs up
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
25
and flashes in the sunbeams; then a monkey, with
wonderful agility, falls as if shot from one bough to
another; then a crab, 'with brightly painted claws,
scuttles over the dull brown mud. We pass, how-
ever, numerous canoes ascending with empty and
descending with filled oil puncheons, the master
seated upon a box amidships, astern the mistress
or mistresses squatting under a mat-awning, whilst
the more than three-quarter-naked boatmen cease
poling, doff their head-gear, whatever it may be,
and salute us with word and gesture courteously,
as if they had taken lessons of Madame Michaud,
who teaches ladies from the country to curtsy at
court.
The water-way became so narrow that the oars
were presently stowed in and the straight-bladed.
paddles of the Krumen-poles would have been
better-were called into requisition. After a little
more than a mile we reached a fork of the creek,
upon which are built the cocoa-dotted settlements;
Agboi on the right, and to the left Oruba. The vil-
lages were Lagos on a reduced scale; roofs of dried
palm-leaf and walls of African 'post and plaster,
swish supported by a framework, in small squares, of
stout cocoa-rib wattling. The foundations, raised but
a few feet above water-level, must become in the
rainy season a bed of soppy treacle-like mire. Yet
26
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
these people, thus living in the midst of miasma,
are said not to suffer: they look fat and well, they
have children at their desire, and they breed dogs,
sheep and goats, pigs and poultry. They appear
but little surprised at our appearance, merely looking
up for a moment from their work, which they re-
sume a minute afterwards. They are an industrious
race: pottery is abundant, nets are hung everywhere,
canoes are numerous; the men have studded the little
creek with fish-traps-open-topped squares of bamboo
splints, each with its trap-door up-current-the women
ply the paddle-in every other part of Egba-land a
disgrace to women-and both sexes show a serious
turn of mind by striking the jaw-bone of a sheep
upon a stake. Truly it is said that one half the world
knows not how the other half lives.
As we advanced, taking the left, or western, divi-
sion of the Agboi Creek, the outfall became heavy
against us. It is no tidal stream, and the current
runs some three knots an hour, sweeping the boats
round at the acute angles. At times we tremble for
the awning, and we always keep a sharp look out
for the dangerous snags. Our visitors are not plea-
sant. The huge mangrove-fly,' supposed by the
people to have eyes under the wings, draws blood
when it can with its sharp stilet; the black man-
grove-ant, showered down by the brushed foliage, as
C
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
27
unpleasant to man as it is fatal to cockroaches; gad-
flies, like the English horse-fly-they may be the
tsetse, hitherto most ignorantly limited to the south-
ern regions of intertropical Africa *--and the micro-
scopic but vicious sand-flies attack the ankles, and
employ the Krumen in long diversions of scratching
and slapping. Pour comble de bonheur, a jagged
line of black nimbus, raising its bosom high above
an ominous mass of lurid-white, cloudy substance,
charges across the sky from the north-west, and warns
us to prepare for an African shower.
Presently it came on. A fierce rattling of thunder,
a red flicker of lightning, a volley of drops like
shot from above, pitting the creek's face, bore down
upon us with the speed of the wind, and ended with
a cross between a douche and a shower-bath. The
canvas awning, though at once tilted up, was wet
through after the first five minutes, the waterproof
struggled hard but in vain against the intruder, and
the boat began to fill apace. We landed for facility
of baling, and, saved by umbrellas from the dis-
tillings of the trees, we guarded against the dangers
of cold fresh water with a liquid considered a panacea
in these lands. The tornado passed off after half an
*South African travellers have limited the insect's habitat to the Zam-
bezi's banks. I supplied the British Museum with specimens brought from
the vicinity of the equator, and I expect to find the animal throughout the
low and bushy regions of intertropical Africa.
28
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
hour, but it departed under protest as it were, growl-
ing, and occasionally returning to bespatter us. The
odour of the vegetation waxed faint and sickly.
Briefly, we experienced many of the proverbial ad-
vantages of a ‘short cut.'
6
Two or three miles more brought us to a change
of scenery. The Agboi's stream, flowing swiftly, often
jammed us against the well-wooded banks; the snags
and sawyers became more frequent, and the creek
broader and shallower. Our men were frequently
obliged to dislodge the boat-it drew about thirteen
inches-and, tumbling out,' to shove her by main
force over the bars that connected the deeper waters,
which were seldom more than four feet. Gradually
the mangrove belt disappeared, giving way to wild
bananas, dwarf flabellate palms (P. spinosa?), the
calamus, with black prickly stem and long green lines
like snakes, and various wild fruit trees, the African
hog-plum (Spondias Birrea), and others that not
inaptly simulated cherries. Contrasting with the
deep, dark, dense foliage of the bush, the water-lily of
virgin white-the nymphæa, which ancient Egypt
borrowed from the Hindu and then allowed to die
out-floated upon its cradle of emerald green, and, in
embayed places, formed dwarf prairies that rose and
fell as the paddles plunged into the water. Rushes
and enormous grasses of the lightest leek tint in
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
29
places secured the soil and afforded a third shade of
colour. After so much of Rhizophora and Bru-
guieræ, the banks became to us sylvan glades, with
avenues like those of the old French post road.
They were crowned in places with trees whose tower-
ing stature would shame the giants of Bushy Park:
upon them the most ambitious of schoolboys might
look with despair, and from their topmost branches
the birds gaze down with perfect safety at the levelled
shot-gun. Here and there a curl of blueish smoke
argued a fishing village in the bush. We had been
told that the creek was two miles long, and after
two hours and three-quarters of hard work, five or
six miles in space, we began to wonder if these truly
German meile were ever coming to an end. Pre-
sently, however, the sides widened farther out, the
depth became less, we sighted, in front of us, a grove
even larger than its neighbours, and then we emerged
into the River Ogun, which event we duly inaugu-
rated with a ceremony which I will classically de-
scribe as a libation to Bacchus.
The Ogun,* or Abeokuta River, is said to rise in
*There are three several meanings to this word, and the Egbas often
drop the nasal terminating n which is pronounced by neighbouring peoples,
e. g. Ilorí for Ilorin. Ŏgun is the P.N. of the river, Ŏgún is a god—
some writers, however, as Mr. Bowen, spell both these words Ógún, writ-
ing the river and the god the same, and making Ŏgún signify an army or
battle—and Ógún is a charm, or medicine.
30
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
a latitudinal range of mountains whose northern
watershed is to the Kwara.* The source is supposed
to be three thousand feet above sea level, and the
upper part of the bed is rendered useless by rocks.
Like other streams in this mythological land, a
deity,† or rather a god, the younger brother of the
divinity Shango, is attached to it. The Ogun fell
into the hands of the Egbas, or Abeokutans, about
1852, and free communication with Lagos has added
greatly to their influence and their development.
As yet, however, Yoruba has but little inland navi-
gation. It is well fitted for tramways, hard wood
being everywhere procurable and the land level.
Until their day comes, the rivers should be utilized,
and the first step ought to be a survey. The Oshun,
in the Ijebu country, near Ekpe, extends, accord-
ing to some authorities, within nine hours' march of
Ibadan; others declare that it cannot be navigated
by canoes; others, that the people have a superstition
which permits boats to cross, but not to ascend or to
descend it. West of the Ogun is the Ota Creek, and
* I propose for the future to call the whole of the great artery of tropical
Africa north of the equator by its classical name Niger, and Nun from the
ocean to its confluence; the eastern fork, Binue, not Chadda, or Tsadda-
a term based on the false theory that it flows out of Lake Chad or Tsad—
and the western branch, Kwara.
† Similarly, Oya, the Niger, or more properly the Kwara, the Oshun,
and the Obba, are the wives of Shango; concerning whom see Chapter IV.
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
31
beyond this the Yerewa, leading to the market-towns
of Okeadon and Adoa water-line as yet little
known, but said to have thirty miles clear for canoes.
Beyond this again, and more important still, is the
Okpara, which enters the Lagoon between Porto Novo
and Badagry.*
Father Ogun, at the confluence of the Agboi
Creek, is a goodly stream, little less than one hundred
yards broad, deep, smooth, sluggish, and scarcely
affected by the tide. Here it aspires to the honours
of what the Africans call 'a ship made of iron, and
moved by fire,' i. e., a steamer-if possible flat-bot-
tomed. We were all deceived in our expectations.
We had pictured to ourselves-heaven knows why—
a clear and rapid river running through a high and
dry land, with tall and rocky marge. We found a
broad, placid surface, milky with potters' clay, and
low banks, whose last watermark showed a consider-
able fall, bearing walls of verdure broken by the tall
white trunks of various unknown trees, with creeks,
landing-places, and hollows, like bowers, between.
Presently, however, we saw rises of reddish earth,
here favourite sites for settlements. We passed two
villages, Orichá and Isheri; the latter, which is con-
* The Yerewa is called by the people Ado river,' and in our maps Jef-
ferson river. The Okpara is better known as the Ajirá creek or Carr river,
and is about fourteen miles east of Porto Novo.
32
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
siderable, was backed by plantains and fronted by
canoes. We were told by a negro, habited in Euro-
pean toilette, that a better nighting-place lay close
ahead, and we somewhat reluctantly left Isheri be-
hind. It was, as suspicion suggested it would be,
dark night before we passed the landing-place, and,
guided by the sounds of song and drum, set foot
within the next collection of huts-Igaon. Our day's
journey had been eight hours, halts not included, and
the distance covered must have been twenty-five to
twenty-six miles.
It is hardly worth while to describe these places;
straggling settlements, surrounded by bush on all
sides except the river, which they overlook from
banks more or less elevated, they compare favour-
ably with many a fishing village in England, and
are more comfortable than some manufacturing
townlets in Lancashire. Igaon is subject to the Alake
or chief of Abeokuta, and numbers perhaps two
hundred souls. It is well known as being the
terminus of river navigation in the 'dries;' beyond
which travellers must journey through the wet and
feverish bush.
Ascending a rugged clay bank, about one hundred
and fifty feet high, we entered the village, and found
entertainment at the house of Mr. Johnson, a Sierra
Leone Egbanized Christian black, habited in white
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
33
1
man's clothing, excepting coat and shoes. He ex-
pressed in a little English his pleasure at seeing us,
but his manner was at variance with his words. We
presently discovered the reason of his expatriation
to Igaon, which he explained to be for facility of
buying palm-oil half a dozen summonses were
awaiting him at Lagos. However that may be, he
made us comfortable in his verandah and upon the
hut floor, where, after a copious feed-sitting in a
boat is most appetizing work-we and Sancho, de-
spite the tom-tom and the clammy cold, slept like the
Seven Idlers of Ephesus, and Kitmir their dog. In
the morning all was settled with a dollar; Mr. John-
son was satisfied, and so,' I hope, was Mrs. John-
son.'
6
(
The second day saw us afoot at 5 A.M., and after
the initiatory preserved chocolate, called cocoa-most
valuable of tins on these occasions-we found our-
selves afloat at the end of another hour. A dense
and dripping fog from the river almost concealed the
water, and this was a never-failing feature of the
morning, which during the day yielded to something
worse. The irregularity of the seasons is not more
conspicuous in Eastern than in Western Africa. The
tornados and rains of the year should now cease,
whereas the land still thirsts, and the storms are
apparently setting in. Under cover of the mist, we
VOL. I.
D
34
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
passed on the right hand the shallow Akisa Creek,
which, joining the Ogun River at Isheri of the Ijebu
Remo, islandizes the situation of Igaon. There we
began to suffer from an annoyance that lasted till
the end of the journey-numerous fishing-ropes of
calamus and reeds stretching from bank to bank.
Five or six lengths, joined with a shroud-knot, are
secured to trees or posts on the bank, and are stayed
with stout stakes about mid-stream. Exceedingly
tough and strong, they serve to attach wicker cones,
traps for fish; and at times some elderly and idle
African Izaak Walton lashes his canoe to them, and
squats upon his hunkers, with an umbrella hat on
his head, peaceably bobbing for the smallest bite,
like those, to me, inexplicable beings in punts who
find excitement in hooking minnows upon the
Thames. Where these ropes are thick, boats can be
lifted over them with the oar, without catching the
rudder near the mouth of the Ogun they are small,
and cause accidents. The other way is to shoot
them, passing under either end-no convenient thing
when the rush of the water is like a mill-race, and
where there is often not quite room to row. At the
present season the central sag is a foot under water;
in the 'dries,' laden canoes will pass beneath it.
On this day and the next we enjoyed a fine oppor-
tunity of studying African river scenery, so impres-
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
35
sive at first, and, until the eye becomes accustomed to
it, so greatly diversified. But presently it waxes
palling and monotonous: it is the face of an Irish
beauty--every feature faultless, too faultless, and the
whole expressionless and inanimate. The trees were
externally of three aspects, the feathery, the densely
foliaged, and the creeper-clad. In the stream lay
logs, snags above and below, and sawyers dancing
upon the wavelet; here a vast trunk, like some dead
plesiosaurus cumbered the bed, causing slack water to
leeward; there stood a stub, upon which baby alli-
gators stretched and sunned themselves; here a fallen
tree, supported by the stream, had shot up fresh
shoots, themselves trees-the very fishing-ropes had
in places put forth bourgeons; there a green-robed
patriarch was beginning to totter upon the water-
mined bank that showed a cave beneath. The wild
plantain, with wind-torn leaves, bent its purple
flowers earthwards. The palms were of many kinds,
the cocoa-nut, the palmetto, the wine-palm (R. vini-
fera), and chiefly the spiny flabellate species, which
haunted the lower levels, whilst the others waved their
tall plumed heads on the higher ground. The date
and the ronnier, or Palmyra nobilis, were not yet seen;
they are signs of an improvement in the climate.
The ratan, however, grew everywhere. We detected,
I thought, a real bamboo, which, however, must be
D 2
36
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
an importation into these lands;* and, rustling above
the others, the African locust, or acacia, whose
enormous pods are used in 'palaver-sauce,' claimed a
conspicuous place. The river-sides were solid walls
of trees, sweeping in glorious folds towards the
water's edge, a boundless continuity of shade, many-
coloured, from the darkest spinach- the prevalent
hue-to the lightest green. The dense bank of foli-
age threw softened summits athwart the bluest of
skies, and the mid height was broken by tall, straight
shafts-they looked limed or whitewashed-shining
like the bark of the silver beech, and ghastly enough
in the shades of evening. The African oak was there,
and the stunted kola nut (C. acuminata); no one,
however, could point out to us the ashori, or egginha,
the local upas; or the iroko, called the 'sassa wood,'
and worshipped in Yoruba because it cracks sound-
ingly at night. The monarchs of the forest were the
bombax, or silk-cotton trees-many of them were one
hundred feet high, and ten in diameter, upright
canoes, ready for felling-with boles, near which the
tall and tapering palm, straight as an arrow, attempted
rivalry, but in vain. They were girt below and often
about the waist with anfractuosities, fluted and chan-
nelled like Doric columns; these buttresses show that
* In Eastern Africa the bamboo reed may be found many days' march
from the coast, but it is supposed to be derived from India.
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
37
the timber, being weak, demands support. Many
of these ceibas were intensely green and densely
leaved; others were bare and twiggy; for here, as in
other lands, the seasons affect what appear to be non-
deciduous trees, and not a few bore what a European
would hardly expect from so large a growth, a spang-
ling of beautiful blossoms, white as the snow on
Camaroons. The same may be said of the bigonia,
locally called 'tulip-tree,'-Who would be prepared
to see, pinned to those sombre, yew-like forms,
flowers like tiger-lilies, and at a distance looking as if
red-hot cinders had been scattered upon them? The
llianas were especially eccentric, varying from the
thickness of twine to cable; here straight, there
arched; now twisted by the wind into cordage; then
forming a true lover's knot,' dangling in the air, or
rooted to earth; here they depended, from cords as
fine as the chorda filum, or dead man's ropes, gourd-
like over the voyager's head; there they strangled
some Laocoon of the woods with a desperate gripe,
'the Scotchman hugging the Creole;' whilst the
sarsaparilla vine clung tenderly to the trunk, as
though she loved it. Towering and climbing her-
baceous plants, formed by successive accretions, sur-
rounded a mother stem with thick vegetable masses,
-mysterious columns, so covered that the eye could
not distinguish the support: these immense growths
6
38
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
hung their mantles of parasite, with ribs, folds, and
flounces, from the shoulders to the feet of the tallest
trees; their middle was adorned with the bright
blossoms of sundry convolvuli, cucurbitaceæ, ascle-
piada, and the white-flowered chailletta; and they
supplied the watery maze with arches and ogives,
bowers, and fairy retreats, showing the arabesques
and the delicate tracery of a natural Alhambra.
The grotesques were somewhat like the tree-ferns of
Fernando Po, finely pinnated, and flaunting angular
tufts upon the summit of the thinnest stems, often
thirty feet high. In one place a palm had raised itself
upon the trunk of a dead tree, and showed every root
to the air, as it drew sustenance from its support. In
another, where the parent's head had been struck off
by the lightning, the lateral branches, extending hori-
zontally, had put forth a dozen fresh shoots at right
angles. In a third, a giant with blasted top and
thunder-rifted, stem, had been hurled down by the
breaking tornado, and pitched, branches forwards, upon
the earth. Mr. Bowen asserts that in Egba-land he
has never seen a tree that has suffered from the thun-
derbolt. I believe, however, accidents to be, as one
might expect, of constant occurrence, and, moreover,
that the palms are peculiarly liable.* Almost every
* At Sierra Leone there is the same belief touching the monkey-bread,
or calabash.
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
39
large growth had its little family of orchids snugly
nestling in its arms, and in not a few the topmost
boughs were bearded like old goats or Israelites. Nor
were flowers absent from the scene. The glorious
nymphæa was there, and the lower bush was gemmed
with the ipomaa, and a large white flower, said to
be selenitic, and opening only to the moon.
The denizens of the bush were worthy of it. The
red-grey polly (P. erythacus), the only parrot seen
near the Ogun, sat higher than popinjay ever did,
whistling what sounded at that distance a mellow note,
and looking a distinct refusal to put the kettle on.
She possibly divined our intentions: parrot-soup and
monkey-fry are not to be despised. The wild bird is
a far finer animal than the tame, but you must be
careful to remove the skin. The gay crested touraco
(Corythria), with its jay-like manners, beautiful and
harsh-voiced as the Maids of Athens, aired its gor-
geous coat in the sunbeams upon the tree-top; the
goatsucker whirred, the ibis screamed amongst the
branches, and the Malabar pheasant, or rather
cuckoo, flitted into the darker shades. The lively
little marten was surpassed only by the king-
fisher; the yellow-billed blackbird sought something
to fight; the Whydah finch (Vidua Paradisiaca) looked
as pretty and behaved as shrewishly as her feather-
less sister ever could; and the oriole, all rouge et noir
40
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
in strata, lit up the shade like a touch of vermilion
in the normal buoy that occupies the normal corner
of a sea-piece. The nest of the latter bird (Sylvia
pensilis) is a purse, which, swinging in the wind, is
safe from the mischievous monkey: it may have
suggested the idea of a hammock. The Guinea-fowl
called 'come-and-eat-me' from the brake; rock-
doves of great beauty cooed hoarsely on higher
grounds; the bittern sprang frightened from the
bank; and lower down, the savoury stripe-throated
lapwing (Vanellus strigillatus, the 'kiki dodo' of the
Gold Coast), with two yellow flaps of dark-lined skin
springing from the base of the beak, walked the
sand-banks in pairs, or rose loudly clattering in the
air. On the larger river-islets we saw grisly turkey-
buzzards sunning their expanded plumes, mixed with
paddy-birds and Senegal crows (C. leuconotus), the
latter impudently pursuing and pecking at them;
whilst brown kites, the Indian chíl (F. chilla), stood
up to their thighs in the cool wave. Once, and once
only, a flight of the fine cullum crane passed within
shot over our heads; and often in the blue empyrean
black speckles, like musca volitantes, told us that all
was not desert there. The water-elephant, as the
hippopotamus is called upon the Niger, has long
been killed out of the Ogun River, and its stream
contains nothing but fish and fish-eaters.
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
41
About 8 A.M. we halted for an hour and a half to
breakfast at Illagu.
There is little of roughing in
this style of travel.
teapot was boiled, the eggs and Europe mutton'
were fried, the table, a gangway between two
breakers; the chairs boxes and canteen were
duly disposed; and after a somewhat long delay,
such as may be excused at the beginning of a jour-
ney, when twenty minutes would merit chastisement
at the end, a pleasant picnic was the result. The
Krumen found a dessert for their meal of pork and
biscuit in a species of cardamom-not quite our old
friend, Amomum granum Paradisi-whose aromatic
seeds they chewed with pleasure. A mishap, however,
befel us at Illagu. After starting, we missed the dog
Sancho, and we sent back a message requesting that
he might be forwarded without delay to the nearest
village. He was a most amiable animal; when tied
up, he barked and howled most musically all the
way, and when loose he insisted upon springing
overboard, stopping the boat, and exciting different
emotions amongst those in it. A St. Helena pointer
-he pointed even at butterflies-and he was just
recovering from an attack of mange. Of course we
made on the way down all inquiries for so pleasant a
companion, but we had to mourn his loss.
• The
captain,' his master, was sorely discomfited.
The fire was soon lighted, the
42
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
6
We then resumed our way up the now nut-brown
river, garnished with its various green and white
boled trees-the current running against us 2
to 3 knots an hour. Though fanned by a gentle
breath from the north, there was a decided sting in
the sun, and an overkept leg of mutton in the third
locker made us unjustly accuse Africa of unsavoury
smells. At 11.30 A.M., the effeminate 'pull-a-boys'
showing symptoms of fatigue, we put into the high
right bank-the land becomes dry and gravelly, al-
ready showing fragments of quartz-beaconed by the
little village of Baragu, whose appearance, however,
was the reverse of novel. Under the circumstances,
a little gooseberry' was perfectly justifiable, and
we could hardly be so churlish as to refuse a few sips
of trade fire-water' to our hosts, whose spreading
palaver-tree-the local bentang-afforded us a seat in
the cool shade rained down by its horizontal boughs.
The people evinced an exemplary amount of grati-
tude, and a fondness for the material quite curious
even the small boys never balked at a wine-glassful.
All seemed comfortable and in good condition; they
had sheep and goats, ducks, fowls, and pigeons,
whilst the fetish-house showed signs of fresh white-
wash. The women consider elongated bosoms a
charm, and even the men show flaccid mammary
glands. This 'bestial exposure of the sacred part of
6
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
43
woman's form,' as some term it, first disappears per-
manently amongst the Moslem converts from hea-
thenry. The good-wives had little remarkable, save
a plug of pipe-stem-shaped coral worn in the left
nostril: it may serve the purpose of the Indian
nose-ring. Many of them wore their hair upstand-
ing in little tufts of wool, which coiffure, says a
German traveller, made them look more like horned
fiends than human beings.' Some of the tattoos were
painfully ugly-lines of scars and dreadful knobs and
marbles raised in altissimo relievo by some encaustic
process. Severe scalds were common
and one
6
woman had her back adorned with what appeared to
be an imitation in thickened skin of gouts and stream-
lets of blood. Many of the children were marked
from head to foot with little gridirons of cuts, dyed
dark blue by means of native antimony. They are
all more or less exomphalous, yet they will grow
up like their sires-remarkably sharp when under
puberty, that epoch, as amongst the Hindus, seeming
to addle their brains. They are placed for discipline
under some old and trusty hand, who compels them
by force of stripes to industry; they amused them-
selves by remarking on the sly, 'Oibo akiti agba-
The white man is an old ape.' The African will say
like folks,' and the
of the European, 'He looks
6
answer will often be, No, he don't.' Thus we
44
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
observe, that whilst the Caucasian doubts the
humanity of the Hamite, the latter repays the com-
pliment in kind.
6
This race-the Egbado or Lower Egba-is dis-
tinctly negroid, without showing the characteristics of
the full-blooded negro. The skin is of a dark dilute
copper, sometimes black, whilst several of the chiefs
are almost light coloured. When the eyelashes and
brows are not plucked, the eye is fine; and those who
hold, like Aurora Floyd, that the glorious light of a
pair of magnificent optics makes a divinity, a Circe,'
can here see the flattest contradiction to this opinion.
The lips are not thick, but the gums are blue, and the
teeth are by no means improved by the process of
chewing. One cannot, however, but be struck by
the contrast between the prognathous, chinless, re-
treating face, simulating the Simiada, and the ad-
mirable forms and figures of the people, who compare
most favourably with those of the xanthous com-
plexion. Their diet is poor, their climate poorer;
calisthenics are unknown; they are not boxers or
runners, like the people of Nupe; and even gym-
nastics, except tumbling, are little practised. What
can then account for the beauty of their conforma-
tion ?
For my part I must attribute it to the almost
invariable custom which the savage man possesses,
1
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
45
and which his civilized brother abandons. Amongst
ancient races, such as the Hebrew and the Persian,
it was the rule of religion for the husband to sepa-
rate from the wife during the period of gestation
and lactation. A modified monogamy amongst the
Greeks and Romans introduced abuses which the
nations of the barren north, especially those of
Europe, who cannot afford a plurality of wives,
have perpetuated. On the coast and in the inte-
rior of Africa the instinctive law of nature is almost
universally obeyed, and the people are necessarily
polygamous. Speaking of Mandenga-land, Mungo
Park says; Three years' nursing is not uncommon;
and during this period the husband devotes his
whole attention to his other wives.' In Hausa, as
in Yoruba, the period of lactation extends to the
third year.* The West African and the Kafirs of
the southern continent practise this abstinence, and
prove in their persons the beneficial effects of it.
Europeans, violating the order of the animal creation,
lay to their souls the flattering unction that they are
the largest and the strongest of races, forgetting that
by conforming to this African custom they might
become both larger and stronger. Besides, it would
* In Northern Europe ablactation begins when the milk teeth appear,
between the sixth and the twelfth month; near the Mediterranean, however,
this is by no means the case.
46
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
necessitate polygyny*-that is to say, a love of off-
spring warmer than the sexual feeling. The Mor-
mons have tried it with success and to the excellent
;
letter of Mrs. Belinda Pratt† I must refer the reader
for more information upon this momentous subject
than could be conveyed in these pages.
On the Ogun River we had ample opportunities
of forming judgment concerning
'The naked negro panting on the Line.'
I have travelled amongst wild tribes from the
North American Indians to the Bhils of Hindostan,
but I never saw such an utter absence of what we
conventionally term modesty as amongst these Egbas.
The women will stand up and bathe publicly in the
river, without a vestige of dress or shame; and the
niggerlings are as much clad as the Promutuans and
the sons of the Coral Islands. Can this be innocence,
as some think? or is it the mere absence of all ideas
of propriety? I confess myself unable to decide.
Resuming our task, after twenty minutes' halt,
* When the late king, Eyo Honesty, of Old Calabar river, resolved to
adopt the single-wife system, the chosen one determined on a certain occa-
sion to act as if she had been an unit in the normal score. Mrs. W——, the
wife of one of the Scotch Presbyterian missionaries was directed-when
the husband laid his complaint before them-to call upon the queen, and
to bring her majesty to a finer sense of her conjugal duties. The labour
of love was, however, I believe in vain.
† Quoted in extenso in The City of the Saints.'
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
47
The
we noticed a gradual change in the scenery.
bush thinned out, the trees shrank in size and
showed boles rather brown than white, and the
banks of clay and stone gained in size. The num-
ber of fishing-ropes denoted the vicinity of a village,
and in shooting one of them the 'doctor' managed to
be knocked overboard. At 1.10 P.M. we halted for
an hour and a quarter to refect at Obba. The
Krumen were sadly slow, loitering about munching
ship-biscuit and lighting their clays before they
thought of putting our yam-pot on the fire. At
Obba signs of improvement were observed. The
landing-place had earth steps and a kind of railing;
the village interior showed neat fields of tania or
koko (C. esculenta),* and the remnant of a cotton gin
and press-bearing, of course, the mark of Manches-
ter-lay near one of the houses. The people, carry-
ing fly whisks, assembled round us under the usual
tree, and in the best of humours begged tobacco, and
drank our tea with a relish, whilst the boys, for our
especial delectation, threw somersets in the air.
* Some travellers, for instance, Dr. Vogel, of the first Niger expedition,
write the word 'cocoa,' which renders the confusion of a vegetable with
a shrub and a tree inevitable to the English reader. I shall therefore write
the vegetable 'koko,' the shrub 'cacao,' and the tree 'cocoa.' Dr. Clarke,
of Sierra Leone, mentions three kinds of koko: firstly, the West Indian,
or English; secondly, 'country koko,' acrid, and affecting the throat; and
thirdly, water koko,' said to be a poisonous root.
6
† An exercise known as Taketi, pronounced Tackety,' after the style
48
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
After leaving Obba the southern sky began to
bank up, threatening a repetition of yesterday's tor-
nado. Presently a stream of cold wind poured
through the tepid air, reminding me of a pheno-
menon not a little to be feared upon the Zanzibar
Seas and the Tanganyika Lake. But though thun-
der growled gruffly, and the well-known haze filled
the atmosphere, and the warm sensation, attributed, I
believe, to development of ozone, warned us of what
might be, the only result was a dry storm, for whose
obscurity we had reason to be thankful. The doctor
exercised himself upon parrots, lapwings, and paddy
birds; Commander Bedingfield shot a crocodile
upon a tree stump-the favourite basking-place--
and the Krumen lamented being unable to secure the
prize. Its gall is here, as in most other parts of
Africa, held to be a deadly poison; in some places a
man with such medicine in his possession would be
sure to lose his life. Dr. Clarke of Sierra Leone and
the Gold Coast administered it to a dog in soup and
beef; the only effect, as might be expected, was
emetism. There is probably something of fetish in
of rickety.' When the white man hears in the streets Jo and Taketi,
he will understand that the infant population are requesting him to dance
and tumble for their delectation. It is said that an Egbanized Englishman,
lately proceeding up the river, was seized by the Abeokutans, and compelled
to 'Tackety' for their amusement, whilst they looked on and drank his
rum.
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
49
the idea; and similarly, the Hindus still firmly believe
in the poisonous properties of diamond powder, apart
from any mechanical action. In some of the river
reaches there was hardly any tide, and we soon passed
our first sand-bank, arguing increased shallowness in
the bed. On the right bank the land became open
and gravelly; the left side, however, was still thickly
wooded. At 4:15 P.M. we halted at Mabban, the
place named for our nighting. It was a miserable
village, surrounded by an almost impenetrable bush;
and the emaciated population, showing elephantiasis
and scars of cutaneous disease, evidenced the un-
healthiness of the situation. The chief was absent,
but we easily obtained permission to occupy the fetish
house, a square box seven feet by seven, open only
towards the verandah, and garnished with pots and
basins of crockery ware, with an altar, upon which
stood three little wooden doll-gods, far more bestial
than human, save that they wore proportional cables
of beads upon their necks and wrists. Besides these
Penates there were none but ourselves. In the adjoin-
ing quarters the absent chief's three wives-one light
skinned, and by no means unattractive-slept toge-
ther under a canopy of thick matting, hung by strings
from the roof, and acting as mosquito bars. We
managed to avoid Mabban on our return: the night
passed there was one of sultry, sweltering heat; dur-
VOL. I.
E
50
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
ing day the subjects of King Beelzebub fed upon us,
and after dark the Maringouins sang a doleful ditty,
which was drowned only by the occasional yelping of
negro babyhood. In the distance the long, loud cries
of the Pataku, or bush-dog-a small species of hyæna,
well known on the Gold Coast, but dangerous only
to pigs and children-reminded me of the jackal, the
coyote, and the Australian native dog.' It throws
its voice out, at one minute appearing close by, then
a mile off. The only ferocious animal hereabouts to
be found is the leopard, which is as dangerous as his
congener in Eastern Africa; and a man's arm dang-
ling from the hammock side is very likely to be taken
off somewhere about the elbow. Our run that day
had been six hours, say eighteen miles.
At 5·30 A.м. on Thursday, the 31st, we set out in
a spitting rain, with a cold and heavy mist, which,
attached to the river, drifted past us as we broke
through it like thin cloud. On a sandspit we saw signs
of native travellers in the shape of matted sheds, and
we vainly inquired for the interpreter Williams, who
had preceded us for his own purposes. There were
also bundles of firewood, tabooed from the prigger by
grass-crowned canes planted around them, thus form-
ing a strong fetish. After an hour and a half we
ran into a little creek on the left bank, and disem-
barked at Ojegu, a village differing from its neigh-
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
51
bours in no wise save that it was somewhat more
uniform. It has, as usual in Africa, a bazar or
market, where women squatted before baskets under
a tree, and sold beads, thread, and similar utilities,
besides various edibles, of which, at this hour, the
favourite is ekko,* answering in these lands to our
tea and bread and butter.
The breakfast occupied us an hour and three-
quarters, still showing that the party was not half in
training, and we resumed rowing through sunshine
tempered by sprinkling rain. We passed the mouth
of the Iro River, a considerable influent from the
west, and shortly afterwards, on the east, appeared
the village of Molokokki, where the river banks were
of rough sandstone. Beyond it are ledges of black
rock, forming a projecting point, which by com-
pression doubles the velocity of the stream. Lime
was nowhere seen, nor does it, I am informed, exist
in this part of Yoruba. Large canoes lumbered the
river, some laden with ten bales of cotton. Making
our mooring at Ajido, a knot of three hovels, we slept
upon waterproofs under the bush shade. A little
* Ekko-pronounced ekkau-is maize ground very fine, steeped in water
till subacid, when the grosser particles are removed with the hand-they
fatten poultry well-and the residue, boiled and eaten warm, resembles
the Scottish oatmeal sowens. If kept till cold it hardens into a paste the
consistency of blanc-mange; it becomes a cooling and nutritious diet, and
plantain-leaved triangles of this article may be seen in every market
throughout Yoruba. At Sierra Leone it is called aggidi.
E 2
52
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
beyond this place the stream bifurcates, forming in
the centre a clump of grassy bush. Our way lay
through the western branch, and its channel-the
current ran swiftly-did not extend eighteen yards
in width, till presently the two streams are anastomosed
above the islet. Again, a tornado-like cloud worked
up its way against the southerly wind, and once more
it proved itself that blessing of all blessings, a dry
storm. Passing the village of Okpuba, we remarked
that the groves of trees, scattered upon banks some
twenty feet high, would be charming if the under-
lying bush could be cleared. Presently cultivation
showed itself, the tall tops of the maize waving grace-
fully in the wind. At 4:30 P.M., we sighted our
terminus, the large village of Takpana-pronounced
Tapana, the Egba kp and gb not being naturally
articulable to English organs. Our day's row had
been eight hours, but the Krumen were breaking
down, and the distance was probably not more than
twenty-two miles.
Ascending the bank, and walking through the
first straggling village, where the turkey-buzzard is
the only nightman, we found on the outskirts an un-
inhabited house in decent condition, and there we
were installed by the civil old chief. He visited us
repeatedly, gave us every assistance in the matters of
wood and water, nor did he disdain to join us in a
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
53
social glass. The children, and not a few of the adults,
spent the evening over a game known in Ashanti as
6
6
6
worra,' in Sierra Leone 'wari,' in East Africa' báo,'
and here 'ayo.' It is played upon a rude kind of
'table,' a solid oblong board, with a little handle at
one end, and down the length run two parallel rows
of six little cups. The game is played by distributing
counters, one by one, into each cup, beginning from
the starting-place whence they were taken; and if a
single counter be found, it is removed from the board.
In the men' I at once recognized the Guilandina
Bonduc, so well known in eastern medicine, and used
for other purposes at Zanzibar and in India. The
game, we presumed, was for love, gambling being
prohibited by Ogboni law,' which all obey, or
ought to obey. Night sped pleasantly in the new
lodgings, which were comparatively free from mos-
quitoes and other vermin; perhaps, also, the last
two veilles had made our skins proof against
them. The list of small tenantry is somewhat exten-
sive in these huts. There are flies and fleas, cen-
tipedes ugly, but little feared-harmless spiders,
not like the tarantula of Mendi city, west of Gallinas;
large, black, and green scorpions, sometimes six inches
long, and a yellow species, smaller, but fiercer. The
ants are numerous and interesting; they would amply
repay the labour of collection. There is ota, the
6
54
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
6
6
stinger,' who is particularly hostile to the bug-a-bug,
or termes, and especially there is ijálu, the fighter
that makes man go,'-in old Anglo-African called
driver,' because an army of these little wretches, a
riband of small red lines-men, flanked by a light
infantry of black warriors, with bull-dog heads, easily
clears the kitchen. On the Gold Coast there are
horrible tales of the fatigued huntsman being set
upon and murdered by them in his sleep; and in the
case of a sick man such an event is greatly to be
feared.*
The next morning saw us en route at 4:45 A.M.,
through a fog that not a little interfered with the
flying survey in which we were engaged. The open
earth-banks of the river-here less than fifty yards
broad—are well raised, showing tall Guinea grass and
plots of cultivation, with a South African shrubbery,
which not a little reminded my companion
- a
* The larger ants have been known to strip bare to the bone the car-
case of a cow in a single night. And Mr. Abson informed me, that he was
once reduced to that state of debility by a severe attack of fever, as to be
so wholly helpless, that the ants attacked him in the night, when lying
in his bed; and that if, fortunately, one of his domestics had not awoke,
they would have devoured him before morning, so incapable was he of
calling for help or struggling with his assailants. At the time he related
this anecdote to me, I was confined by indisposition in the very room where
the circumstance occurred, and did not feel very comfortable at the pro-
spect of being perhaps eaten alive.'-Capt. JOHN ADAMS, p. 68. After
this, I need hardly point out to the collector of natural history the easiest
way of cleaning a skeleton in Africa.
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
55
6
quondam member of the unfortunate Zambezi expedi-
tion-of that splendid but useless stream, which pro-
mised, with giant might of humbug, to supply, besides
quinine,* cotton, indigo, and other raw material to
any amount.' I say unfortunate, for 5000l. per
annum, a sum sufficient to defray with due economy
the expenses of half a dozen expeditions, has been
literally thrown away upon this remote corner of
South-Eastern Africa. A vile bar-there is no worse
on the coast-a shifting channel, shallow water, dan-
gerous rocks, and a labyrinth of shoals and sand-
banks, with numerous small islands, considerably
detract from the chances that this noble river is
capable of being made a great highway for commerce,
civilization, and Christianity.' The very fact that it
is only approachable through the possessions of
another power, who has every right to impose any
conceivable export and import duties, ought alone to
have been considered sufficient obstacles. Add to
this, the sparseness of the population, the villany of
the natives, more especially the faithful Makololo,'
and the absence of all conveyance, which, with the
length of the marches, must prevent the transport
of even ivory, except on the shoulders of slaves
6
6
* Dr. Haran, of H.M.S. 'Brisk,' was kind enough to show me a fine
specimen of a cinchona bark, procured at Madagascar. Dr. Livingstone,
however, is supposed to have seen quinine for the first time at Kew
Gardens.
56
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
destined for the coast markets, being remunerative.
An unhappy and ill-judged mission has been the
result of the labour of years; and, as all who knew
the subject foresaw from the beginning, it came to a
wretched and untimely end.* Bishop and chaplain,
missionaries and their wives and children, all pe-
rished miserably. Ships and boats have been lost-
worse still, the blood of the natives has been shed by
those who went to save them-and the unfortunate
promoter of the scheme has suffered even more than
he deserved, for want of moral courage to tell the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.'†
Cotton, sugar, and indigo flourish, it will be remem-
bered, in Western Africa, at one-third of the distance
which divides Liverpool from Kilimani; the quality
is better, the country is more settled, and the people
are far less unmanageable; yet it is my sincere belief—
founded on facts which will appear in the course of
this narrative—that years must elapse before even
Western Africa can supply with cotton the mills of
6
* On my return to England in the spring of 1859, the Rev. Mr. Monk,
who afterwards took a prominent part in the Oxford and Cambridge
Missions, honoured me by asking my opinion upon the subject, and I will
appeal to that gentleman if all that was told him in reply did or did not
come to pass.
† To make my meaning plainer, I must state my belief that the great
South African explorer-whose geographical feats needed no missionary foil
-has owned privately to friends that he never made a Kafir convert, and
consequently that he could hardly have expected to make one.
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
57
•.
England for one week of work in the twelve months.
These may be new views-I am convinced that they
are true views.
The River Ogun was shoaling rapidly. A bar
connected diagonally every salient and re-entering
angle, and frequent grounding now made the way
tedious. We were doubtful as regards arrival: two
days ago Mr. Johnson of Igaon told us that we should
land on the morrow, and on this morning some
named noon, others evening, as the time of our reach-
ing the terminus. When asking the natives touching
distances, we had but two replies: "Too much far,'
i.e. half the day; and 'Not so far,' i.e. something
under. At 8 A.M. we halted for breakfast at Moroko,
another thatch and mud village perched upon the
sandstone bank, shaded by tall trees and surrounded
by bush. The people were as usual most friendly;
they assigned us a place in a large verandah, and
they kept us company during the meal, after which
all joined in a social glass of gin. To the children,
however, raspberry vinegar was given as a sub-
stitute, the mothers also tasted it, and-it did not bite
—a slight shade of disappointment might, methought,
have been traced in the feminine and juvenile coun-
tenances. As we bade adieu dancing had begun,
and we were followed out of the village with the
song of farewell.
58
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
6
Proceeding with our journey at 10 A.M., we passed,
on the right bank, sundry flourishing settlements.
At Awoloko we saw women sitting at sale, men
stowing puncheons of oil in canoes by sinking and
baling out, cotton bales heaped up near the landing-
place, and other signs of trade. The people flocked
down to gaze, and the children clapped their hands.
Beyond it lay Akolugo, on a tall bank, with a ledge
of rock below, and a little further was a ferry, where
crowds were crossing *-amongst them we remarked
a tall negress, musket-armed and clad in the simple
costume of the Dahoman Amazons,' as they are
ridiculously called. The shallowness of the stream
caused us even more trouble than before, and the
crew were frequently obliged to tumble out, which
they did like cats, as if afraid of wetting their legs.
Presently we saw white faces in a canoe that bore
down upon us; they proved to be Messrs. Wilcoxon
and Roper of the Church Mission Society, who had
kindly ridden out to guide the party. A few strokes
of the oars placed us at the landing-place, Agba-
meya.' This is the great ferry, the passage between
the lands of the Egbas and the Egbados, or Lower
* Ferries are profitable investments in these lands. My factotum, Selim
Aga, tells me of one over the Niger, near Rabba, now reopened down the
river by Masaba, i. e. Mohammed Saba, King of Nupe, who charges 1000
cowries there 1s. 6d., for each traveller in the caravan, 1000 cowries for
each tusk, and sundry fees for horses and mules.
=
C
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
59
Egbas, and the terminus of the land-routes from
Lagos and Badagry. It showed a market-place,
canoes in numbers, a few mat sheds for shade, a
dwarf grove of papaws (C. papaya), and the normal
crowd of natives. Here we left the two gigs, with
orders for their conveyance by the Krumen to Aro,
the upper and higher landing-place, five or six miles
distant from the lower port, Agbameya, and we took
leave of water-travel for some days. Beyond Aro,
rocks and rapids render Father Ogun impracticable
even to canoes. Those who would cross it must
take to their bosoms huge calabashes, which, like the
earthen pots of the Indus, contain air enough to float
two hundred to three hundred pounds. The ferry-
man, swimming alongside and pushing the floats,
claims as his due two hundred cowries.
Our ascent of the Ogun River occupied us four
days, from the 29th of October to the 1st of Novem-
ber inclusive, and during this time we made about
sixty-four miles.*
* Our itinerary makes the distance from Lagos to the Agboi Creek
2 hours' row = 8 miles. From the creek to the Ogun River, 3 h. 25 m. =
7 miles. From the juncture to Igaon, 3 h. 15 m. = 9 miles. Total of first
day, 26 miles.
From Igaon to Mabban, second day, 6 hours = 18 miles.
From Mabban to Takpana, third day, 8 hours = 22 miles.
From Takpana to Agbameya, 3 h. 30 m. = 9 miles. From Agbameya
to Abeokuta, 6 miles. Total of fourth day, 15 miles.
Thus the grand total from Lagos to Abeokuta would be 81 miles, of
60
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA.
which 64 were upon the Ogun River, and the direct distance between the
cities might be reduced to 48 miles. Mr. Bowen, however, makes the
journey by river from Abeokuta to Lagos 90 miles.
Abeokuta has been laid down by Mr. Townsend in N. lat. 7° 8', and
E. long. 3º 20'; the height is about 567 feet by barometer above sea level,
whilst the mountains at the head of the Ogun River rise, it is believed, to
3000 feet.
61
1
CHAPTER II.
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
BEFORE entering the great metropolis upon so solemn
an occasion, it was necessary to remove the soil of
four days' travel. Houses there were none; so,
claiming the protection of the tall maize, we cleaned
ourselves,' literally, not sneeringly, and dressed as
rapidly as possible. We found beasts awaiting us,
wretched tattoos,' cat-hammed wretches, rats, which
people here impudently call horses, all skin and
bone, very like asses, ten hands high, with goose
rump and hanging head, skeletons which a strong
man could easily pull over, requiring, like the old
Irish post-horse, a quarter of an hour's flogging
before they can be got out of a walk, and ever ready,
like Paddy on the rare occasions when he is not
sober, to fight at a moment's notice. In the latter
point the ponies of Yoruba may compare with
those of Maharatta-land; their tempers are peculiarly
62
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
bad, as indeed one must expect from all low-bred
animals, quadruped as well as biped.
Leaving Agbameya at burning noon, we rode
through thick bush, here and there broken with patches
of cultivation. The soil was sandy and sterile, here
and there showing water-rolled pebbles of the drift
period-doubtless nothing but eight months of tropi-
cal rain and the fiery heat of the sun prevent its
being desert as Sindh. There were, however, fine
crops of yam and chestnut-like koko. Here also,
as in Unyamwezi, the people are fond of planting
together several semences, especially beans, maize,
and manioc: the land is carefully prepared with
the hoe, and dwarf heaps, in whose summit a hole
is drilled, receive the seed. This season's crop is
the second; it was planted in August-the first being
in March and April-and the harvest will be re-
served for seed: when it fails a famine is often the
result. The Yorubas have a tradition that maize
comes from the East; it was possibly imported,
together with millet, by the Phoenicians under
Hanno (B.c. 600), who could not have grown wheat
near the tropical seaboard. As everywhere in Africa,
some of the fields are carefully kept, whilst the others
are wretchedly weed-grown. Happily for the people,
the rains, which this year have been scant, are now
setting in. Amongst the shrubs the African mari-
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
63
!
gold was conspicuous, there was a pretty little blue
flower said to close at 2 P.M., and there were a few
odoriferous plants which made the bush not unplea-
sant. En revanche, we passed many a spot whose
characteristic odour was that of a corpse. Perhaps
in some cases it may have proceeded from death :
the Egbas cast the bodies of slaves, poor strangers,
and travellers into the bush, from superstition as well
as from pure idleness. Generally, however, it came
not from death, but from life: throughout this part
of Africa there is a large black ant-the chhungu
uvundo of Zanzibar-whose fetor is overpowering.
I remarked a large pod, which on pressure dis-
charged a yellowish milk: the people rub this juice
on the hair to expel its surplus population, and of
the plant they make a fine fibre for fishing-lines.
The easily-made route was for the most part a
mere bridle-path, kept in tolerable condition by the
tramping of the market-people, and the rain must fre-
quently take upon itself the privilege of forcing a way
down the king's high road. A few sheds, where palm
wine and native beer were vended by men and women
stretched in the most negligent of positions under
the warm shade, were the only signs of settlements,
and we were disappointed in our hopes of finding the
promised half-way house. The sun shone fiercely
at first starting: it was soon tamed by heavy clouds,
64
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
"
which presently burst in a short shower, and the
glare of the ground was greatly mitigated. All who
met us addressed some civil word, and were respect-
ful as Madeiriense the vast variety and the com-
plexity of their salutations will afterwards be alluded
to. My nag snatched a leaf of maize, when an old
woman in the field somewhat blatantly scolded it for
stealing her property, which reminded me of Mungo
Park's standard law of Africa:' 'If an ass should
break a single stem of corn, the farmer may seize the
animal, and if not satisfied by the owner, he can kill
and eat it, but not sell or work it.' This must be
rather a severe penalty where donkey-flesh is a
favourite food. After about six miles of bush and
outlying farm, with a few little rivulets between, we
crested a wave of clearer land, and sighted for the
first time Abeokuta-Understone.
There are three natural divisions of country: the
rainless, devoid of vegetation, and consequently
termed desert; the pastoral, covered like prairie-land
with herbage and bush, but deficient in forest; and
the agricultural, clothed primally with continuous
woods, and subsequently with second growths of
bush and forest, or with savannahs, the results of old
and yearly burnings. Of the latter description is
this part of Egba-land: the bush, however, making
allowance for the quantity and quality of tropical
*
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
65
vegetation, is much like what beautiful Goodwood
must have been in the days of the Heptarchy, as yet
unconverted into lawn and grove and bushy dell; all
of which will be done, and, until that still distant
day, the land can hardly be said to be ready for
civilization. The only sign of commencement is
that the primeval forest has been extirpated imme-
diately about the city, and has given place to the
long crab-grass which now monopolizes the soil, and
which presently must be taught to disappear before
Bahama grass, or some similar and less exhausting
growth.
'By secret charms our native land attracts,'
they say.
This may
be true or not: it is certain, how-
ever, that in strange countries there are secret influ-
ences that disenchant, that repel. I feel them here. The
scene before me wants neither grandeur nor beauty;
there is a gorgeous growth around; hill, water, forest,
and homestead-the constituents of beauty in land-
scape-all are present; yet, brooding over them all,
darkening sun and sky, and clothing earth with
sombre hues, is the sadness of a stranger-land. And
it is a sadness which must endure. Those who tear
themselves from Europe ever recognize the sensation
in the comfortable seats which the New World affords
them. They always think of what they call their
'home;' a word which has no meaning to their
VOL. I.
F
66
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
children. Those who hold emigration to be England's
first want, should, in common humanity, advocate the
system which prevailed some century ago in the
Western Hebrides, whence whole villages emigrated,
to found, in a hemisphere beyond the Atlantic, settle-
ments which in name and nature were the exact
copies of their ancient homes.
The first aspect of Abeokuta was decidedly re-
markable. The principal peculiarity was the fantastic
breaking of the undulating plain by masses of grey
granite the rose-coloured is not easily seen-be-
tween twenty and thirty in number, sometimes rising
two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet above
the lower levels. White under the sun's glare, and
cast in strange forms-knobs, pinnacles, walls, back-
bones, scarps, and logans-they towered over the
patches of dark trees at their bases and the large
brown villages, or rather towns, which separated
them. There was a long dorsum, which nearly
bisected the town from north to south, and which lay
like a turtle's back between the scattered lines of
habitations. The schorl, the sandstone formations,
and the iron conglomerates were thrown into shade.
by these masses protruded from below. The country
not a little reminded me of features which I have de-
scribed in Eastern and Central Africa-Unyamwezi
and the lands between the Nyanza Lake and Ugogo:
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
67
I
i
K
in the prairies of the great West, Independence
Rock afforded a similar spectacle. In some places
the habitations seemed as close packed as cells in a
honeycomb; in others they were broken by bush,
whose growth is encouraged because fire-engines
are unknown. The ground was exceedingly compli-
cated. Our guides pointed out to us the sites of the
chief towns, Ake and Ikijá, Bagura and Owu, the
Rock Olumo -the builder,' or capitolium — and
other places which a few minutes afterwards were
forgotten. A line of denser and more regular trees
marks the course of the river, and blue distance,
rolling here and there in long waves, broken by
dwarf cones and subsiding into a mysteriously hazed
horizon, formed a charming prospect after our con-
finement in the trough-like river.
Beyond the first sight of the town remained some
two miles before reaching Ake, our intended quarters
in the modern metropolis of Egba-land. Continuing
our ride, I remarked another truly African custom
which prevails from Kruland to the eastern coast,
and which has the knack of puzzling new comers.
The primeval forest has been cleared away around
the town, yet there is not a vestige of cultivation ;
and if you ask for the farms, you are told that they
are distant some five to twenty miles. The reason is
that if placed within reach nothing could defend them
F 2
68
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
from the depredations of robbers and cattle. These
circum-urban wastes might easily be purchased for
cotton-growing. Before sinking good money, how-
ever, it would be advisable to perpend whether we
could render valuable-even with the aid of coloured
professors' and quadroon emigration-agents
what the Yorubas cannot.
Before reaching the Agbameya gate of Abeokuta,
we had a something of excitement. The 'doctor' had
descended from his Rosinante, and a battle royal was
the result. My wretched tattoo rose with a scream
high upon its hind spindles. Unwilling to be in-
volved in the game of biting, pawing, and kicking,
and not knowing the beasts to be unshod, I tried to
dismount, hitched my foot in the stirrup, which did not
open with a spring, and had the pleasure of hearing
the sound of war over my back. The results were a
few bruises, and the resolution of carrying for the
future a stout stick, wherewith to belabour bellige-
rents' heads. A fall was a bad omen to begin with,
but, as says good Edom o' Gordon,
Thame luiks to freits, my master dear,
Then freits will follow thame.' *
Besides which it was a Friday, and it let me off cheap.
The celebrated defences of Abeokuta, which have
* These lines were quoted by Mungo Park during his last walk with
Sir Walter Scott, who exhorted him to turn back because his foot slipped.
i
1
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
69
played in Yoruba history the part of the wall of
China and the lines of Torres Vedras, next appeared.
They are seventeen to eighteen miles in circum-
ference. To the northwards, however, in the direc-
tion of the hostile Ibadan, they are three in number,
and the extreme circumference may be twenty miles-
somewhat larger than Thebes of the hundred gates.*
The metropolis itself, measured by perambulator, was
found to be four miles by two. Though Abeokuta is
wholly on the left, they extend over the right bank
of the Ogun River, and there take in a tract of cleared
and level ground. To any but an 'old African '-and
such the familiar aspect of everything around makes
me already hold myself—it is a marvel that man should
be stopped by such an obstacle. I can only explain it
upon the principle which, a score of years ago, ren-
dered a regiment of cavalry impotent to face a drain
four feet broad. The wall is hardened mud, good
material, but only five to six feet high, without em-
brasure, and only here and there pierced with a
round aperture by way of loophole. In some places
it is weather-boarded' with palm-leaves, whose
smoke would soon clear away the defenders. A
hundred-pound bag of powder hung to a peg and
provided with a slow match would blow a hole in it
6
* From the Aro gate to Alabama, the longest diameter, the distance is
said to be six miles.
"
ΤΟ
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
big enough for a Cape waggon to pass through. It
is approached by an equally efficient moat, a ditch
perhaps five feet broad, wet with sundry rain pud-
dles, half choked with bushes, and requiring a dozen
fascines or dead bodies to make the passage perfectly
comfortable. The larger entrances, exclusive of
those leading to farms, are five in number; three to
the north, viz., those of Abáka, Ibadan, Oshyelle; and
two southerly, viz., the gates of Aro and Agbameya.
Each is provided-for the benefit of warders, who
take toll by day and who close the entrances and
keep watch at night-with a hollow bastion, in no
way differing from an old matted house, and here
and there a rusty veteran of a carronade lies in the
shade of its own shed. The town inside would
burn like tinder. On a windy night five hundred
men, taking the proper direction, and firing it skil-
fully, might do any amount of damage, and thoroughly
demoralize its defenders. Against the attacks of
Africans, with their instinctive horror of walls, it is
safe; and the granite eminences, holes, caves, and
forest clumps of the interior would render it more
dangerous to assault in form, if defended by resolute
men, than
any barricade upon the Boulevard. It is
doubtless the latter consideration that concentrated
the Egbas round the Rock Olumo. Africans univer-
sally avoid, as the Tibetans seek, these vast masses
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
71
of mineral, which, attracting the sun's heat, and ra-
diating it throughout the night, render their vicinity
in torrid lands sultry and unwholesome.
Beyond the Agbameya gate lay another long tract
of uncleared ground, with rises and falls, separated
by dwarf ravines and, in some places, by flowing
streams. My companions had ridden on out of re-
spect for the sun; my jaded beast could fight, but not
canter, so I left the bridle loose, and it led me through
elaborately crooked and intricate streets to its own
manger. On the road were several market-places,
large and small. These people, like the Mexicans,
make their markets and fairs take the place of shops,
and there is a great gathering on every fifth day,
which ends the Egba week. The most remarkable
is Shekpon, Do-the-bachelors-good;' so called from
the facility with which Coelebs can eat, drink, and
smoke without wife or servant. Methinks in these
days, when we are so hard up' for nomenclature
that the Army and Navy' must be turned into
the Navy and Army,' I may venture to propose
'Do-the-bachelors-good' as a very neat name for
the next new club. Beyond this place the path
assumed the aspect of civilization; it was smooth,
broad enough for small-wheeled carriages, and was
drained on both sides by a ditch-easy here to recog-
nize the European hand! On a wall of granite-the
6
6
6
72
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
6
south-western slope of the Ake Hill-I saw what I
had read of, the minutest of local lions in a land
where 'pot-holes' are by no means rare. These are
two eyes,' contiguous hollows in the rock, about one
foot in diameter, showing by their white gutters, like
tear-streaks, that water issues from them. It never
flows, however, save during and after the rains, and
is probably collected in a fissure behind them.
Presently a most unmistakable church, the true
English barn, pierced with tall windows and abutted
by a steeple, which of course had a clock-a nearer
approach showing the belfry to be of lumber and
the church and steeple to be mud, roofed with thatch
-provided with a schoolroom like the church, but
without the steeple, and a bit of 'green,' scattered
over with not unfamiliar trees, formed the startling
termination to the ride. Entering solus the aspiring
'compound' of the Church Missionary Society, I
found our consort the doctor, and he introduced me
to the inmates, Dr. and Mrs. Harrison, who were
occupying the house lately built and tenanted by the
Rev. Mr. Townsend. A kind invitation was ex-
tended to myself. Commander Bedingfield found
quarters in the neighbouring village of Eruwan,
under the roof of Mr. Robert Wike, general merchant,
of the firm of Southam, Wike, and Co., Manchester.
We were thus all near one another, and, of more con-
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
73
悲
​sequence still, considering the immense importance of
our undertaking-I say 'our' as the historical bellows-
blower used 'we' in addressing his organist-we
were all in the vicinity of the king who resents the
conduct of those that take up their abode beyond the
shadow of his wing.
After dinner, at the exile's hour of 3 P.M., we set
out, accompanied by Dr. Harrison, to stroll about, to
collect fresh impressions, and to enjoy new sensations.
Around us was the town or township of Ake, so called
after the old and now destroyed capital of Egba-land.
It is the head-quarter village of the collection now
forming the metropolis, and it gives the title to the
king-Al (from li, to have) Ake, pronounced by
Europeans Alake, meaning lord of Ake: we were
therefore justified in assuming it to be typical of an
Abeokutan village.
Our first survey was of the mission compound, a
large grassy oblong, garnished with umbrella-trees (a
species of ficus), cut by paths and surrounded by an
ample-gated mud wall, backing the various tenements
and outhouses. The position is nearly due north of
the Ake Hill, or Rock, and the site is somewhat
higher than that of the other settlements. The
houses are mostly lumber, with tall flying roofs of
thatch, and remarkably badly built for health. In-
stead of being raised on piles or pillars, so as to
74
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
admit a free draught of air beneath, they are placed
upon the damp ground-the subsoil is a tenacious
clay, arresting the rain, which oozes through the
valleys without forming springs-and they are wholly
ignorant of an upper story. Even in Tuscany none
but the poorest ever consent to sleep upon the pian
terreno-what then must be the results in a land like
this? Opposite Dr. Harrison's, and in the south-
eastern corner, are the lodgings of the bachelor mis-
sionaries and the catechists, under command of the
Rev. Mr. Wood. Behind these lie a dispensary and
various offices. On the southern side is a shed in-
tended for stabling. Amongst other things it contains
one of the two brass six-pounders sent as a present
to the Alake of Abeokuta by the home Government;
the other is in the house or palace of Somoye, the
Ibashorun.* This gun is covered with a matting:
the metal is in good order, but the carriages and
wheels are so worm-eaten that they would break
down during the first march. The neglect of these
useless weapons has been made a subject of griev-
ance against the Abeokutans; but what can be
expected? When Sayyid Said, miscalled the 'Imam'
of Maskat, lost his larger guns in an ill-fated attempt
* The word is thus written by Mr. Bowen; Mr. Crowther prefers ‘Obas-
horun,' and the vulgar generally use 'Bashorun.' It is difficult to define
the functions of this dignitary, who is at once viceroy, premier, and com-
mander-in-chief.
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
75
upon a coast tribe in Eastern Africa, they were
shortly afterwards returned, with the message that
their captors could not afford to keep weapons that
'ate so much powder.' A few swivels, the old
'bases,' East Indian jezails and zumbaraks, and, for
guns of position, 'falconets,' or light four-pounders,
might have been a welcome present, but what can
these people do with brass six-pounders? They can-
not even melt them down.
Besides which, guns are, like knives and scissors,
unlucky presents. Almost invariably, throughout
the length of India, wherever we have made a gift of
cannon to a native prince, we have been compelled
to recover it, vi et armis, from himself or from his
successor.
•
Beyond the stables lies the printing-office, whence
issues, once a fortnight, the local paper, partly
English, partly Egba, and called 'Iwe Irohin,' The
Book of News.' The subscription is two shillings
per annum, and the editor is our host, Dr. Harrison,
a man who, not undistinguished at Cambridge, has
brought himself down to writing leaders adapted to
the meanest intellect.' The superiority of a regular
coinage over the local cowrie; the propriety of sup-
planting the hoe with the plough—such are the ab-
struse theses which now attract his facile pen. The
printer's devils are black youths, some of them
6
76
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
mensem.
6
Abeokutans, paid four dollars to five dollars per
They handle their long primer' with
some dexterity, and there is a handy little press,
paper only being now wanted.
·
On the east and north sides of the compound are
the native employés of the establishment,-Mr. Allen,
one of the schoolmasters; Mr. Wilhelm, a Christian
visitor; and Miss Vincent, who has charge of all the
little converted misses. The most interesting part of
the mission grounds is the village of New Christians :
it is called Wasimi, or Come-and-Rest, an Ala-
bama' in Africa, and it clings to the eastern wall of
the compound. As might
As might be expected from that
mortal energy which the Anglo-Saxon has so success-
fully distributed about the world, poor African Come-
and-Rest is approached by all the preparations for
severe and protracted toil, gins, saws, cotton-presses,
and what not. "Come-and-Rest' is in fact a would-
be workhouse.
I
But again Anglo-Saxon impetus has failed in con-
verting the haven of refuge into a workshop, and the
African vis inertia has here also been successful.
never saw more than four men at work amongst the
gins, and then half a dozen squatters were chatting
with and staring at them, whilst a woman or two sat by
with baskets of popped maize and boiled palm-kernels
to recruit exhausted nature. In North America the
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
77
gin-house is the proper working place of
old hands
or very young ones, of breeding women, sucklers,
and invalids;'-here it is of sturdy men. There are
seven presses, but seldom more than one at a time
is in use; half an hour is required to fill it by five
men, plus a dozen who look at the workmen, and
who in due time take a spell. They average per
diem, in the seven presses, sixteen bales of 112—
125 lbs. each, and they have never exceeded eighteen.
In a long shed hard by are two parallel lines of
circular gins, which, though known to tear the cotton
fibre, were judged better for Africa, as requiring less
toil than the heavy and complicated roller, or even
the modified East Indian charkha. They cost in
England three pounds, here about four pounds ten
shillings; and perhaps half of the machinery lies.
upon the ground, all dirt, mud, and rust. Rusty it
is landed from the steamer, rustier it is sent up in a
canoe to Abeokuta, and there it lies upon the ground,
rustiest, because the people will not work. I could
mention a respectable body of gentlemen which has
spent thousands of pounds sterling upon such
vagaries, in the fond belief, though perhaps not
wholly so, that the words of every glib-tongued
negro are true, and that all those ingenious imple-
ments are whirring and working at Abeokuta as they
would whirr and work at Manchester. A small
78
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
<
steam-engine might, indeed, do better; but fuel is
dear, and then who, as the Kanuri say, would make
his skin cold' with labour, when he can sit in the
shade? Again, there are many who, like Mr.
Leighton Wilson, decry introducing machinery into
Africa, lest it should render the African lazy or lazier.
I submit to the reader whether this be not a famous
jump into the 'pit called Absurdum.'
There was nothing to see at Wasimi, nor could
I observe that the lanes were cleaner, the houses
better, or the people superior, except in the number
of their rags, to their pagan neighbours. Judging
from the variety of large mortars-the best are
those made from the shea or butter-tree- indigo
dyeing seemed to be the principal industry. A little
beyond Wasimi lay the house of Mr. Robbins, an
African from Sierra Leone, trading here as agent
for the Manchester Cotton Association.
The com-
pound was approached, as the barbarian ever loves,
by a tall and imposing gate, distinguishing the house
of a prince from that of a pauper. The colours-
red, blue, and yellow-were those of the Crystal
Palace; the green, crimson, and black were not.
I rather admired the hall, a long, low, massive
pièce, whitewashed inside, with the heaviest square
beams for ceiling, and a central row of dumpy
columns, alternately flutings and facets, with bead-
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
79
ings between, wholly ignorant of base or capital, and
painted black and dark green. Their object was to
support the short, ponderous rafters of the roof.
Timber in these lands is expensive, and can hardly be
depended upon; besides, it can be divided into two
varieties,—the over-soft and the unduly hard. The
effect, however, has that resemblance to Egyptian
which every effort of art emerging from the savage
seems to assume, perhaps because in these lands it
most closely resembles the aspect of outside nature,
and thus is forced into the human brain. At any
rate it is immeasurably superior to the Five Classical
Orders done by the carpenter, in timber, at Halifax
and throughout Canada.
We prolonged our walk northwards, through the
aspiring township Eruwan, and there we saw another
small lion, Orange Cottage, the beautiful residence of
the Messrs. Crowther,' as the Pilgrim to his Grand-
mother's land is fain to call it. This edifice re-
minded me of third-rate training stables in some
ultra-cockney part of England-say tailoring Leam-
ington, and, as my companions were struck by the
same thought, the comparison may be accepted as
correct. It is roofed with zinc or iron; the walls
are a composite of clay; the verandahs are supported
by pillars of dry mud. It is partly painted, and
wholly hideous, its ugliness being surpassed only by
80
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
*
6
its pretentiousness. We entered, and read a some-
what remarkable list of articles for sale or swop,'
concluding with penknives, gentlemen's coats, jack-
knives, mouth-harmoniums. The Rev. Mr. Crowther,
senior, a man of whom all classes speak well, is now
founding a new mission station at the mouth of the
Nun, or Southern Niger. He was proposed for a
bishopric in West Africa, and the measure was
dropped, I believe, only because the white shepherds
showed a settled determination to turn and rend a
black pastor. But a man may be highly respectable
as a Churchman, without being fit for the episcopate.
His sons, however, have left Abeokuta, not wholly
volentes, but perhaps, on the whole, not quite for the
country's ill.
These, then, are my first impressions of Abeokuta.
The streets are as narrow and irregular as those of
Lagos, intersecting each other at every possible angle;
and when broad and shady, one may be sure that
they have been, or that they will be markets, which
are found even under the eaves of the Palace.' The
sun, the vulture, and the pig are the only scaven-
gers. The houses are made of tamped mud-the sun-
dried brick of Futa and Nupe is here unknown-
* At the time the above was written I had not met Mr. Crowther, sen.
Since then a personal acquaintance with him has by no means diminished
the respect with which his widely spread reputation in West Africa had
prepared me to regard him.
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
81
covered with tall, flying roofs of thatch, which burn
with exemplary speed. At each angle there is a kobbi
a high, sharp gable—or elevation to throw off the
heavy rain. The form of the building is the gloomy
hollow square, totally unlike the circular huts of the
Krumen and the Kafirs. It resembles the Utum of
the Arabs, which, extending to Usagara and Un-
yanyembe, in Central Intertropical Africa, produced
the 'Tembe,' and which, through the 'Patio' of Spain,
found its way into remote Galway. There are courts
within courts for the various subdivisions of the
polygamous family, and here also sheep and goats
are staked down. The sexes eat alone; every wife is
a 'free dealer;' consequently there is little more unity
than in a nunnery. In each patio there is usually
some central erection intended as a store-house.
Into these central courts the various doors, about
four feet wide, open through a verandah or piazza,
where, chimneys being unknown, the fire is built;
and where the inmates sleep on mats spread under
the piazza, or in the rooms, as the fancy takes them.
Cooking is also performed in the open air, as the
coarse earthen pots scattered over the surface prove.
The rooms, which number from ten to twenty in a
house, are windowless, and purposely dark, to keep
out the sun's glare; they vary from ten to fifteen feet
in length, and from seven to eight in breadth. The
VOL. I.
Ꮐ
82
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
furniture is simple: rude cots and settees, earthen
pots and coarse plates, grass bags for clothes and
cowries, and almost invariably weapons, especially
an old musket, and its leather cases for ammuni-
tion. The number of inhabitants may vary from ten
to five hundred, and even more in the largest. There
is generally but one single large outer door, with
charms suspended over it: the reason for this paucity
of entrances will appear when the ceremonies of an
'Oro Day' are alluded to. Finally, the tenements in
Yoruba show by their absence of defence a safer
state of society than the similar erections in Central
Africa. These have flat roofs, well protected with
clay against the firing of the assailant; those would
readily be burned.
Wending our way homewards in the shades of
evening, we stopped at a house where we were
refreshed with music proceeding from a something
not unlike the mouth-harmoniums above advertised;
and that nothing might be wanting to the enjoy-
ment of a somewhat touchy tympanum, there was
what is politely termed singing.' My companions
'chaffed' me for my undisguised preference of a tom-
tom and a squeaking reed which were sounding the
requiem of some worthy hard by, and all explana-
tions were in vain. Will the reader be as inac-
cessible? The tom-tom and the squeaking reed,
6
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
83
unlike more pretentious instruments, recall no re-
miniscences, provoke no comparisons; they are in
keeping with all around them; they are in the minor
key; they offer no direct insult to taste. Malibran
and Mario, Liszt and Paganini, would hardly be
enjoyable in one of these Abeokutan cow-houses.
What, then, must it be to hear one's own especial
favourites, one's mementos of past enjoyment, ham-
mered out into a sonata of a discordant, gingling,
rattling, musical bellows, alias seraphine, or bur-
lesqued by the dilettante's flute-that type of gentle
dulness which waxes cross when it lags behind the
accompaniments-or outraged with that voce di gola,
that throaty English voice, which the fog, the habit
of speaking with shut lips, and the practice of closing
the larynx when producing gutturals, seem wholly to
disconnect with the 'petto'? Besides which, there is
melody in the tom-tom, as every East Indian will
tell you. 'He who does not understand the palm-
bird's note,' says the Yoruban proverb, complains of
the noise it makes.' Mungo Park declares his belief
that the elephant's tusk, hollowed out like a bugle,
comes nearer to the human voice than any other
artificial sound.' And yet, so thoroughly artificial is
taste in music, I have seen a Highland regiment
charmed with their bagpipes, and yet loud in their
abuse of the East Indian 'nai.'
6
6
G 2
84
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA,
6
An equally edifying exercise was the perusal of
an article in a paper terming itself the 'Manchester
Examiner.' The writer, by characterizing the late
Mr. Foote, one of the ablest of African employés, as
a fussy and irritable official,' frustrated his purpose
of stating a certain amount of truth* by what Locke
calls a compound ignorance' of the entire subject,
which ignorance to those upon the spot was more
amusing than any travesty. On the way house-
wards we met a 'big beggarman,' with bare head,
European shirt and small-clothes, dirty and torn,
and a begging bowl in fist, like an Asiatic Fakir.
This person is no other than H.M. the Alake's
brother. He became a Christian, and some say
-a semi-lunatic; others, who know something of
his character, declare that he purposely goes in
tatters, hoping that his brother will not molest him,
and moreover will leave him a legacy.
After which we retired to find comforts that best
prove the humanizing influence of the last-created
sex, and we thought with the wise-
'Qu'on est heureux de trouver en voyage,
Un bon souper, mais surtout un bon lit.
But, before the sound rest which we have a right
* I simply mean that the destruction of Porto Novo was an unfortunate
performance, justified only by the traditional policy of the 'the coast.'
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
85
to expect, we must briefly analyze the small amount
of 'reading up' which the last week has required.
The literature is not extensive. There are at
present four small volumes upon the subject of
Abeokuta, which it will be well to remember was
not visited by Clapperton and Lander. Two of
these were written by authoresses, one by a white
author, and the other by a 'cullurd pussun.' Place
aux dames-let us give precedence to the fair.
6
6
Miss Barber, of Brighton, who has never been in
Africa, published some years ago a novelette bearing
the striking title of 'Oshielle,' purporting to describe
country ways in Yoruba, even as Mr. St. John
did Village Life in Egypt.' The little volume was
apparently intended to aid the Coral Fund.' This
is a collection made up, as its name implies, of
small donations.' Coral is a favourite article of com-
merce in these regions:-I plead guilty to having
interpreted the title-page literally, understanding it
as a fund to purchase coral, as ladies will buy
blankets, for the poor benighted African, and pro-
bably others have done the same. 'Oshielle' is
written in a friendly, kindly, and amiable spirit,
overlaying the black with copious whitewash, and
forming a sad contrast with reality. The beautiful
earth is one vast flower-garden-a ranker bush is
rarely seen. The forsaking of aged parents, the
6

86
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
murder of infant children, and other such vices (?)
of heathenism are unknown amongst Africans.'
Oh, Miss Barber! These things in Africa are the
rule, not the exception. Even in your favourite
Abeokuta a man is annually sacrificed; and within
the walls of Ikriku a victim is offered up to the
Ogun every six years. Ikeredu contributes an
annual murder;* and how many more are slain I
would rather not say. The mildness and humanity
of the people are the theme of praise. Perhaps the
worst part of the Egba's character is his horrible
cruelty to inoffensive animals: he delights in tor-
turing them, and, unlike the higher races, such as
the Mongol and other pastorals, he lacks the quali-
fications for reclaiming them. He will ruin a horse's
temper in a week, he gives pain for pleasure, and
he takes a bestial delight in rendering wretched the
beings of which other and nobler races make com-
panions. In the work of a stranger one must expect
a variety of contradictions. Thus the first chapter
opens with 'Meroke,' the heroine, at home.' In
the two initial sentences there is the usual contra-
diction to be expected from those who read and write
Africa by books and not by eyesight. Even the
wing of the crow, as he flies past, casts a perceptible
shadow on the sunny ground.' And yet a few lines
6
6
* This year was an exception, the victim having impiously levanted.
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
87
afterwards we read, There is no blue sky above;
the atmosphere is filled with a soft, shining, veil-like
haze.' But why bruise these pretty butterflies?
Is it their fault that they are so brilliant and so
ephemeral ?
•
:
6
Miss Tucker, after a study of Eastern missions, in
which she had peculiar advantages, put forth in
1853, without, however, previously visiting West
Africa, Abbeokuta; or, Sunrise within the Tro-
pics.' It is another neat little sketch-prettily
stippled, musqué, couleur de rose, touched with the
grace of a lady's hand, and no more like the ori-
ginal than is Hyperion to a satyr. Pity it is that
clever people, reviewers, and others, write of places
they never have seen in that line there is but one
successful book-Elphinstone's Cabul;' of failures
there are a thousand, from Dr. Lord downwards.
Some art appears, however, in this book. It opens,
à la Alphabet James, with a scene in which two
Christian cavaliers-one, Sir Henry Leeke, R.N.,
t'other, the boy Ajai, i. e., 'struggling for life,' and
amongst celestials known as the Rev. Mr. Crowther
-meet in the romantic shades of the Church Mis-
sionary House, Salisbury Square, where, on Fri-
day, the last day of October, 1851, the anagnorisis
leads most classically up to the peripateteia. But
there are necessarily errors in painting natural
88
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1
C
objects, such as the artist made who, when sketching
from a photograph, converted the Meccan pilgrim's
'hamail,' his Koran, into an ignoble powder-flask.
For instance, we read that Olumo the Builder, a
mass of gneissoid granite, is a porphyritic rock.
Again, that at one spot the intervening space forms
a deep but low cavern, capable of giving shelter to
a considerable number of persons.' There is no
vestige of such cavern; the eaves of the rock—if I
may so call them-project like roofs; and the little
pauper colony now squatting there has supplied
them with clay walls-an architecture very common
at Abeokuta. Mr. Bowen, an eye-witness, rightly
describes it as the shelving sides of an immense
rock.' Again, 'Ogboni' is not a civil governor of
each town."" The 'lady Tinabu' is not the sister
of Akitoye.' The little volume, however, is popular
at home in 1858 it had reached the sixth edition-
which suggests a reflection. Let me labour to draw
these descriptions from the life, to paint black, black,
to produce the most careful of sketches. They will
be rough, and somewhat grotesque, because they are
honest; they will disenchant, because they lack
fictitious feeling and unreal romance. Consequently,
will they ever see a reprint? I am sorry for, but
6
* Mr. Bowen very properly writes the word Ogboni, but strangers cannot
detect the g.
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
89
do not envy, the success of 'Sunrise within the Tro-
pics.'
'Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all except their sun is set.'
Such false views of living societies, however skilfully
drawn by the 'prettyfiers' of Africa, cannot conduce
to any good.
6
C
I now proceed to my own sex, which may be
treated with less of ceremony. The Rev. Mr. Bowen,
or more probably his Charleston publishers, entitles
his work Central Africa.' This custom has of late
become far too common. A gentleman who lived for a
few months at the little Portuguese island of Mozam-
bique was compelled by the bookseller to call his two
octavos Travels in Eastern Africa.' Another, who
sailed down the Western Coast, and borrowed all
his interior from volumes long ago published, appears
before the public with the grandiloquent title, 'Six
Years of a Traveller's Life in Western Africa.'
Mungo Park, who did three times more than all
three together, modestly chose Travels in the In-
terior Districts of Africa.' Mr. Bowen's Central
Africa' describes a run of one hundred and seventy
miles or so into a country long since explored
by Clapperton, Lander, and a host of minor tra-
vellers.
6
Mr. Bowen appears to have been another Dr. Krapf,
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ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA:
who had high ideas of missionarizing Africa: the
latter gentleman proposed a chain of stations stretch-
ing across the continent: the former more modestly
contented himself with a weak regiment of six hun-
dred men, and, possibly, martyrs. The expense was
easily managed. Fifty cents per annum from each
member of the Society would produce three hundred
thousand dollars, which is enough. Landing on the
coast in February, 1849, after a preliminary tour
through Liberia and among the inland Golas-the
'Gullah niggers' of the Southern States-Mr. Bowen
lost his coadjutor, Mr. Goodall, and sailed to Badagry,
which he reached on the 5th August, 1850. His first
view was to establish the Central African Mission'
at Igboho, on the outskirts of the great continent.
With two intervals of return to America in 1853
and 1856, he remained in Africa from 1849 to 1856.
During those seven years he visited the Alake of
Abeokuta, and-with difficulty, for the natives sen-
sibly believe that every town which the white spy
enters shall presently be destroyed *-he inspected
Bi Olorun Kpello, Awaye, Oke-Efo, Ilori, the Asehin,
6
* We read of a white man, who, compelled to camp under a tree out-
side the Awaye gate of Yoruba, was visited by hundreds, and heard the
women sing-
'Oibo gun sidi Akpe.'
'The white camped at the foot of the Akpe thorn.'
Which is truly an echo of Mungo Park's well-known episode.
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
91
sovereign of Isehin, the Are of Ijaye, and the Alaketu
of Iketu. The first station was founded in October,
1853, at Ijaye, one hundred and twenty miles from
Lagos; another at Lagos, about two years after-
wards; and a third at Ogbomosho, one hundred and
seventy miles from Lagos. [N.B.-These are not
my distances.] After leaving Africa, Mr. Bowen's
travels in Central Africa' were printed in 1857 by
the Southern Baptist Publication Society of Charles-
ton; and in May, 1858, his Grammar and Dic-
tionary of the Yoruban Language '* was accepted,
and afterwards printed and published by the Smith-
sonian Contributions to Knowledge, Washington.
6
This Central African traveller is quite a patriot,
and withal, somewhat truculent. He had been a
Texas Ranger in his youth. He played, it is said, a
good 'shyooting-iron' in 1851 during the Dahoman
attack upon Abeokuta -the reverend gentleman was
at first rather pleased with his own militancy, but he
afterwards regretted it. We can hardly, therefore,
wonder that his style and sentiments savour much
* The book, a thin folio, is favourably spoken of. Unfortunately it
does not enter into the scholarship of a very difficult language, and thus
only half teaches the learner. As might be expected from the ser
studiorum, there are grotesquenesses of style and orthography. Why, for
instance, should we read, in 'Compound Consonants,' that dź is sounded
like the English j in jug ? Has the English j hurt Mr. Bowen's feelings,
that he thus unceremoniously cuts it? and why trouble s with a dia-
critical dot when sh does quite as well?
92
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
C
6
of the arm of flesh. As regards his characteristic-
ally New World vaunts, no harsher treatment is
required than to quote in 1863 what was written by
him in 1857. For instance, America' (i. e., the
then United States) 'is more powerful in the control
of mankind in general than any nation that ever has
existed, or ever can exist, while the seas, continents,
deserts, mountains, and rivers of the globe retain
their present form'!! We read of America's 'vic-
tories in the name of the living God;' and we are
not unprepared to be told that that nation is the
appointed arbiter of earth.' Poor Europe is of course
nowhere. Despotism is doomed to perish there; the
king and queen, the lord and the landlord, the
'coach and six,' the servant in livery, the mediæval
fogy in certain civilized countries,' shall equally
become extinct, like the deinornis and the dodo.
England is of course the vilest of nations. An expe-
dition to the Niger-in which we always fail-
would be very easy to Mr. Bowen's government.
He predicted a sure whipping' to the Britishers
when they first attacked Lagos; and, prophet-like, he
exulted in the correctness of his prophecy, though
he, as a white man, ran no little risk, and though
the Britishers were shedding their blood for such as
he. There are also ungenerous remarks touching
English explorers—the elder and the younger Park,
6
6
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
93
Clapperton, and others, up to Messrs. Laird and Old-
field. All the honour given to poor Richard Lander
for his noble discovery of the Nun, or Niger's direct
mouth, is that he floated down the Niger from
Yauri to the sea, but forgot to observe whether
there was any real impediment to navigation by
steamers'!!!
These are silly, ad captandum vulgus, stock senti-
ments, without which in those days an American's
book could hardly appear in America; and thus they
may admit of some palliation. But the reflections
upon El Islam penetrate us with the profound dog-
matic ignorance of the author. How well Mr. Bowen
is fitted to teach or to convert the Moslem is evident
from one word.* He names a Fula Mussulman,
Absalom-son of David-instead of Abd-el-Salam,
and tells us with wondrous puerility in a foot-note
that such names as David, Mary, &c., are common
amongst Moslems.' Had Mr. Bowen ever read his
Sale's Koran? It is evident to me that any Alufa
or Mullah at Ilori or Hausa could have astonished
the Texan with his knowledge of the Old Testa-
ment.
6
The Rev. John Newton-the 'old African blas-
phemer' reformed-mentions a significant phrase
prevalent on the coast in his day. The white man,
* P. 198.
94
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
6
after a certain length of residence, grew black,' not
in complexion, but in disposition, and becoming per-
fect dupe to charms, necromancies, &c., put more
trust in such things than the wiser sort of natives.
Mr. Bowen shows the first symptom of the disease,
which consists in attributing all European deaths by
fever and dysentery to poison, and a perfect confi-
dence in slow poison. The same mental malady is
found amongst the old East Indians. I know a man
who tells the tale of his having been poisoned some
twenty years ago. But when the Asiatic and the
African are determined to do the trick, they so admi-
nister their drug that there is no mistake;' and if they
fail it is by an overdose, as an ounce of arsenic instead
of a few grains. At Iketu, Mr. Bowen, after being
warned of poison, received a bottle of milk from the
king. His boy Sam had seen a Fula man pull a leaf
out of the bottle, a portion of the contents of which
were given to a dog. The animal shivered, returned.
them, and recovered. Upon re-administration next
day the same symptoms recurred. Mr. Bowen then
determined that if he had given the whole, not the
half, dose to the dog, death would have resulted;
and he 'drank no more milk in Iketu.'
Mr. Robert Campbell, a coloured man, and a 'pro-
fessor,' we are told by his introducer, who does not
say Professor of Philosophy or Political Economy, or
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
95
6
6
6
of what,* seems to have visited Yoruba on an errand
of industrie,' in the French, not the English, sense.
The introduction informs us that the writer, acting
upon a commission, received from bodies' (fugitive
negroes?) in the United States and Canada, visited
the land of his forefathers' (who were certainly Eng-
lish) to investigate its condition.' He left Liverpool
in June, 1859, touched at the usual mail stations on
the West African coast, landed at Lagos, and went
up to Abeokuta, where, under a new self-bestowed
title, Commissioner of the Niger Valley Exploring
Party,' he made with the Alake and the chiefs a
treaty, to which I shall presently revert. Having
extended his trip to Moslem Ilori, and the surround-
ing country, he returned to Lagos on the 10th April,
and concludes the little volume which he wrote, or
caused to be written, in this style: 'We landed at
Liverpool on the 20th May, 1860, in good health,
although we had been to Africa.'
Africa. Pilgrimage
to my Motherland' contains one hundred pages, re-
spectfully dedicated to certain friends of Africa,
Messrs. Christy, Ashworth, and Ralston. It and its
subject are heartily recommended' to the public by
the introducer, the late Sir Culling E. Eardley, Bart.
6
* I believe Mr. Campbell to have been a schoolmaster in Canada: of
course due deference to the dark face forbids the philanthropist the use of
the humbler title.
96
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
6
'
In this hearty recommendation I can by no means
concur, for reasons which will be adduced at greater
length in a future page. Suffice a few words here.
We are explicitly told, and more than once, that
ground amongst the Egbas is deemed common pro-
perty, any individual enjoying the right of taking
unoccupied land, as much as he can use, wherever
and whenever he pleases.' This may be ignorance, and
to a certain extent it is warranted by the incurious-
ness of Mr. Bowen, who asserted long before Mr.
Campbell that there is no property in land, or rather
that land in Yoruba is common property.' The corol-
lary is that any number of Christian converts or colo-
nies of Africo-Canadians can be permanently settled
in the Egba country. I distinctly assert that the
reverse is the fact, and that all such theories foisted
on the public with a view to emigration are likely to
do mere injury. The country is by no means a 'no-
man's land,' and ignorance of this vital point would
certainly lead to those agrarian wars with which New
Zealand has scandalized the civilized world. There
are two ideas incomprehensible to Europeans, but
part and parcel of the African mind. The first,
which here requires only enunciation, is that a slave-
born man is a slave for ever. The second is the non-
alienation of land. Whatever be the tenure of pro-
perty in ground, it cannot permanently be given or
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
97
sold. A chief will, for a quit - rent, permit any
stranger to cultivate unreclaimed commons, but the
bargain is purely personal. If the original tenant
die, the heir or successor is expected by another
'dash' to obtain renewal of the lease, and his refusal
would justify, in the African mind, his ejection. On
the other hand, if the chief attempt to raise his terms,
the heir might insist upon not paying a sum higher
than the original quit-rent, and amongst the more
civilized tribes the voice of the people would be on
his side. No resident in West Africa will ignore that
what I have stated is the fact, and those who are un-
acquainted with the coast should beware of the falla-
cies of Messrs. Bowen and Campbell.
That the animosity of the coloured man should at
times break out is not to be wondered at. The negro
must be pitted against the white, that is part of the
métier of the Métis, who is honoured by his mother's
and despised by his father's side of the house. The
Messieurs Crowther, we are informed, though full-
blooded blacks, are treated with the utmost respect
by all the Abeokutans-a curious comment upon
this is the present expulsion of the junior members of
the family. There is a tale told of the Professor' at
Lagos, that on one occasion, when a European colony
in Yoruba was spoken of, he swore with fury that no
white man, if he could help it, should ever plant foot
VOL. I.
6
H
C
98
ENTRÉE INTO ABEOKUTA.
in Western Africa.' By the money, then, of the
white dupe, he would establish himself there, and,
like the Sierra Leonites of Abeokuta, he would deny
and drive out his benefactors.
Of course the book abounds in such errors as the
following:-'Not unfrequently I heard the term
'agayen' (meaning simply canoe-man) reproachfully
applied by the people of the interior towns to my
interpreter.' The word is 'Igáen,' and it refers to
the 'Ga'-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast,-'canoe-
men,' as they are called in the English of Lagos.
They are far from being despised in Yoruba; but in
some places, as at Benin, every English-speaking
black is supposed to be a Gold Coast man, and this
has not tended to raise the reputation of the 'Igáen.'
These unintentional blunders are excusable; there are
others I have shown that are not so.
99

CHAPTER III.
PRESENTED AT COURT.
LIBRARY
OF THE
مناداة
VIVERSITY
OF
MICHIGA
"
MUCH to do, and little time to spare.
The morning after arrival at Understone saw me on
foot at 5 A.M.; an hour and a half, however, elapsed
before the party was collected for a stroll to Aro. I
need hardly say that they did not expect
'The blooming pleasures that await without
To bless the wildly devious morning walk.'
Aro, the terminus of the Ogun's navigable portion, is
the nearest port of Abeokuta, about five miles from
the missionary compound at Ake and one and a half
from the Badagry gate.
6
in
Starting in a south-westerly direction we struck
into the European road, and passed the two eyes
the granite rock before described. The Do-the-
bachelors-good' market led to another Church Mis-.
sionary establishment, directed by Mr. King, a native
catechist, with its long garner-like room used for peda-
UorM
H 2
100
PRESENTED AT COURT.
6
goguery and place of worship. To-day being Saturn's
day, the bell rang Boys and girls come to school!
boys and girls come to school!' The fine ears of the
African vulgar attribute special words to every un-
usual or artificial sound. The horn and the tom-tom,
for instance, express to them a great complication of
ideas by onomatopoetic language; such as-rise to
fight! sit down all! take hold, take hold!-which
would hardly be appreciable to the coarser senses of
the uneducated European. A long stretch down-hill
led to the establishment of Mr. Champness, a re-
spected Wesleyan missionary, who fortunately escaped
the terrible Sierra Leone epidemic of 1858-59.
'The captain,' alleging a suspicious blister on the
heel, lagged behind till he found a mount. The path
was by no means bad; the gravelly soil allowed the
water to run off on each side, and high-wheeled Ame-
rican trotting-wagons' would safely pass over it.
The exceeding impurity of the place however at once
struck us, and it was an impression which Time
strengthened. The surface was a wave of rising
ground, broken into steep ridges and deep hollows,
through which streamlets flow-Yoruba is 'a land
of waters '—and these again require bridges. Along-
side of the road were rare fields and frequent patches
of tangled bush. The fetid tiglium or croton-oil
plant, and the wild senna, whose leaf is unfit for ex-
Mчou
PRESENTED AT COURT.
101
portation, the uncultivated indigo, the beautifully-
blossomed mallows, the datura and other medicinal
plants were backed by the tall Oro hedges, whose
material is that cactus which the elephant loves, and
which, in this part of Africa, is mainly used as a
mordant for arrow-poison.
6
The people had already left their sleeping mats,
and were loitering towards the little labours of the
day. Mr. Campbell asserts, and appeals to every
one who has visited this section of Africa to verify
his assertion, that there is not a more industrious
people [than the Egbas] upon the face of the
earth!' Making due allowance for the Americanism
that concludes the sentence- the face of the earth'
and the whole globe' are perfectly familiar to every
denizen of the once United States-I must, however,
so far differ as to declare that there is not one white
man in Abeokuta who will endorse this dictum. It
is true that all Egbas, from the lowest to the
highest, must, like the Sultan of Stamboul, practise
some handicraft; that the boys are trained to work,
after their gentle fashion, and that the people, unlike
their neighbours, are, for Africa, tolerable farmers;
but an English navvy, fed on beef and beer, will, it
is said, work out 2:5 Frenchmen; he would certainly
knock up a dozen Egbas. And how can it be other-
wise in these malarious, fever-stricken, enervating,
102
PRESENTED AT COURT.
effeminizing lands? Idleness is not the root of all
evil,' the bane of society in the tropics; it is the
condition imperatively imposed by a thermometer
generally above 70° (Fah.), where labour is a curse,
and where work, if it shortens man's days, must also
shorten his life.
The people were tolerably well clothed, and, as
usual at this hour, every one was working at the
chew-stick, a bit of guava, or of some other soft
wood. 'Dressy men' wore shogoto (African
knicker-bockers), or loose cotton drawers, fastened
above the hip, and extending, like those of the
Madeiranese peasantry, to the knee. The body was
covered with a cloth gracefully thrown like a plaid
over the shoulder, generally the left, and a second
'pagne' was frequently wrapped, shawl-like, round
the waist. The poor dispense with the shogoto and
the shoulder-cloth, retaining nothing but the diggo,
or loin-wrap. The women had three cloths-one on
the shoulders, and the other round the body below
the bosom, concealing the third, which is shorter and
scantier. These attires were mostly dyed with
indigo, but of different tints, the sky-blue being
apparently the effect of wear. Those who cannot
afford such toilette wear scrimp wrappers, which
develop forms not altogether untempting. The men
had caps of every colour, form, and material; travel-
PRESENTED AT COURT.
103
lers and the ogboni, or elders, who are forbidden to
use 'filá,' wore large hats of woven palm-leaf, like
the Moors, the Mandengas, and the people of Zan-
zibar, who, more sensible than Europeans, carry their
umbrella, not in hand, but upon
head.
The women, who can rarely grow side ringlets
to any length, confined their hair with a fillet of
indigo-dyed cloth, and those who were in mourning
walked about with naked scalps. All went barefoot,
except those who rode. The flasher sort, however,
had their feet, like their hands and arms, adorned
with red or camwood,―the henna of this part of
Africa. Some few male exceptions were dressed in
Frankish costume, and formed a hideously respectable
contrast to their semi-nude neighbours. The best
looking were decidedly the Moslems, here called
Imale,' probably a corruption of 'Muallim.' They
were conspicuous for their decent dress-turbans,
or Hauea head-dresses, gay calico calottes, like
the kantop or ear-cap of India, with the large loose
tobe, or shirt, called Ewu, the Guinea-fowl,' from
the handsome embroidery in spots, which often
renders the article worth five pounds; and shalwars,
or trousers, ample, but gathered in at the ankle.
Some Moslems wore long side-locks, the 'corners of
the beard,' as the Scripture has it, and which are
still affected by the Jews of Bagdad. They carried
'
6
104
PRESENTED AT COURT.
6
6
large double-edged swords, which, however, can
hardly be drawn; and repining at their subject
position, they are said to dislike white men. None,
however, refused to return the Moslem salutation ;
and I heard one exclaim to the other, Báriki!'
May it be fortunate to you!' a phrase usually
addressed to one who sneezes. This is a custom still
prevalent throughout Asia, and not wholly obsolete
in Europe, where a 'Dieu vous bénisse!' is required
by an infirmity threatening, they believe, aneurism,
hernia, hemorrhage, and similar amenities.
I re-
marked that many of the pagans bore about in their
hands bright iron chains, which are religious imple-
ments here, as at Benin. Almost every man had his
oggo (oggau) club, or shillelagh. It is the knobkerry
of the Kafirs, the Somal, and the Fijian Islanders,
and it extends throughout the African interior.
Here it is modified to a hockey-stick, about eighteen
inches long, with a twist of strong iron wire round the
neck, and nails along the line of percussion; some-
times it is distinguished by thongs of horny hide,
brass or copper tacks, and other barbaric decorations.
There was a vast variety of tattoos and orna-
mentation, rendering them a serious difficulty to
strangers. The skin patterns were of every variety,
from the diminutive prick to the great gash and the
large boil-like lumps. They affected various figures
PRESENTED AT COURT.
105
-tortoises, alligators, and the favourite lizard, stars,
concentric circles, lozenges, right lines, welts, gouts
of gore, marble or button-like knots of flesh, and ele-
vated scars, resembling scalds, which are opened for
the introduction of fetish medicines, and to expel evil
influences. In this country every tribe, sub-tribe,
and even family, has its blazon,* whose infinite
diversifications may be compared with the lines and
ordinaries of European heraldry-a volume would
not suffice to explain all the marks in detail.
The chief are as follows :-The distinguishing mark
of the Egbas is a gridron of three cuts, or a mul-
tiplication of three upon each cheek. Free-born
women have one, two, or three raised lines, thread-
like scars from the wrist up the back of the
arm, and down the dorsal regions, like long neck-
laces. They call this 'entice my husband.' The
Yorubas draw perpendicular marks from the temples
to the level of the chin, with slight lateral incisions,
hardly perceptible, because allowed soon to heal.
The Efons of Kakanda wear a blue patch, sometimes
highly developed, from the cheek-bones to the ear.
The Takpas of Nupe make one long cut from the
upper whorl of the nostril, sweeping towards the
At Ijesha, a country lying east of Yoruba
ear.
'Ogubonna's' family, for instance, have three small squares of blue tattoo
upon each cheek, combined with the three Egba cuts.
106
PRESENTED AT COURT.
Proper, the tattoo is a long parallelogram of seven
perpendicular and five transverse lines. Those
called Brechi* wear a flap of skin taken from the
forehead, and overlapping eyebrows, nose, and eye-
corners. This style of scalping kills many, but the
survivors are greatly respected. I observed a thing
novel to me; the areola in the women was not unfre-
quently tattooed a dull dark blue, the colouring
matter being native antimony, found in Yoruba and
on the Niger, and levigated with pepper and natron
upon a stone. The bijouterie was coral, in neck-
laces and wristlets, heavy bangles, and anklets of
copper, iron, tin, or brass, and various rings upon
* Capt. John Adams (pp. 133, 134) well describes this people :-' A
class of Heebos (the Ibo or Eboe, whose chief town is Abo, at the head of
the Nigerian Delta), called Breeche, and whom many have very erroneously
considered to be a distinct nation, masters of slave-ships have always had
a strong aversion to purchase, because the impression made on their minds,
by their degraded situation, was rendered more galling and permanent
from the exalted rank which they occupied in their own country, and
which was thought to have a very unfavourable influence on their ship-
mates and countrymen in misfortune.
Breeche, in the Heebo language, signifies "gentleman," or the eldest
son of one, and who is not allowed to perform, in his own country, any
menial office. He inherits at his father's death all his slaves, and has the
absolute control over the wives and children which he has left behind him.
Before attaining the age of manhood his forehead is scarified, and the skin
brought down from the hair to the eyebrows, so as to form a line of
indurated skin from one temple to the other. This peculiar mark is
distinctive of his rank, the ordinary mark of the Heebo being formed by
numerous perpendicular incisions in each temple, as if the operation of
cupping had been often performed.'
PRESENTED AT COURT.
107
the thumb, the middle finger, and the toes. Most
people carry beads of various sizes and colours, de-
noting their peculiar worship. Necklaces of large,
many-coloured beads, with three bigger than the
rest, show the devotees of Yemaya, goddess of brooks
and streams. Pure white beads are worn by those
who adore Obatala; black and white, alternating
with red, by the worshippers of Shango-Vulcan, or
Jupiter Tonans. Small white Indian cowries are
the ornaments of idols, and as such are worn by
their servants, especially by those who adore the god
Burukú* and the goddess Amanlu, who, like the
Hindu Shiva and Bhawani, slay without weapons.
The worshippers of Ifa, called 'palm-nut priests,'
wear wristlets of palm-nuts strung on fibre. Brass
bracelets, and all ornaments of the same colour, are
symptoms of adoring the female river god Oshun.
Snake worshippers, and, according to others, those
who pray to the Ogun River, have an iron ring
round the left wrist. Those who bear upon their
foreheads a painted mark like the Hindoo Tilak (or
the ashes which Roman Catholics daub on on Ash
Wednesday) are the votaries of the aristocratic and
expensive god Orishako.
The physical conformation of the Egbas is not very
* Burukú causes fits, and kills by small-pox-distinctly an East Indian
idea.
108
PRESENTED AT COURT.
promising in an intellectual point. The cranium is
small*
-as a European can find by putting on a
native cap-wedge-formed, with compressed brow,
almost always prognathous, hardly ever pyramidal
or oval. There are some who hold prognathism-a
peculiarity observable in almost all negro and
negroid tribes-to be exaggerated by lactation
unduly prolonged at an epoch when the bones are
still plastic. But such suckling is still the custom
in Southern Italy, without the hideous African de-
velopment. The external auditory process projects
in a ring of bone round the canal, seeming to bury or
overlap the foramen more than in Europeans,† whilst
the protrusion of the lower face and the receding of
the chin give, when carried to excess, a truly bestial
appearance. The skeleton is usually well put to-
gether in the upper part; in the lower, the hips are
too narrow for beauty; the shin, probably from sit-
ting at squat in youth, is convex, and the heel projects
behind―a negro should therefore wear sandals, never
patent leathers. The nose is sometimes hooked, but
the nostrils are expanded and elevated at the ale; in
the plainer sort it is broad and squatting upon both
* Some authors state that the gyri and sulci are shallow and infirm,
but what may be their opportunities of autopsy I know not.
† Phrenologically speaking, I believe this denotes either great destruc-
tiveness, or power of abstaining from food, whereas the Egbas are remark-
able for neither.
PRESENTED AT COURT.
109
cheeks, with an absence of rigidity and of dividing
apex in the cartilage. The cheek-bones are high,
and the face is frequently lozenge-shaped. The blue
eye, seen upon the Niger, is unknown. Here the
sclerotica is rarely clear, except in women and chil-
dren; usually it is bloodshot, from the relaxation of
the minor blood-vessels, or of a pale dirty yellow, as
from over-activity of the liver, or speckled with hazel
spots. The iris is more frequently a dark or a light
brown, with a sea-green shade, than black; and the
brows and lashes are removed, like the beard and the
axile pile. The lips are large; the circum-oral region
tumid; there is an ugly blue-black ridge between the
gums and the teeth; the former are frequently dis-
coloured by snuff, and the latter, though set off by the
blackness around, are neither whiter nor finer than
those of Europeans generally.* The hair is short,
scant, crisply-curled, often growing from the scalp
like peppercorns, and rather dull or reddish-brown
than black. The heads of the men are trimmed in
landscape or parterre fashion-indescribable. The
prevailing style amongst the women is to plait it up
* A man with a theory once accounted to me for the superiority of the
negro's teeth, by his never drinking anything hotter than at blood heat. A
pot of ekko (gruel) would rather have startled him; and generally, the
semi-civilized African is as fond of heated aliments as the European. But
the barbarian, having no dentist, takes more care of his teeth; hence the
occasional difference.
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PRESENTED AT COURT.
into thin longitudinal ridges, like those of a musk
melon, and to tie the residue in a small tight knot at
the sinciput. The skin is generally rough, sometimes
like shagreen; and in the poor the epidermis of the
hand is as hard as the foot of the domestic fowl. It
varies from a dark coffee colour to a café au lait light
as a Mulatto's; I especially remarked this peculiarity
in the chiefs and fetish men, whose hair also sometimes
verged upon a dirty sand colour. There is not,
however, any red race, as amongst the Fula. Albi-
nism is sporadic and distinct, nor did I see at Abeokuta
that modification of the xanthous temperament after-
wards observed in the Brass River, and at Batanga.
The Abeokutan, when taken at his best, is tall and
well made, ‘black, but comely.' When not so, he is
hideously chimpanzee-like. The male figure here, as
all the world over, is notably superior, as amongst the
lower mammals, to that of the female. The latter is a
system of soft, curved, and rounded lines, graceful,
but meaningless and monotonous. The former far
excels it in variety of form and in nobility of make,
in strength of bone and in suppleness of muscle and
sinew. In these lands, where all figures are semi-
nude, the exceeding difference between the sexes
strikes the eye at once. There will be a score of fine
male figures to one female, and there she is, as every-
where else, as inferior as is the Venus de' Medici to
PRESENTED AT COURT.
111
the Apollo Belvidere. In Africa also, where the
female figure lacks support, it is soon destroyed.
The mammæ in women are naturally large; after
the first child they become pendent and flaccid, and
in old age they shrink to mere purses and lappets of
skin. It is a curious fact that these withered crones
will sometimes suckle children, and that the grandam
is used as wet nurse.* In some cases I remarked
that, after the fashion of the true Amazons, one
breast was well developed, whilst the other hardly
appeared-probably for want of use.
Life in the open air, light clothing, and an abun-
dance of dirty soap, compounded of palm-kernel oil
boiled with ashes, prevent amongst the Egbas an
over-development of the true African effluvium; yet
it is there. The negro's skin-or rather the bulbs
situated in the cellular web under the cutis is a
more active organ of depuration than the European's,
importantly aiding the respiratory and other pro-
cesses in eliminating effete matter from the blood.
Dr. Stark proved that the white colour imbibes
odours in the lowest, the black in the highest degree.
The disorder for such at times it is-is increased by
* I can hardly, however, rely upon the case quoted by Dr. Clarke, of
Sierra Leone (p. 118), viz., that the stimulus of suckling an orphan monkey
caused a lacteal flow from the breasts of a virgin negress; yet there is no
reason for disbelieving the possibility. Embrocations of virgin's milk are
not uncommon in the Asiatic and the African pharmacopoeia.
112
PRESENTED AT COURT.
frequent anointings, foul food, and visceral dis-
orders; and when to these is added want of cleanli-
ness-the oily particles of the perspiration, so difficult
to remove, remaining upon the skin, whilst the
watery disappear *- the effect becomes truly in-
tolerable. Even amongst Europeans in the tropics,
the transpiratory secretion often becomes acrid; and
as the old Dutch traveller quaintly remarks, they can
never expect health until their bodies open '—in
other words, till their pores act freely.
As we advanced we were plentifully greeted—
more, however, by the women than the men, and
most by the children—with the common word Akabo,
i.e., Aku abo, used to a person returning from a
journey. The answer is simply an indefinitely pro-
longed o, which serves on all and every occasion; if
not returned it is a slight. Equals say to one another
Aku,† meaning, properly, may you not die, thus show-
ing the real African dread of death. The life-loving
southern European would say, 'Viva mille anni!'
All these people, from Benin to Dahome, when heard
thus saluting at Sierra Leone, were called Akoos,
* The fanatici for the Turkish bath, who contend that perspiration
makes the ploughman cleaner than the prince, are apt to forget this part
of the process.
† Also written 'Oku' and 'Aiku,' properly 'Ai-ku,' from ai 'negative,'
and ku to die.' 'Aiku' is a noun, signifying 'immortality,' or, rather,
'unquenchableness.' 'Aku' is also a noun, signifying a salutation.
PRESENTED AT COURT.
113
with as much correctness as if Englishmen were
termed God-bless-yous.* More modern writers have
named them Hios,† or Eyeos, from Oyo (Auyan), the
great capital of the Yoruban nation, about 2° (N. lat.
9°) N.N.E. of Abeokuta.‡ The best conventional
name of the language, however, despite Mr. Koelle,
is Yoruba; of the country's P.N. more anon.
6
All national salutations are tolerably ridiculous ;
the Englishman cannot laugh at the African except
for his unreasonable ceremoniousness. As the old
joke has it,' How do you do?' can only be answered
grammatically by Do what?' 'How do you find
yourself?' by 'I never lost myself!' 'How do you
feel?' by 'With my hands!' The Egbas, who are
gifted with uncommon loquacity and spare time, have
invented a variety of salutations and counter-saluta-
tions applicable to every possible occasion. For
instance, Oji re, did you wake well? Akwaro, good
morning! Akuasan, good day! Akwale, good even-
* The inverted form of blessing would perhaps be more intelligible.
The Somalis know our men as 'Godam,' and the Spaniards named their
mustachios, from a favourite military oath, 'bigotes.'
† Captain John Adams (p. 92, &c.) gives a long notice of the Hios-
he seems to have been hard on the letter h-and their king. He places
the country between Hausa and Dahome, hardly believing that its army is
100,000 men, but declaring that its influence extends to the sea by way
of Ardrah.
The maps usually write it 'Eyeo.' It must not be confounded with
Oyo, in Yoruba Proper, lying one degree N.N.E. (N. lat. 8°) of Abeokuta.
VOL. I.
I
114
PRESENTED AT COURT.
+
Akushe, to one at
walk), to a traveller.
Akwatijo, after a long
stranger. Akurajo, to
ing! Akware, to one tired.
work. Akurin (from rin, to
Akule, to one in the house.
absence. Akwalejo, to a
one in distress. Akujiko, to one sitting. Akudaro,
to one standing. Akuta, to one selling. Wolebe
(be careful!) to one met, and so forth. The servile
shashtanga or prostration of the Hindus is also a
universal custom. It is performed in different ways;
the most general is, after depositing the burden,
and clapping hands once, twice, or thrice, to go on
all-fours, touch the ground with the belly and breast,
the forehead and both sides of the face succes-
sively; kiss the earth, half rise
up, then
pass the
left over the right fore-arm, and vice versa, and
finally, after again saluting mother Hertha, to stand
erect. The inferior prostrates to the superior, the son
to the mother, the younger to the elder brother, and I
have been obliged to correct a Moslem boy of the evil
practice of assuming a position in which man should
address none but his Maker. The performance usu-
ally takes place once a day on first meeting, but
meetings are so numerous that at least one hour out
of the twenty-four must thus be spent by a man
about town. Equals kneel, or rather squat, before one
another, and snap the fingers in the peculiarly West
African way, which seems to differ in every tribe.
PRESENTED AT COURT.
113
As we advanced we saw unmistakable signs of
idolatry. To many trees bits of pottery, snail shells
-Achatinæ six inches long-were attached: a fence
here consists of a few light sticks tied together with
strings, from which these harmless articles were sus-
pended. In places were pointed out to us a stalk of
Indian corn with a yam or a gourd on the top. The
idea is that, whoever touches these things, the disease
or the misfortune of the placer will be transferred to
him. There is the same superstition in Hindostan,
and terrible tales of thus inoculating complaints are
current amongst Europeans.* There were broken
pots full of fragments of crystallized quartz and iron
conglomerate, which last is said to be a holy stone.
A traveller piling a handful of sand upon his luggage
leaves it under the protection of a medicine, or magic,
which Mungo Park calls 'kwong.' A hatchet is
placed in houses that have been lightning struck, and
water is worshipped in small earthen pots, over
which the women kneel and smite the palm of the
hand with the fingers. We are reminded of Apuleius,
who describes the traveller being delayed by an altar
garlanded with flowers, or a cavern overshadowed
with leaves, or an oak laden with horns, or a beech-
My friend Dr. Arnott, a surgeon in one of the East Indian regiments,
showed me what appeared to be a true syphilitic sore, communicated to his
horse, doubtless, by some native so afflicted.
I 2
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PRESENTED AT COURT.
tree crowned with hides, or a hillock consecrated by a
hedge, or the trunk of a tree chipped out by the
hatchet, or a turf moistened with libations, or a stone
drenched with unguent.' Strangers connect these
mysteries with Oro. The truth is, few know any-
thing beyond the fact that they are superstitious ob-
servances-many of them, doubtless, quite as effica-
cious as the horseshoe or mistletoe in England, or
the Pishog, which transferred cream and butter from
one churn to another, in Ireland, where, as in
Abyssinia, old women were burned for becoming
grey cats.
We found no difficulty in fording two of the
waters on the line of road; the third, however, was
more formidable. Mr. Consul Foote fell there, his
horse having placed its hoof in a deep hole, whence
earth had been taken for building purposes; and he
then laid in the germs of the disease which carried
him off in the prime of life. Several old women,
in purest Guinea costume, were washing their clothes
and persons, and, not wishing to wet our feet, we
attempted by 'sweet mouth' to secure a mount. The
reply was characteristically African, viz., 'What will
you give me?' Having neither cowries nor tobacco,
we waited till a man came up, and he was more
obliging than the veterans of the other sex.
Nearing the walls we saw a house in the process of
PRESENTED AT COURT.
117
preparation for Mr. Savage, a native merchant.
Numbers of labourers were at work, for Africans, like
Asiatics, are great at division of labour, which, in-
deed, they often so divide that the remainder is imper-
ceptible. Some hoed a deep hole,-here as at Benin
and in Sokoto, where they are scattered over the town,
a standing nuisance,-which afterwards remains to be
filled with rain and drainage, filth, offal, and sometimes
with the corpse of a child or a slave. The effect of
these pits upon the climate may easily be imagined.
Another gang was working the clay, and converting
it into the swish or dab required for the walls; whilst
a third party was engaged in preparing grass thatch
and palm leaves for the roof. When the actual build-
ing begins there will be one gang to carry clay balls
to the scene of action, a second of labourers who fling
the same balls into wall shape and pat them down, a
third, boys and girls, who hand other balls from the
ground or the scaffolding to the masons above, a trim-
mer to plumb and set things square with his wooden
shovel, and finally thatchers to finish off. The shell is
usually made in three horizontal layers, which must
dry for a day or two in the sun and wind before
receiving another addition; the builders, however,
will await for the last touch the month of December,
when the hard, dry breath of the harmattan will
harden their work to the consistence of concrete.
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PRESENTED AT COURT.
This desert wind, which Captain Maury and his
Ehrenberg bring from impossible places, is enjoyed
like the Neapolitan scirocco by new comers, and is
much feared by natives and old stagers. It is, there-
fore, supposed to be a giant, an African Æolus, who
sits upon a mountain far in the interior, blowing
dust and cold-the elements of discomfort-over the
world.
Presently we arrived at the Aro, or the Badagry
or the south-western gate. It is not unlike that of
Agbameya, but, for valid reasons, it is, or rather it
was, on a somewhat more extensive scale. Long
quiet-lately broken-has, however, demoralized the
people; ten years ago it was the same in Great
Britain. The wall is hardly eight inches thick, there
is no weather-thatch, the guard-house is almost in
ruins, and the moat is a mere ditch. Victory has
made the Egbas too secure.
But a truce to criticism. We are now upon classic
ground, the local Marathon. Here was fought, on
the 3rd of March, 1851, the great battle between the
Dahomans and the Abeokutans. The quarrel was
of old standing. Gezo, King of Idáhame, as the land
of the Lord of Amazons is here called, had been de-
feated at Ado-a town nearly half-way between
Badagry and Abeokuta-by the Ibashorun, or com-
mander-in-chief, of Abeokuta; and he had lost,
PRESENTED AT COURT.
119
besides the town, his stool, which in these regions
means the throne. The Dahomans, holding them-
selves to be a military as well as a warlike nation
-we have lately been lectured upon the distinction,
which is no difference-and burning for revenge,
determined to destroy Abeokuta, for which purpose
they advanced with the full force of the empire.
Their plans were ill laid, and their boasted secrecy
appears to have been a lamentable failure. Arrived
at Ishagga, a small Egbado town fifteen to seventeen
miles south-west of their destination, they were duped
by special treaties, oaths, and sacrifices, and were
persuaded to attack, not the north-western gate,
which was the weakest, but the south-western, which
had already been fortified. Their plans of a night
surprise were also overruled by their treacherous
allies, who persuaded them that midday would find
the defenders either sleeping or working at their
farms; and finally, the Ishaggans pointed out a ford
which wetted all the cartridges of their friends.
Baddahun or Glele,* son of the late King Gezo of
Baddahun Dahome, revenged this treachery, as he
was expected to do. After patiently waiting ten years
with annual threats against Abeokuta, which threw
the people off their guard, he suddenly, in the spring
* Baddahun, usually written Badohong, was his princely name; Glele, or
Gleli (the jawbone), is one of his strong names.
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PRESENTED AT COURT.
of 1862, fell upon Ishagga with a force not exceed-
ing 6000 men the town numbered about 3000
souls--massacred all he could not carry away, and
departed, laden with prisoners, amongst whom were
seventeen or eighteen Christian converts, and a Mr.
Doherty of Sierra Leone, one of the Scripture readers
of the Church Missionary Society.
The Rev. Mr. Bowen, missionary and quondam
Texas ranger, who used, they say, a good rifle in the
fight, thus describes the Dahoman attack of 1851
upon Abeokuta :-About noon, in the bright month
of March, the Egbas, some 15,000 strong these
numbers must be taken cum grano-marched out of
the Aro gate to meet the enemy. They then divided
into three parties: the first proceeded to the ford on
the Badagry road, the second, under Ogubonna, the
bravest of the Baloguns, now deceased, crossed the
river near the wall, and the third remained not far
from the Aro gate. Meanwhile the Dahomans moved
.across the prairie with colours flying, in heavy
columns, numbering 10,000 men* and 6000 women.
They also formed two divisions, one of which fell
upon the Abeokutan force guarding the ford, whilst
the other, under Gezo,† their king, charged furiously
* Others say 8000 men and 4000 women, which is more likely.
† According to Mr. Freeman, a missionary, who has frequently visited
Abome and Komasi, Gezo of Dahome was one of the greatest of African
i
1
!
PRESENTED AT COURT.
121
upon Ogubonna, and drove him back upon the rocks
and rapids of the Ogun River. Mr. Bowen sent the
3rd brigade to his support, when he rallied, and even
made head against the enemy. The Abeokutans at
the ford were also flung back by the Dahomans;
they flocked, however, into the gate, and effectually
checked the enemy, who, in this attack, were mainly
'Amazons.'* There had been some dispute between
kings. He reigned some thirty-five years, and in 1858 died of fever.
When Mr. Duncan-the Life-Guardsman-was sent to him as vice-consul,
he was much pleased with the size of the person; but after a fortnight or
so, he inquired of a friend why the King of England 'did not send him a
man with a head.'
* Much nonsense is afloat touching these 'Amazons.' They are simply,
like the Urdubegani of the Deccan and of other Asiatic courts, the slaves
of the palace organized as royal property, and weaponed by the late King
Gezo-who feared treason from the men. Most of them are women taken
in adultery or too shrewish to live with their husbands, who 'dash' them
to the king, instead of killing them. Once, however, royal slaves they
become vestals. They are bound, like the female priests of Grewhe, under
penalty of death, to chastity and celibacy, and this naturally communi-
cates a certain amount of ferocity to their minds-'horrors' are, with the
eunuch, their succedaneum for love. Upon this subject I am tempted to
quote a few lines from Captain John Adams (p. 74), who says of Dahome:
One of the conditions by which a female is admitted into the order of
priesthood, is that of leading a life of celibacy, and renouncing the pleasures
of the world; and but few are admitted to enter it at all; for during a
residence of many months at Grewhe, one ceremony only of this kind was
performed, at which I was present.
There is a striking similarity in the conditions imposed on those poor
deluded African women who are admitted into the priesthood, and many
of those nuns who in Catholic Europe are forced to take the veil; only
the former are instruments in the hands of fraud and oppression, while
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PRESENTED AT COURT.
the male and female soldiery, and both laboured
under considerable dissatisfaction: the latter had
claimed the right to storm, which the former ob-
tained, and were left to lose the day by their sulking
rivalesses.
Then the women, fearing the taunts of the men,
pressed hotly forwards, and many were killed close to
the others are too often the victims of domestic tyranny and ambition.
But the lot of the savage African is far superior to that of the civilized
European. For the former, notwithstanding the restraints imposed on
her, can enjoy the sweets of personal liberty, and has some scope for the
play of her natural affections; whereas the latter is shut within the gloomy
walls of a prison, where her short life is passed away in vain regret, and
in the society of immolated beings who are as melancholy and desponding
as herself.'
To which we may add, another advantage to the African woman, that
her feelings, like those of barbarians and the uncivilized generally, are by
no means so highly developed as amongst Europeans. A scanty diet,
a life of toil, and the petty cares of domestic duties, blunt, if they do not
destroy, the besoin d'amour. She is not even-
• Commanded
By such poor passion as the maid that milks,
And does the meanest chares.'
• Female soldiery, as a rule, is a failure; or rather, like female labour
in all departments of industry, it produces a worse article at a cheaper
rate. The Amazons, I believe, are no exception. They cannot be esti-
mated at more than 2000, although many travellers-Dalziell, Cruick-
shanks, Winniett, Duncan, and Forbes-have raised the number to 4000,
and even 6000. In the case of Messrs. Duncan and Forbes, the Amazons
were marched round the palace yard, in at one and out at the other gate,
like the commissariat cattle in Affghanistan. Captain John Adams (p. 93)
mentions the same manoeuvre on the part of the King of Hio (Yoruba),
adding, "This was a political stratagem that would hardly have been
expected from an African savage.'
PRESENTED AT COURT.
123
the gateway. Here, and here only, there was some-
thing like a stand-up hand-to-hand fight, muskets
being clubbed for want of bayonets; the rest was all
skirmishing.. After six hours ensued a purely African
scene. King Gezo's division rested upon the battle-
field half-way between the Aro gate and the river,
and Ogubonna's did the same. A resolute advance
along the whole line, and a single charge by the one
would have settled the fate of the other army-both
preferred, however, to sleep upon the field. During
the night King Gezo's division moved off, followed
by the other Dahoman troops, carrying their
wounded in orderly retreat. The Egbas, enraged by
being attacked by women, pursued them hotly with
discharges of musketry, galling their rear. At
Ishagga the Dahomans faced about, fought for a
while, and fled the treacherous Ishaggans doing
their best to destroy them.
Mr. Bowen estimates the Dahoman loss at 1200,
others exaggerate it to 3000 killed and 1000 pri-
soners. Mr. Crowther, senior, counted 75 women and
5 men lying within a few yards between the river
and the wall. As might be expected, the women
suffered most; the flower of the army was believed
to have perished. The Egbas' loss was comparatively
trifling. The effect of the Battle of Aro' was to
place in possession of the Egbas the Ogun River line
C
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PRESENTED AT COURT.
and direct communication with Lagos and the coast,
the one thing needful to an African inland nation.
The Dahomans have ever since been burning with
rage, and loudly threatening revenge. Early in
1861 they collected another force-the number was
set down at 22,000, which I would divide by three-
and marched upon Abeokuta. On the road, however,
small-pox broke out-it is said to have killed 8000 !-
after which the remnant found their way home.
The Abeokutans, before Gezo's attack, dreaded their
foe; and had, they say, resolved to burn their houses
and bury themselves in the ruins rather than be
taken alive. At present they despise him, and loudly
boast of their power to 'whip' him. Now, there-
fore, is their danger; and if demoralized by relying
upon English assistance rather than upon their own
energies they may one day come to grief.
But Dahome, in its actual state, is to some extent a
bugbear. The mighty warlike empire of which
Bosman dimly heard, and even the strong military
kingdom over which Gezo ruled, is now en décadence.
Its very institutions must cause its decline: it lets its
own blood, and, though the drops are few at a time,
it cannot but suffer in the long run.
The troops
are poorly armed with trade muskets, ignorant of
bayonets, and with short falchions of stuff like hoop-
iron. The 'Amazons' boast themselves invulnerable,
PRESENTED AT COURT.
125
but readily retreat: an equal number of British char-
women, armed with the British broomstick, would-I
lay, to speak Yorkishly-clear them off in very few
hours.* The male soldiery make, like the French, a
noisy, fiery onslaught, but, repulsed with vigour, they
do not readily return to the charge. Their wars are
mere slave hunts; their object is to capture, not to
kill, and surprises, not attacks, form their favourite
strategy. The terrible reports current concerning
Dahome and its 'blood-stained despot' may be traced
to certain Europeans and Brazilians, whose interest
it is to deter slave-emancipators from investiga-
tion. They have lately rumoured that the King of
Dahome is resolved to capture an English officer to
hold his stirrup. We hear occasionally of a white
man being sent to Agbome, 'rolled up like a cigar,'
and a certain M. Medeiros was, it is said, compelled,
for punishment of his recusancy, to walk the way bare-
foot. But these are slavers, who are thoroughly de-
* It is, however, only fair to the Amazons to state, that Mr. Bowen,
on the day after the battle, saw several hundreds of them lying dead on
the field, where they had fought with great fury. Commander Forbes,
on the other hand (vol. i., p. 81), says of the Dahoman army, 'These
soldiers, being yearly at war, have gained a fame that, if fairly tried, would
soon be found wanting.'
† It is a dire insult to refuse the invitation of an African king to visit
his capital. Captain John Adams (p. 63, &c.) tells how seven English
seamen, cast ashore four or five miles from 'Grewhe,' were sent up ninety
miles to the king at Agbome. One man, affecting lameness to escape the
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PRESENTED AT COURT.
spised by the king, and who, he knows, must eat any
dirt to please him. It is, however, a fact that neither
Baddahun nor Gezo, his father, ever put to death a
white man.
We have no good modern account of
this interesting despotism. Commander Forbes is
said to have copied from previous publications.
There is no doubt that a man well conversant with
Africa, and known to have friendly intentions-Mr.
McCoskry of Lagos, for instance-would find no diffi-
culty in visiting and in returning safe from Dahome.
I would gladly accompany him.*
At the several gates of Abeokuta octroi or customs
are raised. The two articles most taxed are cowries
and corn-the latter taken in kind. Other sources
of revenue are police dues, trade taxes on imports and
exports, corvée or forced labour-the begar of India —
journey, had his hands and feet tied together, and a pole introduced
between them, and in this way they were going to Abomey; when, to avoid
so painful an alternative, he found the use of his limbs, and marched along
with his unfortunate companions.' They seem all to have been well
treated at the capital. The king tried, by promises and threats, to per-
suade the man who had affected lameness to stay with him. But when the
fellow answered that, ""if his shipmates went away without him he would
destroy himself," the king seemed to feel uneasy at this, and consulted
one of his principal men, who advised him to permit the man to return
with his companions, which was granted.'
* This was written in 1861. At present (Feb. 1863) we hear that
Commodore Wilmot, Captain Luce, and Dr. Haran have set out on a
journey to Agbome, where I may venture to predict they will be received
as honoured guests.
PRESENTED AT COURT.
127
and, on emergency, an impost equivalent to five
shillings on each household. It is by no means easy
to ascertain the amount of Asiatic or African revenue;
the missionaries, however, set down that of Abeokuta
at one per cent. These decidedly moderate proceeds
belong not to the Alake, or king, but to the chiefs; a
system which the local paper, the 'Iwe Irohin,' thinks
-with scanty popular good-will in consequence-
should be altered. The change would possibly
strengthen the hands of the monarch, who certainly
requires support; on the other hand, it would lengthen
interregnums, which are already long enough. The
late Mr. Consul Foote strongly advised the Abeo-
kutans to place an impost upon imports, but to send
out exports free of tax. They did not agree—nor
can we wonder, as Lagos has since followed their ex-
ample- -on the same principle as England prefers the
unjust income-tax to the just property-tax or capital-
tax. For in Abeokuta, as in England, the law-giver
would lose by doing justice to the law-receiver.
Beyond the Aro gate superstition again shows
itself. The adit and the exit are by two parallel but
separate paths. At Agbome one thoroughfare would
be for royal, the other for public convenience; here,
however, one is used each month, and if an accident
happens it is charged to the wrong path, much as in
England the day's good or bad temper depends upon
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PRESENTED AT COURT.
putting the right or the left foot first out of bed.
The grass waved tall and lush over the Dahoman
clay; the expanse was broken by sundry graves, some
thatched over like dwarf or fause houses,' others
had a rude cross, to which articles of clothing were
suspended, and an elephant's jawbone-the buried
man's idol-hung over the huntsman, who, like the
fisherman, must be buried outside the walls. These
two crafts form separate guilds, which almost become
castes, worship the god Ogun, and meet in separate
Ogboni lodges.
About a mile and a half along the Badagry road
-a mere pathway worn by market-people in the
bush-placed us at Aro. It is the port and landing-
place of Abeokuta in the rainy season; during the
dry season, from the end of November to the middle
of March, Agbameya is preferred. The outlying
village already shows signs of civilization in a ferry,
palm-oil puncheons, and cask-houses. Messrs. M'Cos-
kry and Wike, and M. Bergmeyer and Scala, with
Robbins, the agent, have depôts there, and they will
probably be followed by others. A little above Aro
we see the ridge of slabs and boulders which, stretch-
ing with breaks across the river, render its rapids un-
navigable. The material of the obstruction is a gneiss,
banded with thin lines of snowy quartz, and substra-
tified, the strata being for the most part highly
PRESENTED AT COURT.
129
E
tilted up. Portages are useless, for these rapids per-
petually recur. The banks of the Ogun are here
perpendicular, and composed of stiff clay; in Egypt,
as in Asia, they would be sonorous with the sakiyah
or Persian wheel; in this place they are silent.
After sitting for a few minutes in the house of a
negro, who politely offered us a dram of trade rum,
which was as politely declined, we found by the sting-
ing sun that it was time to re-start, if we intended to
reach Ake at 9 A.M. On the way we passed a young
person in great distress. She had dropped her pot of
black oil,* worth at least four heads of cowriest equal
to seven shillings-no small loss to the
poor devil-
and she was expressing her grief in the long, loud
song
which I remember in the Lake Regions of Central
Africa. Tears rolled down her sable cheeks, yet in
the intervals of sobbing it would flow on, that curious
bawling cry which one unaccustomed would take to
be the expression of lively joy. It is long before the
European ear distinguishes between the sounds of
mirth and the voice of woe proceeding from Asiatic
* The palm-kernel oil, which is so fast becoming an important article of
traffic, is of two kinds. The white oil is that expressed from the kernel
after it has been cracked. The black oil is that which drips through
the husk when toasted with the kernel inside. This is done to save labour.
As yet no efficient crusher has been invented, consequently every kernel
must be broken by manual labour. When machinery shall be invented,
the trade will assume a new standing. It is now worth 50l. per ton.
+ One head of cowries, = 1s. 9d., here keeps a man for a week.
VOL. I.
K
130
PRESENTED AT COURT.
·
and African lips. Returning through Do-the-
bachelors-good,' we found the market warm, as the
Hindostanis say. At a distance we heard a murmur
like that of a distant sea, and as we sighted the open
sheds that form the bazar it swelled to a roar.
The
market opens from dawn till 9 P.M.; it is fullest,
however, a little before sunset, and the more indus-
trious light lamps, instead of going home with the
darkness. The bazar is a great institution in
Yoruba, and, indeed, throughout the Nigerian Valley.
It is also a civilizing agent, and by giving occupation
to the women-it is disreputable for them to work on
the farms, but not to carry the produce for sale-it
tends to repress disorders. Porters are a hardly-used
race in this region: men carry 40 lbs. to 80 lbs. bur-
den for weeks' journeys, and the women may be seen
staggering, as if about to faint, under a bale of cotton
112 lbs. in weight. Men were tramping off towards
the seat of war, sixty miles distant, laden with all
manner of provisions, which they bore upon the head,
not, like East Africans, upon the shoulder.
burden is fastened to a neat wicker-work cradle, flat,
and garnished with side handles. I would suggest
to bumpkins, who take hours in driving a recusant
pig to market, the advisability of lashing it to a plank
-should no better conveyance be procurable-and of
carrying it upon the head. We are once more in the
The
PRESENTED AT COURT.
131
land of caravans: they number hundreds or thou-
sands, each man carrying his sleeping-mat, cotton-
sheet, or wrapper, provision bag, and earthen pipkin,
to warm the 'kitchen' for his maize or yam; and they
are old, expert travellers. They make when starting
the nakl safar, as the Arabs call the short, initiatory
march, at Atade, on the Ibadan, and Awoyade, on the
Badagry road.*
Under the long rows of umbrella-trees sat a multi-
tude of black women-selling appears to be their
peculiar privilege—with scions of every age, from the
big-eyed babe hardly a week old to the bold bare bairn
aged ten. Cowries were placed near the goods, and,
as in the Egyptian coffee-house, the buyer's honour is
trusted. The principal articles were provisions for
present consumption, hardware, dry goods, earthen-
ware, and 'notions.' Of the former, we found ready-
made soups, obbe or palaver sauce-so called because
eaten in council-which, by the mixture of mulook-
hiyah (Corchorus olitorius), reminds us of Egypt;†
* So travellers from Badagry pass the first night at Mo, a place not far
distant from the sea.
† It is almost as complicated as the Hindu's curry, though far inferior
in delicacy of taste. The material is fish, flesh, and boiled fowl, with yam
or koko, flavoured with onions or shalots, ground cocoa-nut, malaguetta
and other peppers, red and green okros or occros (Hibiscus esculentus) in
large quantities, and lastly, refined palm oil, which gives the goût. In
black man's palaver sauce they insert 'affitti' or 'ogiri,' a condiment about
as aromatic as bad asafoetida.
K 2
132
PRESENTED AT COURT.
ekko or mush; huge snail shells, here relished as
much as in Sierra Leone; kankie or maize cakes, and
fufu balls of levigated corn or boiled yam; grated
cassava or 'wood flour,' as it is generally called-a
favourite, because on journeys this farina can be
mixed up with cold water and eaten without cooking
-balls of beans ground on a stone, mixed with
spices, and placed to fry in purified black oil; dried
rats; pots of black and yellow palm oil, here far
cleaner than in the Oil Rivers; shea or tree butter,
which will become one of the most considerable of
Africa's many products;* sesamum oil; cereals of
sorts, especially Indian and Guinea corn; eggs,
terapins, and dried fish from Lagos, especially shrimps;
Telfaria seeds;† pink kola nuts, displayed on a white
napkin, neatly covering a basket; ground-nuts or
pindar, the pistache of old French travellers, and now
called arachide; tobacco of sorts, chiefly Brazilian ;
wet goods and drinkables, such as palm wine and
pitto, oli, or native beer, and well-diluted rum, which
* Of this valuable nut more hereafter.
†They are oleaginous, and produced by a gourd one to two feet long,
growing upon a climber.
The 'pombo' of Eastern Africa. Maize is here macerated for three
days, till germination takes place. It is then spread on leaves for fermen-
tation, sun-dried on mats, and bruised. Mixed with cold water, in a pot,
it is well stirred for two hours, and boiled for twenty-four hours; on the
next day it is again boiled, and afterwards strained, cooled, and stored in
calabashes.
PRESENTED AT COURT.
133
(
is sold by men; 'bullock milk for true;'* fruits mostly
relished by Europeans-okpaimbo, the white man's
palm,' i. e., pine-apples, bananas, papaws, oranges,
known as the white 'man's mango,'t and water-
melons, which are exceedingly poor; condiments,
pepper and bud pepper, ginger and other spices; and
various vegetables, sweet potatoes, kokos, okros (Hibis-
cus esculentus), sugar-cane and onions, especially the
bulbless sort, called chives in England and violet
onions in India. The hardware was represented by
bracelets of brass, iron,‡ tin, and copper; § and
Europe goods,' knives and cutlasses, scissors and
pins, needles, hoes and bill-hooks. The dry goods
were raw silks, broadcloths, and velvets, of which
the green are preferred; country cloths of grass and
various fibres, some composed of pieces not broader
than a riband, and sewn together; calico, shirtings, and
cottons of sorts; red, blue, and white tapes; Hausa
and other caps; ropes and lines; threads, especially
red; yarns and reels of cotton. The leather-work was
excellent; black and white, red and yellow, like that
of Morocco; and the people make good flasks and
saddle-straps, saddles and embroidered cushions. The
earthenware was not remarkable; gourds and cala-
*This is Anglo-Africa for cow's milk.
†The mango seems to have been known here of old.
Tolerable native iron is brought from the northern country.
§ Copper is said to be found in the mountains to the east of Abeokuta.
134
PRESENTED AT COURT.
6
bashes, some of them neatly and prettily carved with
the knife, serving for crockery, earthen bowls, and
china cups, plates, and dishes. There was a vast
variety of beads, sold singly or by the string, and
native imitations composed of broken palm-kernels
and jasper. The notions' were balls of dirty soap,
snuff-boxes, gunpowder, and ammunition; chalk,
found on the Ijaye road; tobacco, roll and leaf; snuff;
balls of indigo and liquid dye; camwood pounded with
water and moulded into lumps; horse and cow dung,
here used for plastering floors and walls; little cones of
native salt, nitre, or saltpetre; baskets of leaves, used
as brown paper for wrapping; provisions and firewood,
brought by the women six to eight miles from the
bush; stationery of various sorts; brooms, baskets,
raw cotton, and cowries, in any number. Briefly, it
was a heterogeneous mass, whose combined aroma on
a warm morning and an empty stomach, after eight
miles of sunny walk, was as startling to the olfactories
as the awful hubbub-chiefly feminine and infantine
—of saluting and laughing, squabbling and cursing,
hailing, and howling, was to the auditory nerves.
Pure swearing is European, not Asiatic or African.
They anathematize, however, idiomatically enough, as
-'Oro (the devil) take you!' 'Egugun (king of ghosts)
chop you! May you die in the bush!' i.e., remain
unburied, whereas every man hopes to die in, or
6
PRESENTED AT COURT.
135
re-
rather on, his bed; 'May small-pox kill you!**
minding one of an English exclamation now working
itself out. And as usual amongst barbarians, the
mother and the female relatives are abused with an
indecency which beggars description. We lost no
time in making the best of our way out of the range
of Do-the-bachelors-good.'
6
On the day of our arrival, Mr. Williams, a most
forward specimen of the 'nigger,'-these people can
be respectful until spoiled by Europeans, after which
they are insufferable-had been sent to announce to
H.M. the Alake, the great fact of Commander Bed-
ingfield having arrived at Abeokuta, and to re-
quest an audience au plutôt possible. The king was
pleased to reply that he would see us on the next
day, Saturday, shortly after 10 A.M. The walk to
Aro, therefore, led directly to a toilette for the
levée.
But 10 A.M. sped, then 11, then 12. Various mes-
sages went and came; still the great man's dignity
required us to wait, and 1 P.M. had struck before we
were permitted to hope for the possibility of beholding
him. Under these circumstances, had it been my
'palaver,' I should have deferred the visit till 3 P.M.,
*There is also an independent expletive-Small-pox!' ejaculated as
if the speaker believed in the Sitla Devi, or the small-pox goddess of India.
Yet the disease is rarely fatal in these parts, as on the sea-board west of and
about Lagos.
136
PRESENTED AT COURT.
We
and I should not have appeared before 5 P.M. I have
no doubt that more civility would have been the
result, and that the impression would have lasted
longer. But this is to lecture omniscience. Armed
with umbrellas-here they represent the 'quality'-
we walked over the few hundred yards that separate
the palace from the mission compound of Ake.
were suddenly told that we had arrived; turned to
the left into a ragged clay house, long and rambling,
with a shallow verandah formed by posts supporting
the eaves, under which female slaves, called-to
magnify his importance-king's wives, sat before
articles for sale. The establishment was as mean-
looking for Abeokuta as is St. James's for London.
Stooping to avoid injuring the coronal region, we
crossed a hollow court-yard, in which there was
nothing remarkable beyond a peculiarly neat pair of
stocks, we entered through a second gate, an inner
and a smaller court, and there we found a cluster of
negroes seated at squat sub divo to receive us.
We naturally looked around for the presence-
chamber, when we were motioned to bend double, and
thus to insert ourselves under the long, low verandah
that subtended the side of the inner court. Five
hexagonal columns of ultra-Egyptian massiveness,
and about four feet high, divided the house-wall
behind the verandah into as many compartments.
PRESENTED AT COURT.
137
6
Of these 'loose boxes' the two at either end were
open, leading into the house; the three central were
masked by a native cloth; in the middle was an old
brocade bed-hanging-behind which we were told
lay H.M., invisible-and lastly, was a curtain of
scarlet velvet. The Awajali of Ijebu Ode is never
allowed to see or to converse with strangers, except
through his ministers; and that the cabinet may have
it all their own way, when the monarch dies, all the
personnel is carefully put to death. The whole space,
including the columns, was beautifully black, like
the rain-cloud,' as the Egbas say, with horse or cow-
dung, mixed with some leaf which may be indigo.
This is the gobar of India, and though it is un-
known in Eastern, it has been observed in Western
Africa.* Happily we had brought our own chairs;
the palace contains, I am told, but two, and we had
time indeed to sit. The rest of the verandah was full
of chiefs, niggers,' and a few Moslems, a total of
about one hundred and fifty, and all adult males.
Never have I seen such villainous crania and counte-
nances as amongst the seniors of Abeokuta. Their
* A singular custom prevails here (Ardrah), that of anointing, occa-
sionally, the interior walls of houses with fresh cow-dung; a useful prac-
tice, for it dries quickly, has by no means an unpleasant smell, and fills
up crevices which would otherwise be tenanted by noxious and trouble-
some insects.'-(Captain John Adams, p. 81.)
† In these lands, 'nigger' always means a slave.
138
PRESENTED AT COURT.
calvaria depressed in front, and projecting cocoa-nut-
like behind, the absence of beards, the hideous lines
and wrinkles that seamed and furrowed the external
parchment, and the cold, unrelenting cruelty of their
physiognomies in repose, suggested the idea of the
eunuch torturers erst so common in Asia. One felt
the same frisson at the sight as when looking upon the
Gallic ladies who, in rainy weather, haunt the County
Fire Office at the end of Regent Street, and one was
sure that from pity or mercy it would be as well to
address the wounded mandril. I afterwards observed
the same amongst the elders of Benin, and I should
not be surprised to find it at Agbome and Komasi.
The atrocities which these ancients have witnessed,
and the passion which they have acquired for
horrors, must have set the mark of the beast upon
their brows. There was not a vestige of splendour.
The chiefs were bareheaded, naked to the waist,
wholly unornamented, except with a few cheap beads,
and clothed with a common native loin wrap, or a bit
of unbleached domestics.' To retain wealth in such
lands requires care and caution: an ostentatious man,
however rich, will die poor.
6
We were beginning to wax impatient at this im-
pertinent blending of misery and pretentiousness,
when it was suggested that H.M.'s linguist, alias
Mr. Wilhelm, the Church Missionary interpreter, had
PRESENTED AT COURT.
139
not appeared a fresh reason for standing upon cere-
mony. It is contrary to etiquette for an Alake to
show himself too freely either to his people or to
strangers: the King of Oyo, at the first interview, re-
mains hidden behind the curtain, and the Alaketu or
chief of Iketu is known by a hole in the wall. Mr.
Wilhelm is one of the earliest Egba recaptives who left
Sierra Leone for Abeokuta : he has remained faith-
ful amongst the faithless, and whilst the others have
relapsed into the wildest heathenry, he has become
the senior 'Christian visitor'-il a passé caporal sur le
champ de gloire. To quiet us, I suppose, a very
dirty table of plain deal was set opposite H.M.'s bed-
hanging; presently it was invested with an unwashed
native cloth, and, lastly, after a long delay, it was
richly spread with two wash-hand basins. One was
'blue mandarin,' the other, French Faïence, coarser
than majolica, true pot-house appointments, in each
of which were two tumblers and two wine-glasses—
the materials for a carouse-at midday in the tropics!
-then came upon the tapis four bottles of maras-
chino, prepared for commerce; an ordinary high-
shouldered, black gin-bottle, containing the normal
mixture of vitriol, turpentine, and aqua pura; two
large case-bottles of Brazilian rum, the offal of
molasses, which, however, these people prefer to the
Jamaica; and water in a ‘lustre jug,' as the trade calls
140
PRESENTED AT COURT.
it, a thing of obsolete make and colour, such as thirty
years ago was common in English farm-houses.
All this splendour, however, did not so dazzle us
as to make us forget that H.M. was treating us most
slightingly, and our murmurs were not spared. At
length, the confidential young slave who had drawn
the corks, and who bore a bunch of keys, European
and country made, and large enough for half a dozen
chatelaines, drew back the old brocade bed-hang-
ing. Thereupon H.M. appeared, encaged, like Clap-
perton's portrait of the Bornuese Sultan; or, to.
choose a comparison nearer home, like a denizen of
one of the larger dens in the Zoological Gardens.
The shape and appearance of the apartment was
exactly that of Mr. Punch, magnified perhaps a score
of times; and it was a hole in the wall, under whose
outside verandah we were sitting. The loose box
was full of women and children, probably part of
H.M.'s fine family. He is said to have twelve young
and fifty old wives, but lately he has ceased to be a
father, and is disposed, it is whispered, to resent any
symptoms of impending paternity. One of the
spouses sat before him, fanning him with a circle of
hairy cowhide rudely set in a hairy handle, differing
from the flag-shaped instrument of the further east.
She wore a strand of red coral, and an indigo-dyed
loin wrap, about which she was needlessly coquettish.

Page 140.
HD
W.CARTER SC
THE PRESENTATION AT COURT.
PRESENTED AT COURT.
141
In the verandah, dangling over the Alake's head,
were two Moslem charm-calabashes, covered appa-
rently with many-coloured threads, white and red,
light blue and dark blue, with hangings of written
characts and talismans - their appearance was not
familiar to me. The right arm of majesty reposed.
upon a long bolster covered with crimson silk velvet;
and two mats, whose ends projected into the ve-
randah, supported the portly person, which was dis-
posed in a free and easy way upon the dexter side,
with the limbs lazily drawn up. Upon the mat ends
were placed a huge leathern cowrie purse, not unlike
the old French gibecière; the royal stick, so enriched
with beads that the material was invisible; an artful
animal-done in cotton, with a harlequin suit of
beads-intended for a dog, but resembling an arma-
dillo; two chauris, or fly-flaps, of white oxtail-
H.M. held a third, which rejoiced in a handle of
beads-and a pair of unsheathed swords. One was a
blade like the ancient falchion with which the Osmanli
captured Rhodes, only it had a brass head of some
beast, found possibly in heaven above, but certainly
not on the earth below. The other was an antique
Toledo, much worn down, but still bearing in distinct
letters the noble Castilian motto, 'No me trajas sin
razon;' on the other side, 'No me degaines sin honor.
Weapons of this kind often travel far: when the
142
PRESENTED AT COURT.
18th Regiment, Bombay N. I., attacked and defeated
the Beni Bu Ali Bedouins near Maskat, they found
amongst the spoils, European swords, daggers, and
gun-barrels, which had been handed down as heir-
looms from generation to generation.
Such was the setting that enclosed the picture.
The picture itself was as curious. Okukeno, Alake
of Abeokuta, is said to be between sixty and seventy
years old, and his contemporary, Ogubonna, had been
a balogun, or high military officer, which implies an
elderly man, during the Egba dispersion, some forty-
five years ago. His head, partially shaven, and his
beard, were grizzled ; but judging from the plumpness
of his arms, and the absence of wrinkles, Dr. Eales and
I concluded that he was not much beyond fifty. He
was a large and massive man, blind of one eye, which
imprudently encountered a stone when attempting
to arrest a faction fight; heavy featured, coarse,
and unprepossessing. The loss of his upper teeth,
except the canines, which recalled the Wild Boar of
Ardennes' fangs, caused a disagreeable indentation
of the upper lip; the lower incisors have been
destroyed by snuff, and the tongue-tip habitually
protruded in a manner the reverse of kingly. Alto-
gether he suggested the idea of an old, very damaged
and very rickety lion. His dress was a tall fez-like
cap of crimson velvet, disfigured by a pendant fringe
PRESENTED AT COURT.
143
of small blue porcelain beads round the upper third.*
A necklace of red coral-pink is little valued by
these lovers of the gorgeous-and a double string of
the same material round each wrist, were the regal
ornaments. This fondness for coral seems to have
been borrowed from Benin, where even in Bosman's
day it was a decoration of state. His only body-
cloth which appeared in view was a toga, of white
watered silk, striped with broad crimson bands; and
it sat upon him incongruously enough. His man-
ner was as peculiar as his audience-chamber and his
appearance. He seemed more than three parts
asleep, and we could never decide whether the cause
was old age, affectation of dignity, or the two
greenish glasses of strong waters placed before him
on a silver or silvered tray, now lead-coloured for
want of plate-powder.
There are four tribes that have the right of giving
what is called a king to the Egba nation, viz., Ake,
Oshelle, Olewu, and Aguru. His Majesty of Abeo-
kuta belongs to the first. His predecessor was that
Shodeke of Ake who rose to power amongst his
countrymen in time to 'consolidate the heterogeneous
mass,' and to prevent the old blood-feuds breaking
out afresh. Of the consolidator's virtues all have
* Shodeke, concerning whom more anon, wore, we are told by Mr. T. B.
Freeman, a scarlet cloth coat and a large blue tassel.
144
PRESENTED AT COURT.
:
something to say. Europeans speak respectfully of
him, and his people almost worship him, as the
Egyptians do Mohammed Ali Pasha - no great
advantage to his successor. Shodeke dying in 1845,
his brother Someye, the Ibashorun, premier, or com-
mander-in-chief, was made temporary ruler of Abeo-
kuta. After his death there was a hard race be-
tween Okukeno and his coeval Ogubonna. The
former, however, had raised himself to the rank
of sagbwa, or dictator. Having followed for years
the plough, or rather the hoe, and at times acted
as basket-maker-the Egbas are essentially farmers,
whilst the Ijebus are traders - he had acquired
the art of seeming humble. He had also the
reputation of being poor- the usual affectation
amongst ambitious chiefs-whilst he was rich in
land and slaves. Thus the 'mild and amiable sag-
bua,' as a writer very wrongly calls him, had the
cunning to defeat his rival, and in 1854 he was in-
vested with the title of Alake, an honour never con-
ferred upon an Egba prince since the great disper-
sion of the people. But he is waxing old; his lieges
are weary of him; there is a report that he has made
too much money, and signs appear that his subjects
will send him a quiet message to 'go and sleep.'
* Which is the polite way of directing him to retire to his harem, and
then and there to poison himself, unless he wishes a worse fate. This
PRESENTED AT COURT.
145
The Alake is usually of calm and quiet demeanour,
capable, however, of showing strong excitement, per-
fectly inveterate in vengeance, never forgetting and
never forgiving, ever plotting and biding his time
-an excellent thing in an African monarch. The fol-
lowing instance is given of his patience under injurious
treatment: When the waggish savage Ogodippe, war
chief of Ikijá-during the troubles at Lagos he sided
with Akitoye against Kosoko, killed several Brazilian
traders, and kidnapped a number of people-was
reproved by the Alake, he arose, walked round him,
and insulted him as anointed king was never in-
sulted before, ending by asking if more was required.
The Alake made no reply, but, ultâ mente reponens,
stored up the injury for future discussion, and waits,
like Saadi's derwaysh, till he gets the insulter into his
power.
When the curtain was raised, we were severally
introduced by the interpreter, Lagos Williams,
and Commander Bedingfield shook hands with the
Alake. Our mouf,' as the linguist is here called,
then opened the 'palaver' with sundry set and
6
constitutional proceeding is the Harikari, or 'happy release' of the Japanese,
and in practice is not unknown in Europe. In Africa, hasty deposition
is checked, however, by the custom of slaying openly, or secretly, the high
officer called the king's father,' and other great chiefs, to meet him in
Orun or Hades. Since the above was written the Alake died on the 1st
September, 1862.
VOL. I.
L
146
PRESENTED AT COURT.
dreadfully sententious sentences; for example, that
the Oibo, or white man, had come up from Lagos at
the king's request; that viva voce was the best
method of communication; that he hoped all would
be well, and so forth.
(
In reply the Alake hung down his head, and
affected to doze, which, to say the least, was not
polite. No one had ever seen him so surly; many
of the chiefs, therefore, had refused to attend, saying
that the Alake must settle his own quarrels. The
few then present attempted to encourage him by
ejaculating certain words in an abrupt metallic tone,
and one man, distinguished as a sycophant, sang out,
Ai-ku, don't die!'* in a strain which still haunts
certain fibres of my brain. The curtain was presently
let down, and those outside began a new set of out-
landish noises. Some uttered blessings; others beat
the left breast with the right hand; whilst others, by
joining the palms and sharply drawing back the two
smaller fingers of the left hand, produced a snapping,
which in this land signifies approval. All this
apparatus was, we were told, provoked by the
solemn occasion of the great man taking snuff. The
ceremony was punctually repeated whenever the
king drank, and his glass was tasted preliminarily by
* Mr. Hughes thought the word was 'Ekun' (a leopard), one of the
king's strong names, but he was in error.
PRESENTED AT COURT.
147
the confidential slave with the keys. The Egbas
rob their rulers of as much of the reality, and leave
them as much of the unreality of rule-the pomp
and ceremony-as possible. This custom of con-
cealing the king on such occasions appears to result
from a compound idea. In some African places, as
at Loango, the person of the ruler is so sacred that
it is death to see him eat or drink. In other
parts it is supposed that a man is most obnoxious
to witchcraft when eating, drinking, and sleeping.
After an unconscionable time for digesting the last
speech, there arose an old man, whose wrinkled face
and dwindled stomach showed fully his sixty years.
His dress was a white loin-cloth, a necklace of beads,
and a leather talisman, like a 'grigri bag,' with two
gold or brass rings sewn to its front. He was the
Akpesi or Prince of Ikemta, one of the Abeokutan
townships, the only other man of the same rank
being the Apesi of Eruwan. The king's mouth,' or,
as he would be called further south, 'ole parrot,' is
celebrated for eloquence and for a Sancho Panza-like
knowledge of proverbs, and readiness in the use of
them. He is therefore a useful man, but the whites
declare that he is not to be trusted. He presently
stood up, and without once referring to his master,
delivered himself of a long speech, with frequent
repetitions, the words 'ki' (signifying 'salutation')
L 2
148
PRESENTED AT COURT.
and 'gi-di gi-di' (very well') being the most ear-
catching. At the peroration he expressed the glad-
ness of the Alake to see and welcome us at the capital;
as for himself, he rubbed his bony hands on his lean
stomach to show the yearning of his own proper
bowels towards us. After which he sat down with
the air of a man who can afford to say Dixi.
6
Commander Bedingfield rejoined with many thanks
and return salutations, at the same time insinu-
ating a wish that the 'palaver' might come up'-
in other words, to do something more than talkee-
talkee.
The king's mouth' again arose, welcomed us with
even more effusion than before, repeated a prodigious
number of 'ki's' and 'gi-di gi-di's,' and concluding
by hinting that this was the happiest day in Abeo-
kuta's life-a day to drink, and chat, and make
merry, leaving the future to take care of itself,
though he owned that it-the future-was the pro-
perest time to work.
•
The captain' accepted frankly and freely all
offers of conviviality, but ventured to represent that
as the morrow would be Sunday-a dies non-and
as he could not afford to be long absent from his seat
of government, H.M.S. Prometheus,' it might be
as well to settle upon the next day but one for
business purposes. Much, too, of the same kind.
6
PRESENTED AT COURT.
149
The reply was again superlatively polite, agreeing
to everything, except to fixing a day, which would
to a certain extent be derogating.
Then the carousing began. My companions
thought it their duty to imbibe some vile stuff in the
shape of strong waters. I remembered Sir William
C
Temple, who, when sent on a diplomatic mission to
the Netherlands, kept a friend to make head against
the Dutchmen in beer. They were then induced to
swallow some of the king's sweet wine,' and by
their looks it was apparent that they had not found
it either Tokay or Lunel. All the bottles were
opened with a perfect disregardlessness of expense,
the Akpesi himself handing the tumblers of rum to the
assembled crowd, each of whom sipped, and sent on.
When any one passed the presence, he prostrated
himself as ceremoniously as one kneels during
presentation in London. After the drinking, we
wanted to depart-I especially, who, after drawing
out my sketch-book, had, at the request of those
present, been obliged to put it out of sight. We
were delayed, however, by the non-arrival of the
king's dash,' or present; and when it came it
proved to be a sheep, a goat, and a bag of cowries-
the latter now worth about eighteen shillings.* Three
cases of excellent Hollands-far too good for such
"
* In 1863 it has diminished to fifteen shillings.
150
PRESENTED AT COURT.
mouths—were afterwards forwarded as a counter-gift,
two to the chiefs, and one to the Christian converts.
After expressing gratitude for the king's liberality,
we arose, shook hands, or rather squeezed palms,
with the great man, whose temper seemed to have
been mollified by his potations, and we left the hole
-terribly hot it was—without delay.
The audience did not impress me favourably.
Having heard much of progress and civilization at
Abeokuta, I hardly expected to meet there the
poorest reception on the West African coast. Pre-
sently I remembered that only twenty years ago the
people of Egba had emerged from a low state of
barbarism, and had become acquainted with the outer
world through a few half-caste and European mis-
sionaries. Still my opinion is that their social state
-which is about equal to that of the Bhils and
Coolies of Guzerat-has been grossly misrepresented
in England, and that they have been petted into
believing themselves far superior to what they are.
6
<
The sulkiness of the old king, we afterwards
heard, arose partly from a correspondence which had
lately taken place. The captain,' in a letter which
he addressed from the Prometheus,' Lagos, 3rd
October, 1861, introduced the following effective
words touching a gross insult offered to her
Majesty's representative and to himself:'-
6
PRESENTED AT COURT.
151
'It seems to me that surely the Alake and chiefs cannot be aware of the
purport of their letter.
If they are so, I would ask them a question or two, and request they
will answer me.
'Has England done anything for Abeokuta to entitle her representative
to offer his advice without being insulted?
'Is Abeokuta so strong that she will never more require the assistance of
England, and that she can safely defy her power?
'Does she consider it safe to pull the whiskers of a sleeping lion?'
This style, of course, appeared to the writer pecu-
liarly impressive, Oriental, likely to come home to
the feelings of the Africans, whom he knew so well.
It wanted, however, the first recommendation of style
-intelligibility. The first two questions were queer
enough. Abeokuta, like other barbarous kingdoms,
believes herself to be the strongest and greatest
nation in the world; she may own that England
has bigger canoes than she has, but she owns no
belief in our superiority by land.* The third
was a perfect enigma-a conundrum would have
been more intelligible. Lions love the liberty of
desert sands; they will not venture into the damp,
dark forests of Guinea,t and-zoological gardens
have not yet been introduced into Ake. So the
simple Alake inquired what is a lion? And some
*I have repeatedly heard the same assertion from the lips of the
cowardly Krumen.
†The king of beasts is found above Macarthy's Island, in the Gambia
River, and Lander mentions him in Barba and Upper Yoruba. Mr. Bowen
ignores his existence east of the Ogun River.
152
PRESENTED AT COURT.
<
6
Sierra Leone gentleman' had read in a book that
it was the king of beasts.' 'But what are his
whiskers?' It was suggested that he probably wore
a beard. Then, what the dickens'-or something
to the same purport-asked poor Okukeno, justly
indignant at being taken for a low caste huntsman,
'have I to do with plucking the beast's beard?'
It is, I confess, intolerably presumptuous in me to
offer suggestions to those who are so much better
acquainted with the African than myself. But in a
few words, when the object is to embrouiller an
affair in this part of the world, there is nothing
better than a letter. On the other hand, if a peace-
ful solution of the question at issue be required, a
trusty messenger, or, better still, a personal interview,
is the one thing needful. The only interpreters of
letters will be either Sierra Leone men, or perhaps
white confidants. The chances are that both are im-
perfectly acquainted with one of the two languages,
and the certainty is that both will have their own
ends to serve.
After leaving the presence, we visited another
place between the Alake's palace and the Ogbone
Lodge of Ake—the state prison. It was then unusu-
ally empty. The captives, mostly women and mere
boys, sat under a verandah, with their ankles fast in
the stocks, which are a pair of horse-shoe shaped iron
!
PRESENTED AT COURT.
153
staples fitting closely round the limb, and with the
points driven into a heavy wooden billet. Our object
was to see an African Gasparini, an Egba, who, after
having been sold four times for various crimes, had
as often escaped, and returned to his own country.
At midnight of Thursday last he had hid himself in
the house of the agent Robbins, and after collecting
his plunder in a blanket, he had sat down to supper
with the effrontery of a London 'cracksman.' The
master of the house came in, when his visitor seized
his knife and stabbed two of the servants before he
could fairly be secured. This time, men say, he may
again escape; intercession will save the most noto-
rious offender; and effectually I did not hear of his
execution. The punishment for theft is here severe,
as amongst the Moroccans; at first, the bastinado,
then mutilation, and lastly death. In Africa the
penalty of robbery ought to be heavier than that
of murder, the former offence being frightfully
prevalent, whilst the latter is comparatively rare.
A few men hung for stealing even trifles would soon
make an African settlement safe from all attempts
upon property-always provided that the doom is
certain, not problematical, as in the native states.
At Abeokuta executions are seldom public, and they
follow conviction somewhat too closely to please
European ears. The work is usually done at night,
Dor M
154
PRESENTED AT COURT.
in the king's compound; a peculiar sound of the
drum at the time, and next morning a fresh skull
nailed to one of the trees opposite the palace, are the
sole announcers of the event. 'Ilejo,' the present
Calcraft, is said to strike the victim with a club, like
the old Italian ammazatore, and the head is then
severed from the body.
After the first 'palaver' was duly concluded, we
returned to the house of Mr. Wike, and refreshed.
Presently appeared a deputation sent by the Christian
converts, and headed by another Williams - the
name is here as common as in Wales-not an inter-
preter, but a Church Missionary schoolmaster. The
several orders of this hierarchy are, beginning from
the lowest, the Christian visitor; he goes about and
flushes the game, which is then handed for training
and reclaiming to the schoolmaster and the catechist
-natives all. Above them begins the white rule of
deacons and priests. This Williams had been acting
secretary to the Alake, and in that capacity he had
addressed to the acting governor of Lagos a letter
full of low, puerile impertinence, which was naturally
supposed to express the bile and venom of the breed.
Mr. M'Coskry, by systematically denouncing slavery,
and by taking more active measures, had incurred
all the enmity of these recaptives. But Williams
showed a tolerable reputation; he was not known
Mчou
PRESENTED AT COURT.
155
to feel any special grudge against the Acting Gover-
nor; he was a schoolmaster, and therefore could
hardly be expected to write idiomatic English; and
lastly, it was evident, even by his conversation, that a
little learning had made him mad, like most of his
compatriots, in the way of fine words. So when Wil-
liams showed due contrition, his error was set down
to the score of ignorance, and he was dismissed with
Lord M-'s 'short answer.'
Horses were brought to us for sale. I saw nothing
at Abeokuta but the poorest ponies, twelve hands
or so high, neatly enough made, but liable to disease,
and uncommonly vicious. One, however, was a
Borneo horse, with the high withers that charac-
terize the breed, and the lowest price was set down
at twenty-eight bags (about twenty-five pounds), in
a country where money is worth four times as much
as in Europe. The animal, moreover, was miserably
thin, and the experienced determined that something
must be wrong, or that it would not have been for
sale. Good horses used to be brought down the
country from Yoruba; since the war, however, the
Iloris and Ibadans, like Abbas Pasha of Egypt,
have laid an embargo and a prohibitory duty upon
exporting them. Even an Englishman would be
compelled to obtain permission from the chief. The
war has greatly raised the price of beasts; they are
156
PRESENTED AT COURT.
in all about six hundred, and the best have been sent
to the camp. Yet the warriors on both sides are
ignorant of the simplest forms of cavalry, and this
arm, if introduced, would soon decide the fortunes of
the field.
Ponies formerly cost two bags, or thirty-six shil-
lings. The same now sell for fifteen to twenty bags;
even a colt of known name will fetch that price. A
tolerable nag for a European may be bought for
thirty bags; the sum rises to two hundred dollars
where size is required-as in the Arab, a hand's
height makes an enormous difference-and in fancy
cases three hundred dollars would be asked. They
are much valued, and require the greatest care in
these hot, damp regions. Their food is Guinea corn
and grass, cut and brought in by the boys; the head
'syce' selects the food, and bathes and grooms his
beast. Every day, or every second day, it has a
handful of kaón, an impure saltpetre-in Sierra
Leone called lubi-and, by way of anthelmintic, a
quantity of spices, recalling the celebrated East
Indian nostrum, battisi. Before going to war the
animal is prepared by drugs for a constipation which
will last four days, and thus conceal the trail from
the enemy. The trappings are rough and heavy, huge
demi-piques of morocco leather, with shovel-shaped
iron stirrups, sharp at the corners, and points project-
PRESENTED AT COURT.
157
ing, by way of spur. The bridle has the cruel ring-
bit of the Arab Bedouin, and twisted leather thongs,
forming a whip at the end. Poitrail and crupper
are not wanting, and a variety of ropes and tethers,
charms and talismans, are bound round the neck.
The animals, however, are not shod.
This evening, as on the previous, we heard loud
shouts, broken by an occasional musket-shot, and
accompanied by the usual tom-tom. A large crowd
of badauds and flaneurs stood or squatted at the gate.
They were celebrating the obsequies of the Akpena
or messenger of Ijemma, a high official who had
lately died, not without strong suspicions of poison.
He had been engaged in a quarrel with his superior,
the Ibashorum of his town. The people found
business at a stand-still; they therefore sent to the
less useful personage the messenger-their compli-
ments, and a humble request that he would 'go to
sleep.' So to sleep he went. What a charming way
of settling the ridiculous squabbles and the injurious
jealousies of rival and hostile departments and minis-
tères! Am I not justified in suggesting to the civilized
peoples of the world so natty a mode of preventing
private feeling from interfering, as it now so fatally
often does, with public duty?
158
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
CHAPTER IV.
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS AT ABEOKUTA.
THE rains had not yet ended, and the mornings were
damp and misty, whilst a worse than English fog
moved for hours after sunrise through the cloudy air.
Captain Parry found the heat uncomfortable at 23°
(Fah.) above zero; the Abeokutans shuddered with
cold when the mercury showed 65°.
On such a morning, accompanied by the boy
Olufanobbi, alias Robert Fisher, Egba, Ogbone, Chris-
tian convert, and printer's devil in the Church Mis-
sionary establishment at the salary of four dollars per
mensem, I sallied forth to inspect the father of the
settlement, the Rock Olumo.
Our route lay to the west, with a little northing,
along a rough road, and the town was at this hour
one vast latrine. The perfume from the bush must
not be described. The men, and even the women,
again showed a wonderful absence of all that with us
AT ABEOKUTA.
159
goes by the name of decorum.
As on the Gold
Coast, the sable fair ones bathe publicly in purissimis.*
There is not a public woman in the town, which
some, as forgotten Mandeville, say speaks well, and
others badly, for private morality; and Mr. Bowen
only met one bastard. As in Ashanti, here, even in
the highest ranks, that form of the social evil known
to civilization, especially trans-Atlantic, as the ' panel
dodge,' is said to be sometimes practised. The wives
of the highest chiefs will bring on intrigues with
young men, and betray them to the husbands, who
either get their money or sell them. In shaking
hands, the emphatic gesture is to touch the lady's
palm with the dexter index; but the amourist risks,
if unlucky enough to displease, a seat upon the stool
of repentance, and an exposé to public ridicule.
The wells lying by the paths were shallow pits;
rain-water arrested by tenacious potters' clay a few
feet below the surface. Where they are private pro-
perty, women pay to the owner two to three cowries
per potful, or one cent for fifty gallons. The water
is good, but requires cooling; the bucket is half a
calabash-gourd, lashed to strings, and requiring an
hour to fill a large vessel. Time, however, is of little
* When we first occupied the unhappy valley of the Indus, the Sind-
hian women used to bathe without dress at the wells with Moslem
decorum they were safe, but the Frank soon changed all that.
160
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
value in these regions, and the people love to gossip
round their meeting-place, the well. I need hardly
point out how unwholesome these sites are. Con-
cealed water, and a hot, dry surface, must produce
the most deadly miasma.*
On the road we passed by the five great crafts
of Abeokuta -- the blacksmith, the carpenter, the
weaver, the dyer, and the potter. I turned in to
inspect their several workshops, and to see their
appliances, which merit description on account of
their similarity to, or rather identity with, those in
the distant centre, the east and the south. By a
collection from the works of different travellers in the
remotest parts of the dark Continent, it would me-
thinks be easy to prove a close connection in ancient
times between nations and peoples now ignoring
one another's existence. Indeed, so exactly the same
are many of the articles-the bellows, for instance-
and so artificial, forbidding the idea of an in-
stinctive invention, that one almost suspects a com-
mon centre to all the races amongst whom they are
common.
* Lagos kills a consul about every two years. The only way to remedy
it would be to sleep for the first year on board a ship, or still better,
a large hulk anchored off the town in mid-channel. At night the
malarious vapour is condensed and concentrated by the chilliness of the
ground, and is absorbed or rendered innocuous by passing over a sheet of
water.
AT ABEOKUTA.
161
The blacksmith, who is also goldsmith, silversmith,
copper-worker, and tinman, sits under an open shed
of leaf-mats. His fire is of palm-nut husks-as good
as charcoal.. His bellows is that of ancient Egypt and
Greece, and is described by every African traveller,
from Mungo Park downwards; from Unyamwezi to
the lands of the Ovampo. Two bags of rough goat-
skin are secured in troughs cut out of a single piece
of wood. The upper part of each skin has a handle,
or stick, two feet long, so that it can be worked by
one standing or sitting. There is an earthen pipe
leading from the wooden pipe which projects from
each trough, and the junction is not air-tight. The
handles are raised alternately by the blower; con-
sequently, when one follis' receives air, the other
ejects it. The forge is, like that of the Gold Coast,
a perpendicular screen of dried clay, through which
the nozzles of the bellows pass, supplying a regular
blast; the larger anvil is a stone, and the smaller a
lump of iron. The craftsman has spindles for drilling,
and rough files, with a better sort from Europe, which
he keeps carefully wrapped up in greasy rag. His
native hammers, pincers, and hooks are exceedingly
artless tools. He makes little clay crucibles for melt-
ing hard metals; puts the material in without flux;
buries it in the glowing husks, and casts it into bars
by means of an oiled mould. He buys a kind of
VOL. I.
M
162
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
carbonized iron from the interior, and he forges from
it rude keys, chains and staples, swords and knives,
sickles and hoes, inserted in large clumsy handles,
and adzes and axes two inches wide, with the iron
driven through the wooden handle as it should be,
not the wood driven through the iron.* The repair-
ing of a 'long Dane,' or buccaneer gun, is about the
measure of his knowledge; he has never learned
to temper iron, and even when running leaden plugs
for bullets, he loses half the material by not stirring a
little grease with the melted metal, and removing the
dross with his knife.
He
The carpenter is a century behind the blacksmith,
probably because every man in these regions can use
an axe without professional aid. He has an adze and
splitting wedges, but neither hooks nor saws.
must hold the wood with hand or foot, and when
making a plank, he must hack away the rest of the
tree-trunk. His industry is confined to doors and
shutters, bowls, and mortars for pounding grain.
Men in Abeokuta, as in ancient Egypt, weave, which
the old Greek held to be an effeminate occupation;
they are also the best, if not the only, needle-workers.
The cotton, cleared of seed by an iron cylinder rolling
The European fashion is best adapted for heavy axe-blades in tem-
perate climates. In the tropics the wood, alternately wetted and parched,
shrinks, swells, and rots. I prefer, to all, a hollow iron handle, firmly
riveted to the blade.
AT ABEOKUTA.
163
spun
on a block of wood, and bow-whipped as in India, is
into yarn-balls by means of the old distaff, and
is sold every evening in the market. The weaver
employs his mornings in winding off the portion
which he will require for the day. The loom, stand-
ing under the usual open shed, differs little from the
horizontal structure of Eastern and Central Africa.
Like the bellows, the principle extends throughout
the continent. It is perpendicular, as in ancient
Egypt, where, however, both forms were used. A
framework of sticks, about four feet high, with
eighteen inches of extreme breadth, is planted in
the ground. The twist for the warp is passed over
the upper and under the lower connecting bar, and
the thread for the weft or woof is shot between with
a shuttle and a 'sley,' here called 'assá,' a reed used
to beat the woof tight. It is a rude implement, and
makes narrow strips of tree-wool' cloth, six inches or
so wide, which, to form a garment, must be sewn
together. Dyeing with indigo is done by women,
much in the way described by Mungo Park amongst
the Mandengas. It produces a beautiful tint, with a
finer purple gloss than the Indian can show, and the
people colour thread with every tinge, from the
lightest blue to what closely approaches black.
Freshly-pounded leaves-the dry are rarely used-
are placed in an earthen pot till it is half full; it is
6
ļ
M 2
164
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
then filled with a lye prepared from the potash of
various wood ashes. After soaking for some days,
till fermentation throws up an iridescent scum—at
this time is the chief danger of failure-it is ready
for use.
The cloth, wetted in cold water, and wrung
out, is placed in it for two hours, sun-dried by hang-
ing across a pole, beaten with a stick, washed in
water to remove impurities, again wrung out, and
returned to the pot. No mordant is used; the
operation is repeated ten or twelve times during four
days, when the dye becomes permanent.
The potter is also a woman. The earthenware is a
very poor article, better than that of Lagos and
Ikoradu, but far inferior to the produce of Wari.
The reddish clay is brought from a place about two
and a half miles to the north-east of the city. The
wheel being unknown, it is fashioned by hand, and so
neatly that strangers will hardly believe it. Being
but half burned, it seldom lasts. This handicraft is
depressed by the competition of the calabash-maker.
The gourd, a congener to the pumpkin, varies in size
from a snuff-box to a milk-churn. When the fruit
ripens, a hole is made in the smaller end, and the air
decays the pulp, leaving the hard rind intact. When
a lid is wanted, the fruit is sliced off on a plane, one-
third from the smaller end. It is then neatly cut and
carved with a hand-knife, and this ornamental en-
AT ABEOKUTA.
165
graving' is said to be a lucrative trade. The cost
of a good article is about twenty-five strings, or one
shilling. The manufacture of glass is unknown in
Yoruba; it is, however, if native accounts are to be
believed, at Nupe, and especially at Rabba, once the
capital of that interesting region.
•
About half way I saw a mosque-an oblong hut,
with blackened walls, and a thatched roof of mat and
leaves; it fronted Meccah pretty correctly. The
door was closed, and all my Arabic could not procure
me admission, although a talib-a 'scholar,' who
should have known better-was lying under the
verandah, learning memoriter the last verslets of that
beautiful and most edifying chapter, the Ya Sín. A
little beyond, we passed an Ogbone lodge, remarkable
only for its painted and carved door, upon which dis-
tinct symbols of Phallic worship-not disguised as in
Egypt by the sacred Tau-appeared in natural size.
A little beyond was a large slab of gneiss, which
bore upon its summit what appeared to be the trace
of ichnites; a little inquiry proved them to be the
work of man- the hollowness being formed by
pounding and grinding.
After about a mile and a half of up and down,
sand and boulder, midden and offal, we ascended a
* I sent some to England, where their novelty and grotesqueness caused
them to be greatly admired.
166
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
short steep pitch, and stood near and opposite the
Rock Olumo. Surmounting an abrupt hill, with
falls on all sides, it is a conspicuous landmark
in the scenery.
It has the honour of giving a
name to the city clustering at its feet, Abe-okuta
'(the town) Underneath the rock,' by us called Under-
stone. The Builder-for such is the meaning of its
name--is some two hundred yards in length, divided
about midway by a fissure that affords an easy ascent,
and overhanging on all sides except the north, where
a neighbouring tree acts as a natural ladder. Many
have mounted to the summit, and, according to my
informants, a cannon has been fired there. On
another occasion, a small party climbed it with
Commander Bedingfield, in jack-boots, via the tree.
I confess that, with the view of keeping legs and
ankles unbroken until after the ascent of the Cama-
roons Mountains, this feat did not appear advisable.
It has been dedicated to Oro. No one objects, how-
ever, to strangers taking liberties there, although
it has been tabooed to the people for fear of acci-
dents. Cavern, as described in books, there is none.
The projecting sides, however, form tall, deep ledges,
beneath which people can find shelter; and under the
eastern side dwarf walls of red clay have converted
it into troglodyte abodes. Besides human bipeds, the
swallows flock and nest there in numbers.
AT ABEOKUTA.
167
Walking round to the left side, which I should ad-
vise future travellers to avoid, I saw the point of view
chosen as a frontispiece to 'Sunrise within the
Tropics.' Either the amateur artist or his engraver
has succeded in making it as unlike reality as pos-
sible. The view, however, is quite in character with
the book itself, essentially Anglo-African, and well
fitted for the delectation of the Hall, once more
appropriately known as Exeter Change. The right-
hand foreground is adorned with the customary
clump of typical palm-trees and aloes, and a group
of natives, white men drawn black, most European
in bearing and civilized in gesture, reminding us
of our own artist' in the Illustrated News,' who,
with praiseworthy catholicity of art, makes as little
possible distinction between humanity in its opposite
hemispheres. Below lies the town, neat, rural,
pretty, white-walled and red-tiled, built with all the
symmetry of Clapham, and backed by a glorious
lake-like river with little green islets-and, doubtless,
eel-pie houses;—whilst in the distance a fair expanse
of rolling hills, green and blue, fills up the scene.
<
Let me describe what I saw and sketched. Beyond
the barren mass of stern grey stone-filthily dirty-
which afforded me a standing-place, there was a per-
pendicular drop of some fifty feet, disclosing part of
the city below and in front. It was a grisly mass of
168
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
rusty thatching and dull red-clay wall, with narrow
winding lanes and irregular open spaces, a ragged
tree rising here and there. The only comparison
which the scene suggested was that of a huge ant-
hill scattered over with dead leaves and dwarf shrubs.
On the left was a high tongue of land, with top
sinking towards the foreground; it supports Bagura,
one of the most populous townships; and here the
houses that crowd one another prevent the ground
from being seen. It is separated by a stony stream-
bed, the usual fence in this part of Africa, from the
neighbouring settlements, Ikereku and Ikijá, Iláwo
and Ikporo. In the distance is a narrow line repre-
senting the Ogun River above the rapids, and the ho-
rizon is shut in by rising ground which appears barren
and sterile. In the magnificence of its distances
Abeokuta greatly resembles Washington, but there
the similarity ends. The main peculiarity of the
scene is the shape of the houses-large irregular
squares, with huge thatches raised high at the angles
to throw off the rain. There are but two which
attract the eye by superiority of size, viz., those of
the late Ogobonna, and of the waggish savage
Ogodippe.
Olumo, however, is classic ground in these regions,
the Arg, the Capitolium of the Egba race, the Rock
against which the gates of Ibadan have not yet pre-
AT ABEOKUTA.
169
6
vailed. It was the point de réunion of the people of
Egba, who, about 1820-1822, had been scattered to
the winds by intestine tumults and the fury of their
enemies.* Some thirty-five or forty years ago, say
in 1825, a few of the better sort, flying from their
new masters, took refuge under the Builder,' where,
it is said, they found robbers-probably their own
countrymen who had preceded them. As in classic
Rome, the sanctuary was joined by other fugitives
and villains. When the new-comers found them-
selves strong enough, they drove out the original
bandits, and then laid the foundations of a city
which, after Olumo, they called Abeokuta. It grew
apace. In memory of their former settlements,
they gave to the new seats the names of their
ancient townships-Ake, for instance, was the old
capital of Egba-land in the days when it was a pro-
vince of Yoruba-and they conferred upon their
military and civil chiefs titles familiar to their ears
in olden times. They hung up their harps by the
side of Olumo, and holding the soil to be hard and
sterile, they sighed for a return to the lands flow-
ing with milk and honey.†
Presently Abeokuta became a fenced city, and was
* An account of the Egba dispersion will be given in a future page.
† Figurative. There are but few wild bees, and honey is unknown
in this part of Africa.
170
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
girt with a moat and a clay wall, after the approved
fashion of African fortification. Its population waxed
numerous. Mr. T. B. Freeman, in 1842, estimated it
to contain forty-five thousand souls. In 1858, Mr.
Bowen gave it
it eighty thousand more modern
travellers have raised the number to one hundred
thousand; and, looking at the extent and the thick-
ness of the population, I should not wonder if, when
the soldiers return from the Ibadan war, it was found
to contain one hundred and fifty thousand souls, nearly
equal to the entire population of redoubted Dahome.
It contains the remnants of some one hundred and fifty
townships—some say one hundred, but they diminish
for fear of exaggeration, and others, too sanguine,
raise it to two hundred and eighty-five-which all
retain their own peculiar institutions. The constitu-
tion, in fact, is that of a federal republic under a
perpetual president.*
The Abeokutans still aspire to regain the lands of
their forefathers, and they swear that they will come
to their own again. I doubt the probability of their
so doing. The weak outlying states of El Islam,
* Mr. Senior, and probably others, opines touching 'plural government,'
that the Greeks were the inventors of the system of dividing the sovereign
power among a number of co-ordinate persons, whose combined assent was
necessary to an act of supreme authority.' He would have found the
principle and the practice in the remotest and most barbarous of African
tribes.
AT ABEOKUTA.
171
Ilori, for instance-now the last ripple of the mighty
wave urged southwards by an irresistible current
though at present unable to sweep away the barriers
of Paganism, is strong enough to resist any encroach-
ments. And the day will come when the Law of
the Prophet shall rule throughout the lands, when
Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands unto Allah,
and shall thus rise to her highest point of civilization.
Meanwhile, those who support Abeokuta are but
shoring up a falling wall. The only thing they
can say is that, like Turkey, she may take some time
to fall on the other hand, when the Moslems suc-
ceed to the land, they will find it rich in cotton and
palm oil.
The sun having lost his strength, I proceeded, in
company with Mr. Hughes, a thoroughly Yorubanized
Englishman, to ascend the rocks of Ake, the hill
immediately behind the Church Missionary com-
pound. The path led along the burial-ground and
near a foul wet hole, whence the clay for building
houses had been excavated. Ascending, we re-
marked an Oro-, or wild mango-tree,* whose trunk
had been gashed apparently for the purpose of letting
out the turpentine. After losing our way in the
thick grass-it should be kept clear for the benefit
* It is not cultivated, and therefore little prized by natives: the flavour
of turpentine is its characteristic.
172
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
of those who desire a breath of fresh air-we fell into
sundry lanes bordered by the unwholesome tiglium,
whose odour after sunset denotes its dangerous
qualities. Passing through a blocked-up gap in a
hedge, we entered a field of tobacco; the herb which
Niwt named and which Thevet ought to have named
-an analogy of Colon and Amerigo-grows wild in
the streets of Lagos and Abeokuta: the people, how-
ever, prefer to import it from the Brazils. The land
has usually been considered too worn out to support
so exhausting a crop; in places,
crop; in places, however, it
flourishes. The people have learned to top the plants,
and the American missionaries have taught them
to cure it by hanging the leaves for a day or two
in bunches to dry, and then piling up and sweating it
for two or three days. It thus becomes tolerable
smoking, with a little Cavendish or gold-leaf by way
of kitchen' to its mildness, and the highest price
is about 5d. per pound. The people, however, are
not great smokers. Both sexes and all ages prefer
a pinch of natronized snuff between the lower lip
and the gums-in fact, where it can best excite the
salivary glands. Pure snuff is also made, and
though a little deficient in flavour, it is by no
means despicable. The favourite snuff-box is a hol-
lowed hard-shelled fruit called agbar.' Curious
to say, these Africans have not learned the use
6
AT ABEOKUTA.
173
of smoking or eating datura, a poison which over-
runs the land, and I saw no bhang growing in the
country.
Ascending a dwarf slope of koko field, we clam-
bered up some rocks, and reached a place where
Egugun, literally 'Bones,' is worshipped. The king
of ghosts here receives sacrifice in honour of the
manes of the ancestor in whose behalf the offering
is made--it is in fact an African prayer for the dead.
The place shows only a dwarf enclosure of red clay
walls, whose roof is a gneiss boulder resembling
Olumo. It was blackened with smoke, and as we
perched there to rest we were curiously inspected
from below by the meddlesome Christian populace
of Wasimi.
Many
We manifestly stood on holy ground.
stones bore signs of medicine-yams, dabs of palm
oil, broken calabashes, and cowries in strings. Above
us rose the 'logan-stone,' the remains of an older
world, now washed down into the deep Atlantic.
Descending through a dense bush, where long sharp
thorns and the chance of meeting a snake made us
'look alive,' and hopping from boulder to boulder,
we presently entered the mysterious Oro grove: a
little further north it would be called a Debbil-
bush.' The Egbas, like the ancient Persians, and
most of the modern pagans, combine a propensity for
6
174
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
worshipping in high places with fondness of the
concealment which the shady forest affords. There
was nothing to distinguish the place from a jungle
camp—though I have little doubt that at no great
distance we might find a skeleton or two with the
fatal cord still unrotted around its neck. Three
dwarf sheds, short smoke-stained mud walls with
roofs of decaying palm-leaf, brown and bald, a grassy
patch broken here and there by boulders and en-
closed within a wall of bush verdure, capped by tall
overhanging trees-this was all that met the eye.
To fill in the picture, you must suppose the place
restored and occupied by twenty or thirty ancients,
villainous-looking as Spanish inquisitors in carica-
ture, with countenances expressing the cold cruelty
of the castrato and the bloodthirsty joy with which
the cat plays with her prey; some sitting under
the shade drinking pitto, palm-wine, and fire-water,
others standing, staff in hand, chanting, gesticulat-
ing, and dealing out the words of wisdom, with, per-
haps, the material for torture or human sacrifice
lying bound on the sward at their feet. Such was
the scene described to me by a gentleman who
unwittingly had passed by the Oro grove when
council had met, and who had bowed to its inmates.
Returning towards Eruwan, I was shown by Mr.
Hughes a house from which he had saved an old
AT ABEOKUTA.
175
man.
The building had caught fire by the careless-
ness of some women. The people however sup-
posed it to be the work of Shango-god of thunder
and lightning had no European been there, or one
without the pluck to break through the crowd and
to harangue them with explanations, there would
have been an Egba de moins. As we passed the
Church Missionary compound there was a 'pow-
wow.' A circle of converts, clad in quasi-European
toggery, squatted upon the ground, and in the centre
stood the speaker, who threw out his upper limbs
and gesticulated, walking up and down like a Hindu
preacher. At first I thought it was a young camp
meeting presently the occasion was explained to
me. The chiefs at the seat of war had sent to the
city a message complaining that the Christians were
not nearly so ready to fight, and pro patriô mori,
as they had promised, and as they ought to be. It
was a curious contrast to the scenes that had passed
during the day within the walls of the sacred build-
ing hard by-tidings of peace and goodwill to all
men delivered in the morning; in the evening, a
summons to kidnap, plunder, and kill. Yet, Taûτa
Ouтws Exeɩ, as the Romaic epitaph pathetically has it.
I now proceed to a short account of the Yoruban
mythology as far as it is known-few of the people
are conversant with its details-to books and to my
176
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
6
various informants. Like all these religions, if such
they can be called, there is in it a vagueness and a
variety of explanation which, despite the advantage
of alphabets and of a far superior organization, ap-
pears strikingly in the worship of ancient Greece
and Rome, and of modern India. The minor details
are never to be trusted; the main points are better
fixed in the public mind-before two days' residence
in the city you hear of Shango and Oro, and after
a week they have become household words.' The
mythology of Yoruba is not far from being as exten-
sive as that with which Assyria, Egypt, and India
overspread the Indo-European world, and its gods are
numerically strong, mustering from three hundred
to four hundred. Like all other similar systems, it
is a syncretism, the deities being collected from the
various lands to which they were peculiar: thus
Shiva, the Indian, is a local god, posterior to Brahma
and Vishnu, the other members of the triad; thus
Bacchus came from the banks of the Ganges or the
Indus; and thus Osiris was imported from Egypt
into Rome. As I have before said, touching things
material, everywhere we see traces that Africa was
once as closely united as Italy. It is, therefore,
difficult to say how much of the Yoruban faith is
original. The Romans penetrated through the
northern desert, the Jews had a powerful kingdom
AT ABEOKUTA.
177
in Abyssinia, the Portuguese missionaries invested
the eastern and the western coasts, and the Moslems
have gradually been hemming in the heathenry.
Such influences must have been strong upon the
plastic and conforming mind of the polytheist, but
the measure of their strength is not appreciable.
6
6
Long ago Dr. Vanderkemp asserted that the
Kafirs of the Cape were 'pure atheists,' without the
idea of the existence of a God. Mr. Casalis (p. 238)
tells us that the Kafirs had entirely lost the idea
of a Creator;' that it never entered their' (the
Kafirs')‘heads that the earth and sky might be the
work of an invisible being;' and that in their lan-
guages the word for world signified having always
been-to exist in an incomprehensible manner.'
Bishop Colenso ascribes to them a distinct tradi-
tionary belief in the Supreme Being, whom they
acknowledge under the twofold titles of Umkulum-
kulu-the Great Essence, and Umvelinquanze-the
First Comer Out; but of him and his attributes they
understand nothing, and neither worship nor invoke
him.' Dr. Livingstone, with his usual peremptory
and unsatisfactory way of laying down the law
upon every question, affirms that the existence of a
God and of a future state has always been admitted
by all the Bechuanas.' A far better authority,
6
Dr. Moffat (Missionary Labours,' p. 245), remarks
VOL. I.
N
178
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
6
concerning the Bachwanas (Bechuanas), whilst own-
ing that they are acute
are acute reasoners and minute
observers of men and manners,' that to tell them,
the greatest of them, that there was a Creator, the
Governor of the heavens and earth—of the fall of
man, or the redemption of the world-the resur-
rection of the dead, and immortality beyond the
grave-is to tell them what appeared to be more
fabulous, extravagant, and ludicrous than their own
vain stories about lions, hyenas, and jackals.** I
can easily understand this. Perhaps the illustrious
Humboldt, the greatest philosopher of our age, sym-
pathized in their touching confession of ignorance
concerning all things beyond man's actual reach.
And it is undoubted that, by the force of their
rationalism, these men, gifted with the 'docility of a
child, but the reasoning powers of mature age,' were
able to suggest to the Bishop of Natal that his mis-
givings touching the historical character of the books
attributed to Moses were founded on fact. The
same missionary (p. 257) declares that the Kafirs
have no word in their language expressing the con-
ception of a Deity: he found no altars, legends, or
unknown gods, and his soi-disant converts would
*This curious admission reminds me of the words of a certain preacher:
Now, my brethren, Conscience is not, as some say, a geographical or a
chronological accident,’– -a fatal sentence, never to be forgotten, I am sure,
by many of his hearers.
AT ABEOKUTA.
179
6
often declare to him that he had taught them the
rudimental conception of a Deity. He believes, like
the Jesuits in China--who accounted for Buddhism,
the origin of their faith, as Satan's caricature of it—
that it was the Devil who erased every vestige of
religious impression from the heathen mind. Setting
aside the great fact, that of all unsuccessful characters
in history Sathanas is probably the greatest failure—
in other words that the Devil is an Ass'-I must
differ from him in holding atheism to be the natural
condition of the savage and uninstructed mind, the
night of spiritual existence, which disappears before
the dawn of a belief in things unseen. A Creator is
to creation what the cause of any event in life is
to its effect: those familiar to the sequence will
hardly credit its absence from the minds of others.
And only the brain supersaturated with its own pre-
judices and impressions can force itself into expla-
nations of the seeming mystery by referring it to
diabolical and similar mythical agencies.
6
The Egbas have progressed more than one step
beyond this savage atheism. With gods many and
lords many,'* and a considerable mixture of idola-
try, they have a distinct name for a Creator. They
* Mr. Bowen steps into the absurd, by enunciating the doctrine, that
'no man has ever believed in two gods.' He should have said, no free-
born citizen of the Great Republic.
N 2
180
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
C
call him Olorun, an abbreviation of O li Orun-lord
or owner of the sky or firmament. It might also
be translated Lord of Ghostland; Oki Orun, 'Hill
Ghostland' being, Anglicised, 'Heaven,' opposed to
Orun Akpadi, which some translate Crucible Hades,'
i. e., Hell. Thus, the name of the town Bi Olorun
Kpellu, 'Si Deus nobiscum' (quis contra nos ?). He is
also known as Eleda-the Creator, Olo-Dumare-the
Ever-Righteous, Oluwa-the Lord, and Oga-Ogo-
the Glorious High One. These, however, are pal-
pable attributes of a vague being without personality
and without objectivity: at best the name is used like
the Hindu Pariah employs the word Bhagwan-
Deity—whilst
Deity whilst he worships some low incarnation
which he considers infinitely inferior in dignity to
a live Brahmin. I much doubt, also, whether the
word conveys at all to their minds the Ens Entium,
an existence disseverated from some natural object-
sun or sea, rain or firmament.*
The use of the
Home and Foreign Re-
follow, because a savage
* Some writers (e. g. 'Savage Life in Africa.'
view, July, 1862,) have objected that 'it does not
calls God and sky by the same name, that therefore he necessarily confuses
one with the other. Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins had one name for spirit,
breath, and wind; but we cannot therefore conclude that they identified
them. The foundation of reason is the power of using symbols, i. e., of
making one thing stand for another, which is known to be different from
it.' But this is a vicious analogy. The Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins
were not savages: I only assert, that in the undeveloped human mind
the confusion of name points to the confusion of sense-that the meta-
physical idea is subordinate to the physical. Nezuhualcoyotl, the great
AT ABEOKUTA.
181
name, however, is clear and distinct.
The Egbas
say Olorun-not Orishako or Obatala-bless you!
Olorun give you children, farms, cowries! and so
forth. Olorun aku!-salutation to God!-is the
highest expression of submission. Essentially simple,
the prayer has nothing to do with the metaphysics
of faith-confession of aboriginal sin, prayer for
pardon, or thanksgiving for redemption. They
talk of seeing Olorun after death, and are said not
to be without the idea of a vague and obscure
futurity, a continuation in which rewards and punish-
ments will be distributed. In Orun and its several
modifications it would not be difficult to discover a
tripartite kingdom of the dead, corresponding with
the Elysium, the Hades, and the Tartarus of ancient
Europe. Only, as amongst the more polished Greeks
and Romans, the future is held by them to be, from
its exceeding uncertainty, and from the total absence
of all judicial proof of its existence, much less im-
portant than the present. As has been remarked,
the Egbas have long dwelt in the presence of a
monotheistic people, the Moslems, and of late years
they have had Christians amongst them. But even
Mexican king, when weary of idols, raised a temple 'al Dios no conocido,
causa di los causas.' If this be no priestly pious fraud, Mexico, like Athens,
had the foot lifted for another step in advance when Christianity, the fourth
and penultimate act of the great drama, appeared on the stage of life.
182
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
without these advantages the ease of an agricultural
state, and the existence of a distinct priestly body,
would tend to promote the study of that which
comes, or is made to come, after the material world.
Similarly the East Africans near the Moslems of
Zanzibar have their Mulungu; in the South-east,
where the Portuguese are, their Murimo; and in
Kongo, also colonized by Europeans, their Zambi
and Nganna Riossu. Mungo Park also remarks of
the negroes bordering upon Moslem Mandeng that
the belief of one God, and of a future state of re-
ward and punishment, is entire and universal among
them.'
6
6
To quote the same traveller, The Africans repre-
sent the Deity indeed as the creator and preserver of
all things; but, in general, they consider him a
being so remote, and of so exalted a nature, that it is
idle to imagine the feeble supplications of wretched
mortals can reverse the decrees and change the
purposes of unerring wisdom."* That the gods take
but little interest, and exercise scant interference in
human affairs, is an idea as old as Confucius and
Epicurus-they meddle, indeed, so little that a future
state must be hypothesised in account for their incu-
riousness. The Africans, like many other ancient
peoples, seem to think that the Deity has retired
* Did Mungo Park ever write this 'Encyclopædist' sentence?
AT ABEOKUTA.
183
A
from business, and has deputed his functions to
inferior officers. Besides, as much of their religion
is modified by and modelled upon their private
life and the ceremonies of their courts, they hold the
courtiers completely distinct from and somewhat
independent of the king. They therefore use the
name of, but do not pray to, Olorun; and holding
him so far above and beyond mankind that he must
be addressed through intermediate agencies, they
satisfy the yearnings of their human nature by the
adoration of subordinate beings. Thus the ancient
Christians, whilst asserting that latria, altars, and
sacrifice were due to God alone, sanctioned ad-
dresses to saints and martyrs, in order to be assisted
by their prayers. Hence the worship of Orisha or
idols.
The word Orisha is derived by some-Europeans
will find the root of everything-from Asha, 'customs
or 'religious ceremonies.' It is also called Alaybawi
—a mediator or intercessor. The saint system and
prayers to the Virgin are the vestiges of this idea
in Christianity; in El Islam the doctrine of Imams
and Walis are fragments of the older creed set, like
the Black Stone which was once white, in the corner
of the modern faith. Of course the symbol is con-
founded with the thing symbolized; and the statue
or picture, which the enlightened look upon as they
184
¦ TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
would a portrait or a memento, becomes amongst the
vulgar an object of absolute worship.*
There are three principal Orisha, which word,
thus used, does not mean idols, but rather the Di
majorum gentium of the Romans, and which appear
to be deified heroes and ancestors. This triad con-
sists of Obatala, Shango, and Ifa. It does not, like
the Hindu Trinity, express a metaphysical idea of the
Demiurgos in his great triune operations-creating,
preserving, destroying; nor does it typify the family,
as the Egyptian Osiris, Isis, and Horus; nor does
it deify the elemental worlds, like the Romans, who
personified them by Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto.
And it will be remarked that for the grace and
beauty of Greek fable these Africans substitute a
grotesqueness—the reflex of their own physical and
moral peculiarities. It is to be hoped that those
enthusiasts who declare that 'le dogme de la Tri-
nité de Personnes, dans l'Unité de l'Etre, se trouve
dans la conscience des peuples,' will not find the
idea in the Yoruban triad as they have in the 'three
perpendicular lines of the Egyptians, the Chinese
* From the Hindu to the Romanist, no educated man really adores the
picture or image; and, I suspect, few uneducated men do otherwise
than adore it. This should be a serious consideration with those who
allow and contend for what Moses absolutely forbade the bowing before
graven images. The Iconoclasts of early Christianity, and the Apostle of
El Islam, doubtless found the abuse of such ornaments greater than their
use, and told the people to hold them in abomination.
AT ABEOKUTA.
185
word equivalent to Jehovah (!), the Tibetan Trabat,
the savages of Cuba, the Tanga-tanga of the Peru-
vians, the Celtic druids, the Odin, Wilo, and We
of the Scandinavians, and the book of Zohar.' A past,
present, and future-a creation, preservation, and
destruction are easy mental sequences, starting up
instinctively. Besides, the Indo-European race, to
which the triad-belief belongs-as opposed to Semitic
monotheism-shows, from the most ancient times,
the closest connection of thought and derivation of
language.
Obatala is derived from Oba ti nla, the King of
Greatness, also called Orisha Klá, the great Orisha.
Others deduce the word from 'Oba ti álá,' King of
Whiteness or Purity, whence his worshippers always
wear white garments. His other titles are Alamore,
'owner of the good clay,' and Orisha Kpokpo, or
Idol of the Gate-a guardian and a Janus. In this
view he is the first and greatest of created things;
some, however, believe him to be an ancient king of
Yoruba, and quote the name of his father. Thus
Shodeke, as has been said, is in a fair way of be-
coming a demigod.* He is sometimes represented
as a warrior on horseback, holding a spear; at other
times as an androgyne, which white men philosophize
*The present Alake succeeded Shodeke, a man so venerated as to be
ranked among the demigods.'-(Mr. Campbell, p. 40.)
186
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
about as representing the male and female energies
of nature, whose god is Olorun or Eleda, the creator.
Obatala's wife is Iyangba, or the receiving mother,
and is denoted, like Isis and the Madonna, by a
woman nursing a child.* His sacred symbol is Okko,
a ship the vessel, according to the rationalists, in
which the Yoruban people crossed the Niger: it is the
Ark of that faith. Obatala created the first man,
Okikishi-so called from Okiki, fame, or Obalofu, the
lord of speech, equivalent to the Adam of the He-
brews; and the first woman was his wife Iye, or life,
from 'ye,' to live; in sound and idea curiously resem-
bling Hawwa or Eve. They came from heaven, an
idea also found in the book of Genesis. No Hebrew
or Moslem believes the garden of Eden to have been
upon earth, but in the first or lowest of the Seven
Heavens, which is an exact fac-simile of these sub-
lunary scenes;t with them, therefore, the Fall' of
man is literally a fall. Obalofu and Iye had many
* Mr. Bowen says that 'Iyangba herself is Obatala. The two are one,
or, in other words, Obatala is an androgyne, representing the productive
energy of nature, or the generative principle, as distinguished from the
creative power of God.' But this explanation appears extra Indo-European.
On the other hand the Rev. Mr. Crowther calls Obbatalla 'the great goddess
of Yoruba, supposed to be the framer of the human body in the womb.'
The fact that this diety is male, female, and hermaphrodite, is a fair speci-
men of pagan vagueness.
+ So the Spiritualists or Fetishists of the present day assert that every-
thing on earth is but a copy, of which the antitype is to be found in the
other.
AT ABEOKUTA.
137
children. Their first settlement was at Ife; they
then successively removed to Ikose, Igboho (Lander's
Bohoo), and Oyo or Eyeo.
The second great Orisha is called Shango-he is a
well-known god.* This demi-deity-at once Vulcan,
Tubal Cain, Thor, and Jupiter Tonans-was born at
Ife, and reigned at Ikoso, a town lately destroyed;
others say that he is a Nupe god. He had a palace of
brass, and kept 10,000 horses in his stables, showing
him, by the analogy of Hercules, and Castor and Pollux,
to have been originally a mere mortal. Like certain
Hebrew worthies, he went alive to heaven, where he
reigns in state, hunts, fishes, markets, and wars. The
abstract Shango is the grandson of Aganju, the desert
or firmament, a descendant from Okikishi: his father
is Orungan, or midday, and his mother is Yemaya or
Ijemoja, mother of fishes,' an unimportant river in
Yoruba. His elder brother is Dada, or nature—from
'da,' to create; his younger is the River Ogun; his
friend and associate is Orishako, god of farms; his
slave, Biri, or darkness; his wives are the Rivers Oya
(Niger), Oshun, and Obba; and his priest is Magba,
the Receiver-not a bad name. His worshippers
carry a bag, because he was fond of predatory wars.
6
* The worship of Shango, however, is not known in Great Benin.
† She is denoted by a little idol, with dull yellow skin, blue hair, white
beads, and striped dress.
188
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
*
Practically, Shango is the deity of thunder, lightning,"
and fire he is also called Jákuta, or the stone-
thrower, and he favours the good, especially pro-
tecting hunters, fishermen, and warriors. Wherever
lightning has struck, or an aërolite has fallen,
there Shango has been; when a house is fired, or is
struck by lightning, the priests and mob rush in to
find the stone, and seize the opportunity of plunder-
ing; besides which, they claim a general right to
steal goats and chickens. Shango's symbol is a small
wooden bat, called 'ose,' with a handle one foot long.
He is consulted by throwing sixteen pierced cowries:
if eight fall upwards and eight downwards, it is peace;
if all are upwards, it is also a good sign; and, vice versâ,
if all fall with their teeth to the ground, it is war.
The last of the triad is Ifa, which appears to be
not a person, but a myth, originating at the town of
Ife. He is the revealer of futurity, and the patron
* The authoress of A Residence at Sierra Leone' (p. 96) tells us,
Many of the liberated Africans worship lightning,' and is told by a
Christian convert, that an Aku man, who offered himself as a groom,
no do for horseman, he worship de tunder.' Of course the man was a
devotee of Shango.
† A Shango-stone was showed to me; it was a bit of white quartz.
There are probably two Ife. One is placed in our maps in the pro-
vince of Kakanda, between Aku-land and the Niger. According to some,
it has lately been destroyed.: the spot is worthy of exploration. The
mythical Ife was founded by Obalofu, and there worship (alias idolatry)
is said to have originated. As the first place made by the Creator, it has
become the market of ghostland-the dead there go to sell and buy.
AT ABEOKUTA.
189
of marriage and childbirth. His high priest-the
head of the Babbalawo, or Fathers of Secrets—is said
to live upon a mountain near Awaye, a gigantic cone
of granite eight to ten miles in circumference, seen
from the distance of several days' journey towering
solitary above the landscape, and surmounted, it is
said, by a palm-tree, bearing sixteen boughs, produced
by the sixteen nuts planted by the sixteen founders of
the Yoruban empire. His chief priest at Abeokuta is
known as Obba Limore, King of the grove; and none
but the secret-keeping sex is initiated into the myste-
ries. As the great oracle, Ifa supports a large family,
who live gratis upon the offerings of the devotees
sheep and goats, fowls and pigeons.* The priests are
known by their bead necklaces, small strings twisted
together, with ten large white and green beads, some
inches apart. They officiate in white, and constantly
use a fly-whisk. Their deity being called Bángá,
God of Palm-nuts, they choose as his symbols those
that are placental with four holes. The operation
of casting lots is intricate, and is variously described
by different observers: odd and even, and 'heads
or tails,' appear to be the ruling principles.† Ifa
* The place of the Mganga, or medicine-man of the South—the rain-
maker or rain-stopper, like the xaλaçoþúλakes, and those who practised
aquælicium in classical Europeis supplied in Yoruba, as we might
expect, from the comparative complexity of the system, by a great variety
of priestly drones.
The priest brings his nuts in a rhinoceros horn from the upper
190
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
6
-a
proved unexpectedly-if not paid for the purpose-
friend to the white man at Abeokuta. When con-
sulted whether missionaries should be admitted, he
answered, Yes.' When it was further inquired
whether a church might be founded at Igbeni, he
replied in the affirmative. The pious of Understone
refer his general correctness to the operation of evil
spirits on this occasion, however, as in many others,
Satan seems to have amused himself with casting out
sin.
country.
Holding the sixteen in his left hand, he takes them up at
random-as we do at a 'bean club'-in his right, and the operation is
repeated till either two, called 'ofu,' or one, called 'ossa,' remains. The
chosen nut is then rolled, with the middle finger, over the earth, or over a
board whitened with the dust made by tree-worms. Finally, it is marked
with certain lines, which, by deciding the value and the nature of sacrifice,
procure success.
An old converted priest thus performed the ceremony in my presence.
He counted sixteen nuts, freed them from dust, and placed them in a
bowl on the ground, full of yam half boiled, crushed, and covered with
some acrid vegetable infusion. His acolyte, a small boy, was then called,
made to squat near the bowl, resting his body on the outer edge of the
feet, which were turned inwards, and to take from the fetish-man two
or three bones, seeds, and shells, some of which are of good, others of bad
omen. Elevating them, he rested his hands upon his knees. The adept
cast the nuts from one hand to the other, retaining some in the left, and
while manipulating, dropped others into the bowl. He then stooped down,
drew with the index and medius lines on the yam, inspected the nuts, and
Thus he was
occasionally referred to the articles in the boy's hand.
enabled to pronounce an opinion upon what was to happen.
I cannot flatter myself that the modus operandi has been made quite
intelligible to the reader, for the best of reasons—I do not quite understand
it myself. The system is far more simple in Dahome, and at some future
time I may explain it.
邋
​AT ABEOKUTA.
191
Besides these three great Orishas, there are many
Di minorum gentium, who are, even more palpably,
men and women of note in their day-of whom only
the principal will be noticed.
Ogun is the god of blacksmiths and armourers.
He is also the patron of hunters and warriors, in
which quality human sacrifices are offered to him.
The victim is decapitated, the head is affixed to a tree,
and the body is placed publicly before the symbol, a
dwarf, spear shaped, iron or copper, to which a chain
is attached.
The sun and the moon are worshipped at Ife,
'the Pantheon of Yoruba,' where a brazen chair and
brass images of these objects fell from heaven.
A peculiar worship in this country is Ori, which
means the worshipper's own head, seeming to involve
the idea of luck or good fortune. Other parts of the
body are worshipped; the foot, for instance, before
proceeding on a journey-and most African travellers
will sympathize with this sentiment. The symbol
of Ori is half a calabash stuck with almonds, like a
pudding, till the substance can hardly be seen, and
hung about with long strings of the same shell. This
is placed upon the ground, and duly adored. A
similar emblem belongs to Dada, whom the mis-
sionaries translate Nature, but who is rather the god
or genius of newly-born children. His sign is a cawl,
192
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
and he is worshipped as a calabash, provided with
longer strings than those of Ori.
Odua or Odudua, the universe, or the goddess of
earth and sky, is located at Ife.* Oye is the Yoruban
Eolus, the Harmattan, a giant, residing in a cave of
the winds at Igbetti, one of the highest mountains
in Yoruba, between Igboho and Ilori: during the dry
season he rushes out and breathes cold over the land:
in Hausa ice is not unknown.
The idol Oriskako-i. e., Orisha Oko-patron of
farms, has its head-quarters—i. e., its priests and sacri-
fices-at Irawo, a town in Western Yoruba. Its
symbol is a large iron bar, and its worship is very
expensive. The people have a tradition that in the
olden time a six-fingered giant dwelt at the Egba
town of Igbehi. When summoned to swear by Oris-
kako, at Irawo, he waxed wroth, slew the priests, and
carried off ten of the sacred bars, for which reason
no native of Igbehi is allowed to enter Irawo.
6
The Orisha of children' is a truly hideous little
image, carried about by women, in their waist-
clothes, when one of twins dies or is destroyed :†
* Mr. Crowther mentions that Odudua was situated in front of the
Council House at Ake, and that sacrifices of beasts and fowls were made to
it every five days, in order to obtain children, wealth, and peace.
†Twins, however, at Abeokuta are not necessarily killed, as in the
Oil Rivers further south, or amongst the Kamskatkans, and many of the
North American aborigines.
AT ABEOKUTA.
193
consequently these idols are of two sexes. The
male, about a span and two fingers high, is in the
rudest semblance of a man, mounted on a little cir-
cular pedestal, with a head like a Pongo's, a top-knot
of hair, huge ears, prognathous jaws, projecting lips,
and thin lozenge-shaped cuts on the forehead, and on
each cheek three similar horizontal and three perpen-
dicular. The body-but little longer than the head,
or broader than the feet-is in the style of the
coarsest Hindu idol: a kind of pent-roof descends
from the waist, exposing the legs, which are much
shorter than the forearm. The feminine figure is
wholly nude, in equally symmetrical proportions,
finished as certain statues outside the Pitti Palace at
Florence, and with a bosom of the largest dimensions,
showing the true African beau-idéal. These idols are
both adorned with rings and bracelets of beads: they
are hardly to be bought at Abeokuta at Lagos,
however, two men make them, at the rate of three
shillings each. I sent a pair for the edification of
those at home.
With all these beneficent deities, it would be
curious if the Egbas neglected the worship of the bad
god-the Guebre's Ahriman. Accordingly, we find
they have a terrible evil entity, whom they call Eshu,
the Rejected from 'shu,' to cast out-and whom the
missionaries identify with the Devil, who is palpably a
VOL. I.
0
•
194
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
Semite. Eshu is probably some bad ghost, who has
made a name amongst the million. Of the same
kind is Akilasho. Eshu is also called Elegbárá, the
mighty and evil being, stronger than good: he is pro-
pitiated by small offerings; his symbol, erroneously
called an altar, is a bit of stone-a rude conglome-
rate of pebbles set in clay, tinged with oxide-and
upon this palm oil is poured. Vestiges of this 'devil
worship* are everywhere to be seen in the streets of
Abeokuta. The Egbas have borrowed from the
Moslem Fula the word Ibilisi, the Arab Iblis or
Sathanas; amongst the latter, however, it is concrete
and objective, not so
so with the former. Orun
Akpadi represents the rude beginning of a future
place of punishment; at present, however, it seems
to convey to their minds the next world—a faint
idea of continuation is familiar to most Africans,
except to the most material tribes-where evil-doers
will expiate the sins of this life.
We now proceed to a third class of deities, which
distinctly shows the power of religion as a substitute
for police or gendarmerie amongst a barbarous people.
The two principal persons-if they can so be called
-are Egugun and Oro.
Here, as in other parts of Africa, Christian Europeans, like Moslems,
call all idols 'devils,' and foolishly believe that every image, tree, stone,
charm, and amulet are objects of worship, pure and simple.
AT ABEOKUTA.
195
6
Egugun-literally meaning 'Bones'-is supposed
to be a dead man risen from the grave: he is called
by Europeans the Aku Devil.* He is not unknown
at Lagos, but his powers are greater at Abeokuta
and in the northern parts of Yoruba. He is the local
Mumbo Jumbo, the Ndá and Kuhkwi of Southern
Guinea, the Okuku of the Mpongwe, Bakele, and
Shekani tribes, the Makoko of Batanga, the Lú of
Bambarra, and the Simo of the Rio Nunez. Egugun
sha'au'-'Egugun chop you!'-is the equivalent of
our 'Devil take you!' I once met this 'party' in
the streets. He was a tall fellow, without the drawn
sword mentioned by Mr. Bowen, but otherwise most
fantastically clad. His face was covered with a plait-
ing of net-work, like a mask, and his head with a
hood, whose streamers of red scarlet crimson and
dirty white hung down and mixed with the similar
tatters and patches of his lower dress. To his back,
between the shoulders, was suspended a German
penny mirror, and his shoes, like moccassins, com-
pletely hid his feet. The latter members he is not
supposed to possess; and the same was thought of
Europeans before they were seen to remove their
boots and stockings. Egugun replied with a curious
* Europeans, as has been said, call all the native objects of worship
'devils,' indiscriminately. The practice is incorrect, but dates of old.
´All the gods of the Gentiles are devils,' says the Psalmist.
0 2
196
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
6
and studied grunting to our facetious salutations, and
moved out of the way of the horses. It is said that
if any one—even the king-touches him, the man
must die. Adult males, and even the free-born boys,
know Egugun to be a mortal; but if a woman swears
falsely by him, or even says that he is not a tenant
of the grave, she would lose her life. The mis-
sionaries have declared that even Mohammedans and
Christians are obliged to conceal their knowledge of
the imposture under penalty of martyrdom '-but this,
I think, is hardly probable. Egugun, then, is a 'Raw
bones and bloody head,' apparently intended to keep
slaves, women, and children in a state of due subjec-
tion: he is the whip and the cucking-stool apotheosised.
In Southern Guinea the women have a counteracting
institution called Njembe.
If Egugun represent the domestic, Oro personifies
the public police; and it is explained as 'the execu-
tive or vindictive power of civil government deified."
The word properly means pain, torment, punishment.
The derivation has naturally been sought in 'Orun,
the sun; in the Hebrew Aur; in the Ur of the
Chaldees; in oupavòs; in the Egyptian Pharaoh; in
the Orotalt or Urrat-Ilat (fire-goddess) of the Pagan
Arabs; in Aurora and Aurum, and, more remote
still, in the Madagascan Auru, the Philippine Arao,
and the Peruvian Uru;' but apparently, by going
AT ABEOKUTA.
197
We
farther, philological vagary has fared worse.
will rest contented, then, with its primary meaning,
'punishment'--when a criminal is killed, he is 'given
to Oro,' and thus the penalty assumes a Macchiavellian
mystery-and we will conclude that it represents to
the Egba what Nemesis did to the Greek and Roman.
Oro is a vox et præterea nihil, and an idea common
to Yoruba; I afterwards found him flourishing at
the city of Great Benin. Like Egugun, he is sup-
posed not to be known to the women-as if that
were possible!-and I have seen an Egbanized
Englishman show terror on hearing his name men-
tioned in public. Mr. Bowen has been greatly
blamed by the Abeokutans for revealing the great
secret in print. Oro is supposed to haunt the woods,
and when he appears it is for the purpose of striking
terror. Nightly, about 7 or 8 P.M., the
cry of
'Oro' (the voice of my father) resounds in the
streets; at this savage tocsin the women must fly
within doors, under the usual penalty, a violent
death. It was not without trouble that the mis-
sionaries obtained permission for their female con-
verts to attend service on Sunday evenings. Oro,
however, does not visit the market-places, and he
disappears before a party of men with lanterns.
This African curfew is produced by a thin slip of
wood, about one foot long by a few inches in breadth,
198
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
fastened to a stick by a long string, which allows it to
ascend and descend, thereby raising and lowering the
tone. I recommend this utensil-whose curious boom-
ing noise, as it sounds through the shades of night, is
imposing enough-to Mr. Hume and the Spiritualists.
It is as superior to the silk kerchief and the easy-tongs
as the Thug's silken cord is to the foul fustian sleeve
of the English garotter. The voice of Oro is ac-
companied by a terrible caterwauling, in imitation of
wild beasts; and he appears to be everywhere-the
fact is, he is stationed in all the different quarters of
the city. As a vox, he curbs the irregularities which
would be favoured by the darkness of night and the
shading trees. He is certainly armed, and probably
he consists of a strong party. A corpse whose throat
has been cut, and whose shin-bones have been broken
with fearful violence by this 'spirit,' may at times be
seen.
I was not fortunate enough to witness an Oro day;
the ceremonies, however, were lengthily explained
to me. It takes place only on occasions of great
palavers. The principal requisite is that no woman
must be seen out of doors; and the object is obvious
—to insure a decent silence during debate. We read
in Appleton'* that the old Mohawks always
**
and Co.
Illustrated Handbook of American Travel.' New York: Appleton
AT ABEOKUTA.
199
6
avoided speaking whilst paddling across the Sara-
toga Lake.
On one occasion an Englishwoman
persuaded them to ferry her over, which they did
with the promise that their custom should be re-
spected. The strong-minded Britoness, when half
way over, determined to show the savages the
weakness of their superstition,' and to that effect
uttered a loud cry. Nothing followed, and the chief
was rallied upon the subject of his fears. 'The Great
Spirit,' replied the Mohawk, with much truth, is
merciful; he knows that a white woman cannot hold
her tongue. Now the Egbas have found in their
simplicity the method of doing what the Eastern
proverb declares to be impossible-of curbing a cer-
tain member of a certain sex.
'
6
6
When the town is given to Oro,' as the phrase is,
criers go about shouting, Atolo! Atolo! Ozez!
Ozez!' and striking clapperless unbrazed bells like
extinguishers. The women rush within the house—
the gates are apparently built for the purpose—and
pass their hours in knagging' and quarrelling.
The men and boys go abroad; in places the streets
are desert as those of New York on Sundays, whilst
others are crowded with dancers and tumblers,
processions and stump orators-in fact, with all the
material of a 'palaver.' The Ogbone lodges are filled
with their members, who discuss the important
200
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
measure after the African fashion, every one freely
giving his own opinion, however far-fetched or
ridiculous. According to Mr. Campbell, severe
whippings are then and there administered to those
offending with the fair sex. Breakers of the seventh
commandment, says Mr. Bowen, are obliged to run
the gauntlet in the public square. After sunset the
firing of guns-which are not allowed to be dis-
charged during the hours of light-announces the
conclusion of an Oro day, when the town returns to
its normal occupations.
The Egbas have no such thing as demonolatry
because they have no demons, or the genius which
Christian philosophers opined to be evil spirits.
The distinction between diaboloi and daimonii is
unknown to them; but they believe in certain
entities which, unless propitiated, will do them evil.
The missionaries Anglicise Egbiri by 'ghost,' and
Emi by 'spirit'-a manifest borrowing from the
Pneuma, Psychos, Soma, that compose the Euro-
pean Ego.* The hysteric sufferers known to the
ancients as daimonazomenoi and enthusiazomenoi,
who, under fits, were insensible, like the mesmeric
subjects of the modern day, are common amongst
* Like the Mbuiti of the Mpongwe, or Gaboons. The word 'spirit'
is always used in these cases: nothing can be more incorrect than the
secondary idea which it conveys, yet I am at pains to find a better. 'Emi'
is synonymous with the Hebrew 'Ruach' (breath).
AT ABEOKUTA.
201
the Egbas, as indeed amongst all pure or nearly pure
African races.
Of course there is the true African
belief in ghosts, who are supposed to desire men's
deaths, and the deceased is a vindictive thing to be
feared as long as remembered.*
Witchcraft is com-
mon. The white witch or witch-finder of the days
of James I. is usually the fetish-man; and according
to the Mosaic law, the witch or wizard is not suf
fered to live. Europeans often consider the crime
fanciful, and waste a great deal of good pity upon
victims to popular indignation. Setting aside the
Mosaic order and the Twelve Tables, the witch, it
must be remembered, believes in the power of her
spells, and commits murder in her heart; her
incantations too often take effect-like the predic-
tions of Mdlle. le Normand-upon the silly super-
stitious souls around her; and not unfrequently she
brings arsenic, or something equally material-as
the homœopaths do calomel-to the aid of her
spiritual powers. On the other hand, witchcraft
* The Basutos think that the ghosts of their ancestors are always
endeavouring to draw them to themselves ('Casalis,' p. 249). M. du
Chaillu (ch. xix.) very truly shows that no negro fears the ghost of his
grandfather or his great-grandfather, proving, as has been well remarked,
the shortness of thought which is characteristic of the African.
† In one of the silliest of modern effusions, the Night Side of Nature,'
where black magic is traced to the power of the will, we read: 'It is
extremely absurd to suppose that statutes were created to suppress a crime
which never existed.' The crime did exist, and does exist, amongst the
202
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
has its good side, and is by no means the unmixed
evil that some hold it to be. Where the dark places
of the earth are full of cruelty, its vague terrors
form a salutary check upon the violence of husbands
and masters, rulers and criminals. It is the power,
and the only power, of the weak.
Where witchcraft prevails, the talisman must be
common. Here the grigri, as it is barbarously
called, is the prophylactic of the Jews, the amulet of
Christian Abyssinia and Syria, the cross and miracu-
lous medal of Southern Europe. So horse-shoes in
England and the West Indies neutralize evil influ-
ences; egg-shells hung in the chimney-corner make
chickens flourish, and extracted teeth are thrown
over the house, or are worn, to prevent toothache.
A folio volume might be filled with these fooleries
of faith, which serve for two objects the attainment
of good and the avoidance of harm in this life. I
look upon them as the vestiges of that fetishism
which is the first dawn of religion in the breast
of the savage and the barbarian, and which cannot
fail to crop out even from the enlightened surface of
monotheism. Besides which, belief or superstition is,
like happiness, most equally divided amongst men.
ignorant and barbarous: the light of science, of course, is an efficient
exorciser.
AT ABEOKUTA.
203
Those who balk at the possible will swallow the
impossible, and those who deride the credos of others.
must make up for themselves faiths of their own,
which appear quite as ridiculous to their neighbours.
In the present state of human nature, faith appears a
necessary evil, an inseparable weakness. Nor can
we see any corrective of, or substitute for it until,
after the convulsion which follows the present period
of quiescence, a higher race as the elephant is to
the mastodon-succeeds the present.
Witchcraft also necessitates ordeals; these, how-
ever, are not the Judicia Dei, as they were held to be
in Europe. They rather correspond in action with
the Erinnyes and the Eumenides of ancient Greece.
The poisons and drugs are intelligent beings, which,
entering the stomach that here represents man's
heart in its sentimental sense, searches out his
guilt and sin. At times, finding nothing of evil, it
returns by emetism, and thus establishes the inno-
cence of the accused; at others, it discovers the
material element of witch-power-the aorta has been
shown as an irrefragable proof-and it kills the
wizard by the mismanagement of a weapon intended
for the destruction of others; he is hoisted with his
own petard; he falls into the pit which he digged for
his brother. Trial by poison ordeal, however, is not
so fatally common as the sancy water and the poison
204
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
bean, which sweep away whole families and even.
villages on the coast and on the Oil Rivers; nor is
it accompanied with the horrors that distinguish it
at Badagry and ill-famed Dahome. The priest will
squirt capsicum or bird-pepper juice into the eyes of
the accused, and lachrymation proves guilt: this,
however, appears rather in the light of a torture to
make criminals confess. Certain Yoruban cities are
said to have local ordeals, but little is known of them
at Abeokuta.
Dreams, according to the Yorubans and to many
of our fetishists, are not an irregular action, and
partial activity of the brain, but so many revelations
brought by the manes of the departed. They
believe in a physical metamorphosis, which Euro-
peans insist upon confounding with metempsychosis,
or the transmigration of souls. The former is simple
and purely natural; the latter is a complex and con-
tradictory system, postulating the existence of what
is proofless; an immortal nonentity called Spirit,
created out of nothing-despite ex nihilo nihil fit'
-in a limited number for an unlimited number of
human beings, and destined to end where it began,
and whence its beginning was consequently uncalled
for. But Europe cannot deride Asia in this par-
ticular. He who denies or demands proof that a
soul or spirit exists, who considers 'Mind' to be the
AT ABEOKUTA.
205
6
working of the brain, and who holds Matter,' as it
is popularly understood, sufficient for all human phe-
nomena, is held in a holy horror. To me it appears
that he rather honours the Omnipotent who can,
out of so vile a body, produce effects which others
must attribute to their mysterious dweller in the
temple,' must in fact solve their difficulties by add-
ing a supplement to the Book of Creation.
6
It is hard to say whence came the tales invented
by the African to explain the inferiority of the black
to the white man. Their universality induces me to
think them an emanation from the Hamitic brain.
Nothing so puzzles and perplexes the negro as to
inform him that all nations were made of one flesh;
it is an insult to his Common Sense which Time only
can efface. The much-vexed Noachian flood is of
course found for them in their legends of local inun-
dations. As might be expected amongst a working
people, there is already an idea of a week*—a decimal
week, like that of the Aztecs and Javans, containing
five days. The terminal day of rest is called Ose, when
water is brought for the deities in long processions,
libations are poured out, and other religious cere-
monies are performed. A month of four weeks, each
consisting of five days, gives an equal number of
units to each whole; with us the system is so com-
* The Fulas, to mention no other African tribe, have not a regular week.
206
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
plicated that we cannot remember it without a school-
boy rhyme-moreover, all the weeks are compre-
hended without fractions in the year.
It is a question whether the intercourse of more
progressive creeds is or is not modifying the Yoruban
mythology. The older hands declare that faith is
gradually decaying, and that Oro is not nearly so
powerful as in their day; and they vainly attempt
to arouse the enthusiasm of the people by petty
attempts at a persecution. Old age, however, is and
always will be laudator temporis acti se puero; on
the other hand, there are residents who assert that
the idolatries are not diminishing, and that canni-
balism and human sacrifices, which were once per-
formed in public, are now practised under the rose.
My time did not permit me to enter deeply into these
troublesome questions. Mr. Crowther* has accused
the Egbas (his own tribe) of boiling and eating the
bodies of certain Ijebu invaders, in order to terrify
the enemy; and declares that Ikumi, chief of the
Ijebu, was guilty of a similar savagery. The mis-
sionary, however, like the antiquary, is always some-
what credulous on the subject of heathen malprac-
tices. Concerning human sacrifice I have something
n a future page.
C
* Journal,' &c., p. 185.
†The same is told of a cannibal race in Eastern Africa.
AT ABEOKUTA.
207
•
6
There is nothing remarkable in the marriage rites.
of the Egbas. Betrothal takes place early, although
the girl is rarely married before eighteen or twenty,
and the dowry, amongst the middle classes, may be
four dollars. The bride and bridegroom repair to Ife,
or some other place of pilgrimage; pray, and sacrifice.
At night the bridesmaids escort the bride to her new
home, where a feast leads to the consummation of the
marriage. If the groom be satisfied, he sends pre-
sents to the wife's family, especially to his mother-in-
law, who is called the little mother,' in contradiction
to the true parent. If he find reason to complain,
be dismisses his bride, and sends, bitterly, a few
broken cowries to her mamma.* The marriages are
not very prolific; fecundity diminishes in proportion
as we advance from temperate regions to the poles
and the equator. All Africans amongst whom
there is a curious Malthusian instinct-possess ana-
phrodisiacs, and, finally, the prolonged lactation, by
determining the vital current to the breast, prevents
the women from becoming mothers. There are few
ceremonies after birth: a name is presently given to
the child, and, as amongst the Mpongwe of the
Gaboon River, water is sprinkled upon it-a faint
resemblance to the modern, not the ancient, baptism
6
*This reminds one of the Hindostani slang 'tutelí kaurí,' or 'broken
cowrie,' which in Africa becomes broken calabash.'
208
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
of the Christians.
The son inherits all the father's
wives save his own mother.
Polygamy is of course the foundation-stone of
Yoruban society. I cannot remember a single African
or Asiatic tribe-except the polyandrous-in which
this is not the case, and the rule is equally applicable
to the North American aborigines. Europe forms,
and almost always has formed, the sole exception.
To account for this fact perhaps a few lines may not
be out of place.
The savage and the barbarian are polygamic be-
cause they are dependent for the necessaries and for
the little comforts of their poor existence upon a
plurality of women and the number of their children.
Servants are unknown; slaves are rare.
A single
wife cannot perform all the offices required even in
the simplest stage of society. Moreover, there is, in
the different races or sub-species of mankind, as
amongst the humbler animals, a greater or a lesser
difference, bodily and mental, between the two sexes.
In the gallinacea the male is far nobler than the
female; in the equines the two are nearly equal; in
the falconida the female is stronger and braver than
the male. Thus, in the European and the Hindu,
* The Hindu race, in early times, made an approximation to monogamy.
The country was then almost civilized, and the population must have been
dense. The Semitic family shows the same phenomenon. But when
quoting the words of the Eastern poet-
['His
A
AT ABEOKUTA.
209
the woman is quasi-equal with the man; in the
African, the American, and the lower races of Asiatic,
she is inferior and monogamous, whilst his propensi-
ties are polygamic.
6
Amongst the Jews there was at first no attempt at
the vulgar limitations of the family. The care of
the Mosaic, as of other Oriental legislation, was di-
rected to the protection of the woman from harsh
behaviour or capricious desertion, and to the fair
treatment of the offspring without reference to the
mutual affection of the parents. That the man who
associated with a virgin incurred the charge of her
protection, and that the mother, by the very act of
maternity, assumed the lesser dignity of the wife, were
the foundations of the domestic morals of the ancient
world, the guiding principles of the social life.'*
His wives may never be four,
He will best consult his reason,
Best secure his home from treason,
Who takes one, and wants no more'-
they should be read rather as a grumble against the 'legalities and pro-
prieties of society,' than as a theory which could be generally carried out.
The Asiatic races that are inferior to the Arab and the Hindu, have never,
I believe, adopted monogamy, although polyandry has been practised for
centuries.
* I have borrowed these sentences, and almost all the information con-
tained in these paragraphs, from a Paper in the Edinburgh Review,'
Jan., 1862. The reader will readily recognize the master-hand in that
admirable article. It is amusing, however, to see in it what a poor
halfpenny-worth there is of bread (monogamy) to an intolerable deal of
VOL. I.
Р
210
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
Samuel and the Patriarchs had two and more spouses,
Solomon a countless harem, as became a king of
kings, and Cato looked upon his wife merely as a
machine for the manufacture of progeny. As society
became more complex, a certain limitation became
necessary. The customary laws of the Jews confined
the high-priest to one wife, and apostolic injunction
sack (polygamy). Whilst pages 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23 are devoted to
showing that polygamy was a Mosaic institution, unforbidden to the early
Christians, and only rendered restrictive and penal-principally by the
Church of Rome-in modern times, a single sentence informs us that
the settlement of the question was left to old Roman laws, to German
manners, and to the silent but absolute operation of a religion, based on
the sentiments with which no system of polygamy seems to be compatible
-freedom and love.'
An eminent Moslem divine-El Siyuti, I think-wrote a Moslem
treatise on what to avoid. Through some three hundred pages he indulges
his reader with a full description of the most voluptuous practices of the
East—a perfect worship of Bacchus and Venus. In the last he perorates,
beginning- This much, O reader, have I recounted unto thee, so that thou
mayest know the things forbidden unto thee,' &c., &c.
With respect to the reviewer's last assertion, viz., that Christianity is
based upon freedom and love-I doubt that the monogamic sentiment
was ever intended by it. And I doubt even more vehemently whether
the mixture of sentiment and passion, which we know by that name, has
not added to the miseries rather than conduced to the happiness of human
life. In my humble opinion, it is not one of the least merits of polygamy
that it abstracts from the parents an affection which it bestows upon the
progeny. As no man, it is said, can serve God and Mammon, so no
woman can equally love husband and children; even the same woman, at
different periods of her existence, will prefer one to the detriment of the
other. And whilst conjugal love contains the base alloy of sexual feeling,
parental affection is of all the most pure and holy. The unselfish will
find no difficulty in pointing out which to prefer.
•
AT ABEOKUTA.
211
continued the same to the Christian bishop, without,
however, forbidding a plurality of wives to the laity
or to the other officers of the Church. It is hard to
believe that this want of express condemnation arose
from mere expediency, from the danger of disruption
of the Oriental home, and from the fear of its being
an obstacle to the conversion of the wealthier classes.
Those familiar with modes of thought in the East well
know the horror and loathing with which the people
generally look upon the one-wife system, their con-
tempt for the bastard, and their inability to witness in
their own society those scenes which the monogamic
cities of Europe must tolerate for fear of even greater
social evils to the family. The ordinary Hebrew was
ordered to be contented with four wives, a practice
perpetuated by the apostle of El Islam and the king to
eighteen. Thus Josephus distinctly called polygamy
'the custom of his country.' Nor was it modified
till the depression of the Jew's social position com-
pelled him to follow the laws and customs of the
nations amongst whom he was located. In the
eleventh century Rabbi Gerson, in connection with
other Jewish doctors in France and the north of
Germany, prohibited marrying more than one wife
under pain of excommunication, and this was after-
wards accepted by most European congregations.
Nevertheless, both in Italy and Germany there seems
6
P 2
212
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
to have existed the permission to take a second wife,
when the first was hopelessly barren, and Papal dis-
pensations to this effect are recorded to have been
given in the dominions of the Holy See as late as
the seventeenth century (vide "Historia degli riti
Hebraici," by Leo. Mutensis, 1657, cited by Selden
in his "Uxor Hebraica"); while in Sicily, where the
Saracenic traditions might still linger, the author
of the "Ebraismo della Sicilia," writing in 1748,
attributes the rapid increase of the Jewish population
to the enforced early marriages and the habitual
practice of polygamy.'* (P. 20.
(P. 20. By Giovanni de'
* St. Augustine, Grotius, and other authorities, admit that poly-
gamy is more natural than monogamy, yet they declare-and they are
followed by Paley-that it would prevent increase of population. The
contrary is the case. Hippocrates, Harvey, Willoughby, Forster, and the
practice of the Mormons, show, that amongst all animals, mankind in-
cluded, polygamy tends to population by increasing the births of female
children. Dr. Johnson ('Life,' vol. iii., p. 71) says it is not natural for
a man and a woman to live together in the married state.' Balzac explains
this, by observing that, 'physically and morally, man is man longer than
woman is woman.' Napoleon, the last of the three Avataras of intellect,
declares, in the Code Civile, Le mariage ne dérive pas de la nature.'
In the City of the Saints, I flattered myself it had been proved, that
whereas monogamy equalizes the birth of the two sexes, polygamy produces
more females, and polyandry more males. Hence came the deduction,
that ‘Nature, our plastic mother, had prepared her children for all three
systems.' The 'British Quarterly Review,' of Jan. 1st, 1862, in an un-able
article, thus reasons upon this adaptation principle:-'If a man breaks a
leg, nature instantly adopts extraordinary measures to insure its repair; but
are we entitled to infer that she delights in fractured limbs ?' If this
be argument, there can be no more said upon the subject. Polygamy and
polyandry, amongst mankind, are the rule, not the exception. Broken
AT ABEOKUTA.
213
Giovanni Inquisator Reale della suprema Inqui-
sizione di Sicilia.)
It is, as the reviewer well remarks, entirely gra-
tuitous to suppose that, at the time of the advent of
Christ, the general Jewish custom of polygamy had
fallen into desuetude in consequence of the prohibi-
tion by Roman manners, if not by Roman laws. The
reverse was the case; the rigid monogamy of the
early Italians was disappearing in the presence of a
less austere and a more sensuous life. 'The almost
sacramental Sabine ceremony of the confarreatio (of
which we still retain a relic in our "bride-cake ")
was rapidly becoming confined to the use of the
Pagan priesthood; the wife was daily ceasing to
regard her husband as amicum, patrem, tutorem; the
dignity and privilege of the materfamilias had de-
clined to the position of uxor tantummodo; the mar-
ried Antony had openly espoused Cleopatra, and
the quotidiana repudia of Mecenas shocked only the
stoic Seneca.' To this I will add that the old-
bachelor system appeared in its entirety amongst
the philosophers and wits, teste one Horatius Flaccus,
who might have been a club-man of the present day.
During a missionary dinner at Abeokuta I was
legs are the exception, not the rule. The comparison of the 'learned'
reviewer is, therefore, applicable to monogamy, not to polygamy and
polyandry.
214
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
6
somewhat startled by an account of their treatment
of polygamic converts. Having accidentally mentioned
that a Protestant bishop in South Africa had adopted
to advantage the plan of not separating husband and
wives, I was assured that in Yoruba the severe test
of sincerity was always made a sine quâ non before
baptism. This naturally induced an inquiry as to
what became of the divorcees. We marry them,'
said the Rev. Mr. Gollmer, 'to some bachelor con-
verts." This appeared to me the greatest insult to
common sense, the exercise of a power to bind and
to loose with a witness; a right to sanctify adultery
pure and simple, to do evil that good may come
of it, a proceeding which may make any marriage
a no-marriage. But I was still more astonished to
find, when quoting the opinion of Martin Luther,
in the case of Philip of Hesse, that several reverend
gentlemen had never heard of it, and most when the
* Martin Luther allowed Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, for political reasons,
to intermarry with a second wife, the first being still living. (Memoirs of
Luther,' translated by M. Michelet: 1836. See also 'Athenæum,' June 18,
1836.) The Reformer, who said, 'If Sarah refuses, take Hagar,' regarded,
like all the early Christians, saints and sinners, marriage as a purely civil
rite. He never hesitated, when the object of union was impeded, to grant
letters of divorce, and he notably held that the polygamy practised under
the Mosaic dispensation was lawful in modern times. For my part,' he
declares, 'I confess that I cannot oppose the man who may wish to marry
several wives, and that I do not think such plurality contrary to the Holy
Scriptures.' This is true wisdom. Human liberty has been sufficiently
abridged without imagining further curtailments.
AT ABEOKUTA.
215
Rev. Mr. Gollmer, who manifestly made acquaint-
ance with it for the first time, opined that the said
Martin Luther had so lately emerged from the dark-
ness of Romanism, that on this point his inner vision
was not strong enough to face the light.*
The reverend gentleman's last objection struck me
the more forcibly, as it is evident that to the Roman
Catholic Church -- which, when barely adolescent
claimed, and still claims in her decrepitude, the right
of precedence over the State-we owe, in modern
times, the most curious limitation of human liberty
ever forced upon mankind. Let us see what the
reviewer says upon the subject. I will abridge his
excellent sketch.
No council, during the first centuries of the
Church, denounced polygamy as a sin, but the apos-
tolic limitation of the bishop's household was soon
applied to the whole ministry, and, in the West
penalties were attached to the practice. The Mani-
cheans and Gnostics condemned marriage in toto,
because it is founded on concupiscence and propagates
the work of the devil in confining human souls in
bodies of matter: hence Mani called his elect or per-
* The lax law makes the polygamic wife a legitimate wife, the mis-
sionary declares her illegitimate and not respectable; he degrades her in
her own estimate, and he would drive her an outcast from her home.
Can aught be more absurd, more wicked?
216
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
6
fect-the class above the hearers-men-virgins. This
heresy was rebutted, but it seems to have found place
in the minds of men. St. Jerome, who is accused by
the Reformers of thinking too exclusively of 'victuals
and virginity,' would not undertake to declare a
polygamist in mortal sin (Epistle to Pammachius,'
where he writes 6
non damno polygamos'). St.
Augustine (contra Faustum, lib. 22) is even more
precise: Quando mos erat plures habere uxores,
crimen non erat; nunc propterea crimen est, quia
mos non est.” * Polygamy was forbidden through-
out the empire by the imperial decrees of A.D. 393,
but within thirty years the Emperor Valentinian re-
stored the liberty of marriage, according to the
several customs and religions of the inhabitants of
the Roman world. Even in later days the Mero-
vingian kings took as many wives simultaneously as
suited their passions or their politics, and Charle-
magne, an eminently Christian emperor, paraded as
large a harem as an Oriental sultan would have de-
corously concealed.' Probably, in the presence of
such disorders, that development of the doctrine and
discipline of the Roman Catholic Church took place
<
* This 'mos' is equivalent with the Moslems' 'Rasm:' the importance
attached to it is eminently Oriental, conservative opposed to progressive.
One is tempted to quote St. Augustine against himself: Væ tibi, flumen
moris humani! Quis resistat tibi ?' (Conf.,' i. 8.)
AT ABEOKUTA.
217
.
which ended in marriage being taken out of the
category of personal contracts, and, according to the
character of the participants, crowned as a sacrament
or branded as a sin. In these latter days the claims
of polygamy have been wholly neglected. A late
work (La Régénération du Monde, opuscule dédié
aux douze tribus d'Israël') by M. Joseph de Félicité,
contains the following curious sentences:-'Il est
donc essentiel que les peuples' (Jews and Moslems),
sachant que la Polygamie, qui a été autorisée et
pratiquée jusqu'au temps de Jésus-Christ, a été
revoquée par lui' (when? where?) et qu'elle est
interdite par la Sainte Eglise suivant le décrit du
Concile de Trent XXIVme session: "Si quelqu'un
dit qu'il est permis aux Chrétiens d'avoir plusieurs
femmes, et que cela n'est défendu par aucune loi
divine, qu'il soit anathème.' But there is an older
and a more terrible anathema upon him who takes
away from or adds to a word of what was spoken,
and, perhaps, even the Council of Trent will not be
held guiltless.
6
It is, therefore, among the dissidents from the
Church of Rome that we must look for assertions
touching the lawfulness of polygamy. The advocates
are of two classes. The first is of the Casuists-the
German Reformers, for instance-who permit the
practice in exceptional cases of individual tempera-
218
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
6
ment or state necessity, such as might be the subjects
of especial dispensation in the Roman Church; the
second is of the Moralists, who, without regarding
polygamy as an absolute good, still look on it as a
preservative from the miseries and disgraces incident
to the illicit intercourse of the sexes in countries
where marriage is restricted and men are licentious.*
To this class belong the Saxon Lyserus (author of
'Polygamia Triumphatrix,' under the name of
Theophilus Aletheus), Bishops Berkeley and Burnet
-who concludes by saying that he can see nothing
so strong against polygamy as to balance the great
and visible imminent hazards that hang over so many
thousands if it be not allowed '—the Rev. Mr. Madan,
who, in his Thelyphthora,' would give to seduction
all the responsibilities of marriage, and the oblique
advocate,' poetic Cowper. In 1784, the argument
was revived in Russia by the Comte de Rantzow, who
asserted that Frederic of Sweden had lately proposed
to the states of his kingdom-where bigamy is
punished with extreme severity-to permit polygamy,
and that the project had been accepted by the two
6
(
* There is nothing more curious in the moral world than to watch the
effects of restriction of marriage by increased luxury and expense in
England, France, and other so-called civilized lands. Polygamy has been
cast out except amongst the few who can afford to practise an illegal
concubinage, and polyandry has now become the last resource of those
unable or unwilling to marry.
AT ABEOKUTA.
219
Lower, but rejected by the two Upper Houses of the
legislature.
To conclude; I would assure these and other mis-
sionaries that had less objection been made to poly-
gamy on their part, the heathen would have found
far fewer obstacles to conversion. Those who hold
it their duty to save souls, should seriously consider
whether they are justified in placing such stumbling-
blocks upon the path of improvement.
Funerals play almost as important a part as
weddings in the economy of Yoruban society. The
preliminary wake takes place in the verandah of the
dead man's house, which, like the king's audience
room, is hung with the richest cloths procurable.
The ceremony itself reminds us of the old Scotch
annalist's words: In
'In years of plenty,' says Fletcher
of Saltoun, many thousands of them meet together
in the mountains, where they feast and riot for many
days, and at country weddings, markets, burials, and
other public occasions, they are to be seen, both men
and women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming,
and fighting together.' Women are there skilful in
weeping and shrieking like mandrakes torn from
the ground; the sound of the tom-tom is incessant ;
at times an overloaded musket is discharged; whilst
the mob drinks to intoxication and dances to 'break
the fear,' as the East Africans say. During the
220
TOUCHING MATTERS RELIGIOUS
orgies, a procession perambulates the town, numerous
singers, dancers, and myriologists, or keeners, accom-
panying men who bear a board covered with a cloth
to represent a corpse. The body, packed mummy-like
in all the finery which was never exposed during life-
time,* is buried at full length in the house where the
deceased lived, and a stone is placed over the grave,
or a painted tablet is affixed to the wall opposite the
spot. Hunters and other castes are buried outside
the city gates. The corpses of debtors and 'pawns,'
or men pledged for debt, are tied up in mats, as on
the Gold Coast, and are placed horizontally between
stakes at a distance of four to five feet from the
ground, where they must remain until redeemed by
the nearest of kin. Infants are buried behind the
house walls, not in the piazza, because they are sup-
posed to have been killed by evil influences. On the
seventh night, the relations and friends of the de-
parted issue from the city gates after dark, cast his
arms and clothes on the way-side, thrice call upon his
name, and adjure him not to let, haunt, or otherwise
injure them. After thus propitiating the ghost, they
return to the dead man's house, where a feast and
a carousal end the ceremonies.
6
Human sacrifices for the dead, or customs,' so
* Some authorities say that cowries are placed in the tomb as gold-dust
is further west: others deny it.
AT ABEOKUTA.
221
*
common in many parts of Africa, are here com-
paratively rare; when offered, it is with the idea
of presenting to the departed what is most valuable
to the living; and, as has been observed, a modified
apotheosis is common. In Roman Catholic countries
the deceased, if not too severely handled by the
devil's advocate, may after a century or so, and at
an expense of 10,000l., become a saint-at Abeokuta
he has a chance of being raised to the godhead.
The Cairene superstition of the dead refusing to
leave the town, the bier whirling round and round,
and the bearers being driven hither and thither, is
not unknown: here, however, if the people are
thrown against the wall of a man's house, it involves
the latter in a witchcraft 'palaver,' which he must
settle by fine or by the poison ordeal.
* It must be remembered that human sacrifices prevailed amongst all
the polished people of the old and new worlds; in Greece they were common
until the days of Solon, and the Romans abolished them only in A.C. 100.
222
THE USUAL SKETCH-
CHAPTER V.
THE USUAL SKETCH-GEOGRAPHICAL AND
HISTORICAL.
THE Country properly called Yoruba, or, by older
writers, Yarribah, and Yahribah-imitations of the
Hausa pronunciation-has larger limits than those
usually assigned to it. Mr. Bowen, for instance,
gives as its frontiers the lands of Nupe (Nufe, or
Nyffe), Borghú, and the regions known as the
Sudan, on the north; the Bight of Benin or Slave
Coast, on the south-so far he is correct-on the
east by Ibini, or Benin, and the Niger; and on the
west by Mahi and Dahome, or, as it is here called,
Idáhame. It is, however, abundantly evident that
Benin and Dahome are integral parts of Yoruba,
somewhat differing in language, but identical in
manners, customs, and religion. I would accord-
ingly make the Niger, in 6° 45′ east long., and
the Volta River, in east long. 1° 45', its extreme
GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.
223
limits. Thus, instead of two hundred miles in
breadth, the irregular parallelogram will be about
three hundred and fifty, and its depth from north
to south will be upwards of two hundred miles.
The area will be seventy thousand instead of fifty
thousand square miles. The population is set down
at two millions, which may be safely doubled, thus
giving about twenty-five souls to the square mile.
There is also a Yoruba Proper, which includes the
two former kingdoms of Ife and Isehin. The southern
limit lies about twenty miles beyond Abeokuta,
or sixty miles from the sea, and thence it extends
northwards to the frontiers of Borghú. The area
is usually laid at thirty thousand square miles, and
the population at eight hundred thousand souls; nor
is this an over-estimate. In this part of Africa,
though much of the country is desert, the cities are
numerous, many of them are ten to twelve miles in
circumference, they contain thousands of houses, and
each holds from ten to threescore souls. There are
also many smaller towns numbering from two thou-
sand to fifteen thousand people. In this section of
the country lies the ancient metropolis of Yoruba,
Oyo (also called Katanga or Eyeo), whence the
* Like the French Canadians, the people are gregarious, and prefer for
safety to live in cities and towns. Their farms and fields show only small
huts.
224
THE USUAL SKETCH-
people were known as Hios and Eyeos. The old
capital, which is said to have been twenty miles in
circumference, was destroyed by the Fulas and
Hausas in 1825, when the king established himself
at the tent-market Ago-ojjá,' which is now known
by its former name, Oyo. The next most consider-
able cities are Ibadan, now at war with Abeokuta ;
Ijaye, the hapless ally of the latter; and Ilori.
Besides which there are ten minor cities, whose
names do not require mention. Yoruba Proper is
now well nigh Moslem.
Besides Yoruba Proper, and the kingdoms of
Wari, Benin, and Dahome-the latter was, according
to native tradition, a mere tributary province-the
great Yoruba country contains seven independent
territories, whose names are as follows:
1. Iketu, in our maps Ketu, with a capital of the
same name, is a small country lying between Agbome
and the River Ogun, south of Yoruba Proper, and
shut out from the sea. It has hitherto withstood the
power of Dahome, and as the soil is poor, whilst timber
and water are far from abundant, it is not much
coveted by its neighbours. The extent is conjectured
to be two thousand square miles, and the population
one hundred thousand.*
* These conjectures are all borrowed from Mr. Bowen, who probably saw
more of the country than any other white man.
GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.
225
2. Ekko,* which the Portuguese called Lagos;
the chief town is Aoni, or Awini, i.e., descended
from Ini or Bini-Benin. The limits are Egba-land
to the north, the sea to the south, the Ijebu country
on the east, and Badagry, now its dependency, on
the west. Its area cannot be less than one thousand
square miles, and its population eighty thousand.†
3. Egba, which, with Iketu, forms the head-
quarters of the so-called Aku nation. It is a small
kingdom lying on both sides of the Ogun River, but
principally on the left bank. It is bounded on the
north by Yoruba Proper, south by Ekko, east by
Ijebu, and west by Iketu. It also includes the
fallen kingdom of Ota, lying between Badagry and
Abeokuta. The capital of Egba-land is Abeokuta,
and there are no other considerable cities. The
area, including Ota, is about three thousand square
miles, and the population may be assumed at two
hundred thousand.‡
4. Ijebu, popularly called Jaboo, lies between Egba-
land and Benin: it is bounded northwards by Yoruba
Proper and Kakanda, southwards by the sea, or
* According to the Ethiopic Directory, Ichoo is the name of the town of
Lagos-a decided mistake.
† Mr. Bowen allows it 400 square miles, and 30,000 souls, but he does
not include Badagry and other provinces.
Mr. Bowen gives 100,000, but he estimates Abeokuta at 80,000
only.
VOL. I.
Q
226
THE USUAL SKETCH—
more properly by the long lagoon called the Ikoradu,
or Cradoo Waters. It is divided into two parts, the
Ijebu Ode to the east, and westward the Ijebu Remo:
the Awajali, or great king, however, resides at Ode.
The land has been little visited by travellers: it is
described as an undulating surface of bush and
savannah. The area is set down at five thousand
square miles, the population at two hundred thousand
souls. The Ijebus, a warlike race, have ever been
the most deadly enemies of the Egbas, who, in
return, gave them the bad name of being the most
barbarous of the Yoruban tribes.
5. Ijesha, whose capital is Ilesha, is a little-known
province lying between Yoruba and Kakanda its
area is set down at two thousand square miles, and
its population at two hundred thousand souls.
6. Kakanda,* more properly called Effong or
Effon, extends from Yoruba Proper to the Niger and
the Kwara Rivers. This province is very little known,
but the people are celebrated for working copper,
of which they are supposed to have mines. In Ka-
kanda is the celebrated Ife, said,' if we believe the
maps, to be the origin of idolatry.' It is the spot
where the Yoruba nation and all others arose-the
Eden of these regions; moreover, from it sprang the
6
* Kakanda or Ibbodo, the capital of the Effon people, is a large city on
the right bank of the Kwara River.
GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.
227
sea, and they show the source of the largest river
known to them, namely, the Osa Lagoon, running
between Lagos and Godomé. The Dahomans, who,
like other Yorubans, thence derive their faith, call
it Fe.
7. Ilori, which Richard Lander writes Alourie, a
province and a city of that name, inhabited by
Moslem Fulas and Gambari,* a tribe of Hausa men,
together with a few pagan Yorubas. The king is
a Fula, and the chiefs are mostly Gambari and
Kaniki. About 1820 Ilori became independent of
Yoruba Proper: it then proclaimed the Jihad, and
assisted in the destruction of Oyo or Eyeo. Of late
years Ilori has suffered at the hands of Ibadan, but
it has recovered since the latter people have been
weakened by their wars with Abeokuta. About
1850, Masaba of Nupe, a half-caste Fula, made a
coalition to attack Ilori and its chief Chítá, a relation
of his own, whose daughter he had married. Two
years afterwards, however, Masaba was driven out
by his subjects, and Iláde, his capital, on the banks
of the Niger, was burnt. The King of Sokoto then
*The Gambari, of old called Cumbrie, are the men of Hausa-so termed
from the Kambi-who live on the banks of the Niger above Busa.
†The Kaniki are the people of Burnu, and the latter word means a ship,
the town having been built where Noah's ark first touched land. We
have given the name of the city to the country. The Kaniki are descended
from Barba, i.e. Dar Borghú.
Q 2
228
THE USUAL SKETCH-
sent him to reside at Ilori as a private citizen.
Shortly afterwards he left it, and he now resides at
Bidda, on the Kaduna, a tributary of the Niger.
Ilori, like Tinbuktu and Sokoto, is one of the
great marts of Central Africa. All manner of
European goods are imported via the Desert from
Tripoli and other Mediterranean ports, although an
easy land journey of two hundred and fifty miles
separates it from the Bight of Benin. The Niger
River also runs at no great distance to the eastward
of it. The exploitation of the whole Nigerian valley
is in our hands if we choose to take the trouble.
The word Yoruba has, as might be expected, been
identified by the ethnological sciolist with Europa.
Sultan Mohammed Bello* derives the name Yarba
from Yarab, son of Kahtan, called Joktan by the
Hebrew annalist, and enumerated by Moslem genea-
logists amongst the Arab el Ariba, or pure Arabs
who preceded the Mutaarab, the Ishmaelitic et insi-
titious and impure Egypto-Arab race. Mr. Bowen
derives it from Goru, which in Fula means river,
and bah or ba, great. He is sensible enough to
place little confidence in his own philology; and,
for the most part, bah, as in Joli-bah, and Bah-fing,
is believed to be an African corruption of the Arabic
bahr, a sea or large stream. The popular derivation
*See Appendix to Denharn and Clapperton's Travels.
GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.
229
of Yoruba is Ori Obba, or ‘Head King'—with which,
for want of a better, we must fain be satisfied.
With respect to the origin of the Yoruban race,
some hold that it is an offshoot from Nupe, on the
north of the Kwara, driven by a war across the
Niger when the river was swollen; and thus the
ship, Okko, became their emblem. They first founded
Ife, and subsequently Igboho and Oyo.* Another
well-known tradition makes the Yoruban forefathers
to have been created at Ife, or rather at the obscurely
remembered mythical town of that name, four months'
journey to the east. Another declares that they are
descended from sixteen persons who were sent forth
from the east to found a colony. Their leaders took
with them a hen and a piece of cloth, containing a
palm-nut in a few handfuls of mould.
For a
time they waded through water, till the earth,
dissolved through the cloth, formed a bank in which
the palm-nut grew to a tree with sixteen branches,
whereupon the hen sprang upon the bank and dried
the waters. A third makes Iketu, Egba, Ijebu,
* Igbo means a forest; Igboho, a noisy forest, a howling wilderness; Oyo
is derived from yo, to escape, and points to the first city of refuge south of
the Kwara.
† Missionaries naturally connect this ridiculous fable with the Mosaic
Creation and the equally apocryphal Noachian flood dove and olive-branch.
I extract the following from the Rev. Mr. Crowther's introductory remarks
to the 'Grammar and Vocabulary or the Yoruba Language:' 'It is said by the
Yorubans that fifteen persons were sent from a certain region; and that a
230
THE USUAL SKETCH-
Ife, Ibini, and Yoruba six brothers by one mother.
Yoruba, the Benjamin of the family, settled at Ife,
sixteenth, whose name was Okambi (an only child), and who was after-
wards made King of Yoruba, volunteered to accompany them. The person
who sent them out presented Okambi with a small piece of black cloth,
with something tired up in it; besides a fowl, Tetu, a servant (slave), and
a trumpeter,—Okinkin was the name of the latter. On opening the gate of
this unknown region, they observed a large expanse of water before them,
through which they were obliged to wade. As they went on, the trumpeter
reminded Okambi of the small piece of cloth, by sounding the trumpet
according to the instructions of the person above mentioned. The cloth
being opened, a palm-nut, which was deposited in it with some earth, fell
into the water. The nut grew immediately into a tree, which had sixteen
branches. As the travellers were fatigued by long wading through water
they were glad of this unexpected relief, and soon climbed up and rested
themselves on the branches. When they had recruited their strength,
they prepared again for the journey; yet not without great perplexity, not
knowing in what direction they should proceed. In this situation, a cer-
tain person, Okikisi, saw them from the region whence they set out, and
reminded the trumpeter of his duty; on which he sounded again, and thus
reminded Okambi of the small piece of black cloth, as before. On opening
it some earth dropped into the water, and became a small bank; when the
fowl, which was given to Okambi, flew upon it and scattered it, and
wherever the earth touched the water, it immediately dried up. Okambi
then descended from the palm-tree, allowing only his slave and his trum-
peter to come down with him. The other persons begged that they might
be allowed to come down; but he did not comply with their request until
they had promised to pay him, at certain times, a tax of two hundred
cowries each person.
'Thus originated the kingdom of Yoruba, which was afterwards called
Ife; whence three brothers set out for a further discovery of better coun-
tries At their departure they left a slave, named Adimu (which signifies
'Holdfast'), to govern the country of Ife in their absence. The tradition
of the three brothers explains the relationship of the three chieftains in the
kingdom of Yoruba; namely, the chief Iketu, called Alaketu, and said to
be the eldest; the second, or Alake, chief of the Egbas; and the King of
GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.
231
and after a time he reduced the others to the con-
dition of his dependents and vassals, when he re-
moved to Igboho and made it his capital. The great
mother of the six tribes is still worshipped at Ife
and Abeokuta as Iyommodi (contracted from Iya
ommo oddi), the mother of the hunter's children.
Naturally enough the Moslems identify the hunter
with Nimrod, and his children with the Canaanites,
who, driven to the west, peopled the Sudan-Yauri
and its vicinity. It is remarkable that all these
legends derive the population of Yoruba from the
east; and even the fables which natives tell con-
cerning their origin most frequently show a modi-
cum of truth-we are so far justified in believing
that from early times a race of pagans, pushed for-
ward by the stream of immigration from the lands
nearer Arabia, occupied the thinly populated countries
south of the Kwara.*
Yoruba, the youngest, who however in former days took tribute from the
rest. There is a similar tradition concerning the chiefs of Allada (Ardrah),
Ijashe (Porto Novo), and Dahome.
After the repulse of the Dahoman army in 1850, some of the prisoners
were presented to Oni, the Chief of Ife, to the Alaketu, and to the King of
Yoruba by the Abeokutans, in memory of their victory. He of Ife returned
a polite symbolical letter which was construed by the missionaries as an
invitation to come over into his country and to help his people.'
* The early history of Yoruba is thus given by the Rev. Mr. Crowther:
The Kings of Yoruba may be safely traced back to the time of Ajagbo,
who reigned in Oyo (Katanga), and died at a great age. The time of his
232
THE USUAL SKETCH-
We will now proceed to that province of the great
Yoruban country which most interests us-Egba-
reign cannot now be ascertained. He was succeeded by Abiodun, who also
enjoyed a long and peaceful reign, and died an old man. The elders of
Yoruba always refer to his rule as a time of peculiar felicity, and one which
cannot again be expected for a long time. About this time the Felutas
(Fulas) were known only as shepherds and herdsmen. They were per-
mitted to feed their sheep and cattle wherever they liked, and generally
lodged outside the town in tents.
'After the death of Abiodun, Arogangan, his brother, succeeded him.
Arogangan's nephew, Afunja, born in Ilori, whose father was a brave
warrior, was made Are-obbo (King's Chief Warrior), and was placed in
Ilori, the king thinking that Afunja would be satisfied with this high post
of honour; but instead of this, Afunja used every artifice that he could
think of to dethrone Arogangan, that he might possess the kingdom. The
king being aware of his designs, under pretence of offence given to him by
the people of Iwe-re, the town of Abiodun's mother, sent Afunja to war
against it, making sure that by this means he should remove Afunja out of
the way; but the matter turned out the reverse. When Afunja got to
Iwe-re, he told them that he was sent by Arogangan to fight against them.
They were surprised at this declaration. Afunja was sent back, and an
army sent to demand Arogangan, and to fight against Oyo in case of
refusal to give him up. Oyo was besieged, and Arogangan, dreading the
consequences of falling into the hands of his enemies, poisoned himself;
upon which the army departed from Oyo. The beginning of his reign may
be supposed to be about the year 1800. He reigned seven years' [N.B.-
This would place the beginning of the chronicle between 1720 and 1740].
'Adebo succeeded his brother Arogangan. He was chosen by the Elders
of Oyo, in preference to Afunja, who might now have been placed on the
throne of Yoruba on account of his greatness of mind, but was refused
because of his treachery. Adebo reigned only one hundred and twenty days.
It is supposed that he was poisoned.
'Maku, one of the royal family, a favourite of Afunja, succeeded Adebo;
but it appears that the majority of the inhabitants of Oyo were not well
pleased with him. There was war at Igboho; and Maku, accompanied by
Okpelle, one of the king's counsellors, took the command; but being unsuc-
GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.
233
land. According to its Aku population, it included
at one time Dahome and the Popo, or races extend-
cessful in the undertaking, he chose rather to die than return home; so he
killed himself. He reigned only three months.
'After Maku's death it appears there was an interregnum of five years,
during which period affairs were conducted by one Ojo, who was Obbas-
horun or privy counsellor. Majotu succeeded Maku, and reigned for some
time well; but his son did a great deal of mischief, chiefly by kidnapping.
The people complained bitterly against the prince; and at last required
him to be given up for trial. Majotu felt very uneasy on account of his
son's behaviour, and life became such a misery to him that he poisoned
himself. It is not certain how long he reigned.
'It is not uncommon among the Yorubas, under some injury, vexation,
or disappointment, to commit suicide, either by taking some poisonous
draught, sticking themselves with a poisoned arrow, or cutting their throats
or bellies with a sword or razor. Such are generally looked upon as acts of
bravery.
'Amodo succeeded Majotu; about which time the country of Yoruba
was in great confusion.
'Afunja, who was made chief warrior in the kingdom, took the oppor-
tunity of the unsettled state of affairs at the capital to ingratiate himself
with the people of Ilori. He allowed them to make whatever use they
liked of their plunder in battle; taking nothing from them, either for him-
self or for the king, and thus encouraged them to war. By this means,
such slaves as were not satisfied deserted their masters and joined Afunja
at Ilori; in doing which they were declared free and independent. The
Felutas, who had hitherto contented themselves with a pastoral life, began
now to distinguish themselves as great warriors; and as they gained a firm
footing in the country they introduced their religion—that is, Moham-
medanism. As Afunja could not get to the throne in any other way, he
tried to make himself friendly with the people of the capital, and to get
them into a quarrel with some principal head-men in Ilori, who, it appears,
began to be too strong for him. But they of Ilori, being aware of his
treacherous plans, caught him and burnt him publicly in Ilori, and exposed
his ashes for many days. After this, the people of Ilori, being mostly
Mohammedan, did not think it proper to be subject to a pagan king, but
234
THE USUAL SKETCH-
ing from Badagry to the Volta River. At last the
giant Lishabe-there were good and bad giants in
those days-rebelled against a Yoruban tyrant, and
vindicated the freedom of his country. This West
African Kav or Washington is now a god, and his
farm, which it would be sacrilege to reclaim, is
pointed out on the east of the Ogun River, a little
below Abeokuta.
After their 'declaration of independence' the Egba
race endured a succession of terrible calamities,
which led to their dispersion. Though the worst
must have happened almost within memory of man,
there are many conflicting statements accounting for
it. According to some-and this is the version
recognized by the missionaries-the Egbas, after
winning their independence, were long governed by
a king of their own; but finally, growing weary of
monarchy, they determined that every town should
be ruled by its own chiefs. This led to mutual jea-
lousies and dissensions; as might be expected, the
became independent, and on this account the civil war broke out which
has almost desolated the kingdom of Yoruba. Since this time, Ilori has
become the rendezvous of the Mohammedan army.
The surviving princes who have a right to the throne of Yoruba in suc-
cession, are Atiba, Tella, Afunja the younger, and Ajibekum. Atiba is
the present King of Yoruba. He removed the seat of government from
Oyo to Aggo-oja, where he is now using every means in his power to
subdue Ilori.'
GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.
235
oligarchies become more tyrannical than despots,
without possessing the virtues and the habits of
freemen. About fifty years ago this bad blood,
stimulated by the slave trade and by the machi-
nations of the Yorubas and the Ijebus, resulted
in civil and internecine wars. In the course of
twenty-five years the numerous cities and towns
which covered the land were all laid waste with the
sole exception of Oba, which is yet standing, about
ten miles south-west of Abeokuta.
It is pro-
bable that five hundred thousand people perished by
sword and famine. Many were sold to the slave
ships, and the remnant of the tribe was scattered
abroad. Others say that the wars began about a
little pepper in the market-town of Akponi-which
shows that the country was ripe for confusion. The
people of Ife, Ikija, Ikesi, Owu, and Ijebu, all
armed against one another; whilst Afunja, chief of
Ilori; Alimi, a Fula of Sokoto; and Ali, chief
of the Gambari people, attacked Yoruba in force.
Thousands of plunderers were already at work; the
sword and torch, famine, and the slave-ship com-
pleted the destruction. Others declare that about
two generations ago the Egbas had a king who
determined to rule them with absolute sway. He
was quietly directed to go sleep,' but he had
the audacity to refuse. Then the turbulent Egbas
6
236
THE USUAL SKETCH-
arose, and in full durbar slew their anointed king,
who claimed the right divine to do wrong. But
the killing was murder in the eyes of Oro; pun-
ishment followed the regicidal act with no lame
foot. The Fula Moslems of the Niger pressed upon
Yoruba, Yoruba upon the Egbas. The latter having
no head, and being, though not absolutely repub-
lican, a headstrong and unmanageable brood, began
to fight among themselves, and to sell one another in
all directions. According to Mr. T. B. Freeman,
one of the earliest visitors to Abeokuta, a war had
lasted nearly a century between the kings of Dahome
and of Great Benin. The lands lying between the
two rivals had suffered greatly; and even in the
present day the line of country between Badagry
and Abeokuta, which is one hundred miles long,
does not contain more than five hundred souls. In
those days the Egbas dwelt to the eastward* of their
present homes, but were driven out by their neigh-
bours the Ijebu, who had sided with Benin. Under
their chief, Ladmodi, the Egbas made head against
the violence of the enemy, but he was at last slain
and the tribe dispersed.
Without attempting to decide which account is
true, it is evident that during the first quarter of
* The Abeokutans, as will be seen, point out their old seats northwards,
around the present Ibadan.
GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.
237
the present century there was a general dispersion
of the Egbas. We know that about 1820-22 there
was a great influx of Aku captives into Sierra
Leone, and that they found their way east and
west, to the United States,* Gambia, Fernando Po,
Hausa, Borneo, Central Africa, the Fezzan, Egypt,
and even to Stamboul. It was a race worsted
and spoiled, not, as is commonly asserted, by Eu-
ropeans, but by its own folly and want of proper
despotism.
In 1825, as has been recounted, the Rock Olumo
gave to a remnant of the Egbas a rallying point.
When their numbers were equal to the task, they
founded, about 1826, the town Abeokuta, under the
chief Shodeke, who, as the next in rank, had suc-
ceeded Ladmodi. The novus homo then attacked
Ijebu, the old enemy, but after some successes he
was defeated by a coalition near Ekpe. The Ijebu
raised another force, and fell upon Shodeke. After
a long campaign, however, they were compelled to
retire, losing one-third of their host. Shodeke then
warred with Ilori, and wrested from Yoruba Proper
the little kingdom and city of Ota. He took Ado,
the key of the Badagry line, which connected him
* The Guinea niggers of the United States are the Fantis and Popos.
The good niggers are from Yoruba, Nupe, Hausa, and the Sudan generally.
The Bozals of Cuba are any wild blacks.
238
THE USUAL SKETCH-
with the coast, and he made an alliance with Dahome.
In 1838 he invited Europeans to settle in his capital;
and he died honoured and revered in 1844.
The closer connection of Abeokuta with England
dates from 1838-1839. In that year certain Chris-
tian Akus or Egbas of Sierra Leone, freighted with
merchandize a small captured and condemned slaver
-the class of vessel was ominous of what was fated
to happen-and, with a white man for master and a
crew of emancipados, sailed for Badagry. They were
well received, and presently they returned with a
cargo of palm oil. Two other confiscated ships fol-
lowed suit, and a little trade was thus set up, origi-
nating the idea of returning to their old homes as
Oibo, foreigners or civilized men. Between 1839.
and 1842 some five hundred Yoruban recaptives de-
termined to form a colony. About two hundred and
sixty-five landed in three ships at Lagos, and suffered
from the rapacity of the chiefs, reaching Abeokuta with
difficulty. Between two hundred and three hundred
entered via Badagry, where, by the influence of Yoe
Wawu, the Popo English chief,'* they were better
*
Badagry, like Whydah, was divided in the old slaving days into
different towns, French, English, Portuguese, &c., and each had its inde-
pendent chief. In 1842 there was an English factory there, for buying
palm oil. All the other commerce was in the hands of the slave traders.
Kidnapping was common. The roads were unsafe to travel, and farming
could be carried on only within a short distance of the towns.
GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.
239
received, and made for the interior in parties of fifty
and sixty. Mr. T. B. Freeman, a coloured Wesleyan
missionary from Cape Coast Castle, followed them for
spiritual refreshment on the 11th December, 1842,
visited Abeokuta, which he describes even then as
double the size of Komasi, and reported his journey
in the Missionary Register' for 1843. He and
the other converts were hospitably and kindly treated
by Shodeke the king, who allowed them to stand
before him, not to prostrate themselves like his
heathen subjects.
6
The movement was accelerated and intensified by
the ill-fated Niger expedition, commanded by Captain
Trotter, R.N., whose principal, if not sole success,
was in persuading Obi, chief of Abo, the capital of
the extensive Ibo (Eboe) country that occupies the
lands lying about the head of the Delta, to sign the
treaty for the suppression of the slave trade. Obi's
example was followed by the Ata of Igarrah, who
also claims the city of Kakanda. On the return
of the expedition it was decided that a Mr. Towns-
end, one of the Church Missionary Society's cate-
chists, should proceed to Yoruba, and select an
eligible base for future operations. He embarked on
the 14th November, 1842, on board a condemned
slaver, which three negroes had purchased and
freighted, for Badagry. There he met Mr. Free-
240
THE USUAL SKETCH-
man, who, on his return from Abeokuta, gave a
favourable description of Shodeke. Mr. Townsend,
accompanied by two blacks, Andrew Wilhelm and
John M'Cormack, proceeded to the capital, and after
a satisfactory interview with the warrior-king, re-
turned to Sierra Leone. Andrew Wilhelm was
again sent to Abeokuta, whilst Mr. Townsend pro-
ceeded for ordination to England. It was then
arranged that he should at once revisit Abeokuta
in company with the Rev. Mr. Gollmer, who had
been some years at Sierra Leone, and Mr. Crow-
ther, who had lately been crowned a minister,'
the first full-blooded negro who ever 'wagged his
pow' in a Church of England pulpit, and who had
preached his first sermon at Freetown in January,
1844.
The Rev. Mr. Townsend arrived at Sierra Leone in
December, 1844, accompanied by Messrs. Gollmer and
Crowther, with their wives and families, and sundry
natives, catechists and interpreters, carpenters and
labourers. He landed at Badagry in January, 1845;
but Shodeke was dead, and the Ado war, which was
then raging, delayed their advance: finally, it was
decided that Messrs. Townsend and Crowther should
proceed to Abeokuta, and that Mr. Gollmer should
remain at Badagry. The quarrels of Akitoye and
Kosoko detained the whole party seventeen weary
GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.
241
months on the coast, until M. Domingo Martinez*
-the well-known slave-dealer of Porto Novo and
Whydah-effected a peace, and enabled the mis-
sionaries to proceed, despite the unwillingness of the
Badagry people to part with them. Messrs. Town-
send and Crowther, with their wives, left Badagry
on the 27th July, 1846, and arriving safely at
Abeokuta, were entertained by one Osho Ligregere,
and were welcomed by Okokenu, the actual Alake.
Ake the royal head-quarters, in which Shodeke
had resided-was chosen for the first settlement.
Three acres were granted by the king, a shed was
erected, Mr. Townsend preached, Andrew Wilhelm
translated, and the chiefs, Ogubonna, the Balogun, and
Somoye, the Ibashorun, listened-curiously.
mission-house was built in December, 1846; in 1847,
a church was opened; and the end of that year saw
four preaching sheds at Owu, Itoku, Ikijá, and
Igbein, where Mr. Crowther settled himself, about
two miles from Ake.
The
In 1848, Mr. Townsend-leaving behind him Mr.
J. C. Müller, who died in 1850-returned to Eng-
land, bearing a letter and a country cloth, offered by
the Alake and his caboceers to Her Most Gracious
Majesty. His departure was the signal for an attempt
*Commander Forbes calls him, probably by a misprint, Domingo Josè
Martins.
VOL. I.
R
242
THE USUAL SKETCH-
C
at persecution, which, probably, the converts had
brought upon themselves.* The conservative move-
ment was directed by several chiefs, of whom Akig-
bogun termed the Pharaoh of Igbon '-distin-
guished himself. At the bottom of the affair, how-
ever, were the Ogboni lodges, who said that the
converts were turning the world upside down;
and certain Sierra Leone renegades, who had relapsed
into heathenism and the slave export trade. The
fetishmen, to whom the new faith was foolishness,
also feared the loss of many goats and fowls. But
the polytheist is a bad persecutor: there was a little
shaking of roofs, flogging, pinioning, and prohibiting
visits to the church or to white men. Enough was
done to fill a chapter, headed Persecution; but all
was of the mildest, none of the 'curious juice,' except
from the back, was shed.
Meanwhile, the Earl of Chichester, President of
the Church Missionary Society, was authorized to
communicate with the Alake, acknowledging his pre-
sent, and exhorting him to wean his people from
illicit to lawful commerce. This letter, accompanied
by a gift of English and Arabic Bibles, and a steel
corn-mill, was conveyed by the Revs. Dr. Hinderer
*The proceedings of new converts in the old haunts of idolatry may
serve to throw no little light upon the causes of the great persecutions
under Nero, and other 'enemies of the Church.'
GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.
243
-who was sent to study the Hausa language-and
J. Smith, to Abeokuta, in the spring of 1849. The
Alake and the chiefs, highly gratified, proposed a
sacrifice to the presents, which was rejected. The
so-called persecution ended in 1849, when the conti-
nuance of the 'sentimental squadron' was determined
on; and in the spring of the next year Mr. Towns-
end, who plays the part of the 'great Eltchee' in these
lands, returned from England to Ake in March 1850.
In the same year Mr. Hinderer, accompanied by Mr.
Phillips, an interpreter, visited the towns of Igbara
and Ishagga, and settled at Oshelle, about eight
miles north-east of Ake.* In January, 1851, Mr.
Beecroft, H.M.'s Consul for the Bight of Biafra,
after à journey to Agbome, proceeded to Abeokuta,
and made a covenant with the chiefs to repress
future persecution. The same year saw Badagry
burnt down and destroyed in a cut-throat affair,
and Lagos scotched by the British. In March the
King Gezo, of Dahome, determining to renew the
scenes of Okeadon-where, it is said, 20,000 Otas
were seized and sold-attacked Abeokuta, and suf-
fered shameful defeat; and in the autumn of the same
* Since 1851, Mr. Hinderer, with an interval of sick leave to England,
has been settled at Ibadan. The chiefs of Abeokuta opposed this measure
strongly, and the country is now at war with Abeokuta: he naturally
takes the side of his protégés, and differs totally from his colleagues in
Egba-land upon the subject of the 'mad dogs of Ibadan.'
R 2
244
THE USUAL SKETCH-
6
eventful year of Grace, 1851, Commander Forbes,
R.N.-of Sarah Forbes Bonetta' celebrity-pro-
ceeded to Abeokuta in state,* and concluded a treaty
between H.M.'s Government and the Alake and
labourers.
Abeokuta, at the present time of writing (Nov. 1861),
contains four several sects - Wesleyans, Episcopa-
lians, Northern States Baptists, and Southern States
Baptists-who have split upon the rock of slavery.
There is a total of twenty whites-viz., three mer-
chants-Messrs. Wike, Hughes, and Bergmeyer-
eleven male missionaries, four women, and two chil-
dren. The Wesleyans have one of each sex. The
Church Missionary Society has six whites, including
one woman at Ake, three men, one woman, and two
children at Ikijá, and none at Owu: their total,
therefore, is eight men, two women, and two chil-
dren. The Baptists have two white men and one
woman.
I felt truly grieved at the sight of my poor pretty
countrywomen at Abeokuta, and anticipated but too
correctly what, in many cases, has since proved their
sad fate. They looked like galvanized corpses, even
those who had left England but a few months before,
* Commander Forbes was received with a formal cavalcade, which was
omitted in our case, a sign that familiarity with us was breeding contempt
for the white face.
GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.
245
radiant with pleasure, bright with youth and beauty.
It is a crying sin and a shame to expose these tender
beings to such rude, unworthy trials. But what
words of mine would avail? I could only leave with
them my wishes, my vain hopes that they may soon
be restored to those homely decent lands, which no
Englishwoman-if the power of ukase were mine-
should ever be permitted to leave.
(
Seven deaths have occurred in this mission since
1846. Mr. and Mrs. Dennard, Messrs. Lord, Field,
Paley, and Carter, and Mrs. Buhler, occupy God's
Acre,' the fetid, grassy graveyard of Abeokuta. Be-
sides which there are numerous native converts.
Some years ago the average of European life on the
coast of the Benin Bight was two years; and of 100
white children only one or two, even when removed
to England, reached the age of ten. At Abeokuta
this state of things seems in a fair way to be perpe-
tuated. The least that could be done by the authori-
ties at home would be to allow every missionary,
male and female, a full year's furlough after every
two years spent in the African interior.
As has been seen, the missionary holds a peculiar
position in these lands. At home a carter, a black-
smith, or a cobbler, he comes out to Africa-I use
his own expressions- to found empires, and to
create nations. Whilst one Mr. T******* rings
6
246
THE USUAL SKETCH-
6
the bell for the Western Times' in the streets of
Exeter, the other, a missionary, holds in his hand
the destinies of Abeokuta. Far from being a dis-
paragement, it is highly honourable, according to
English ideas, for a man so to raise himself above
his caste; but how often honores mutant mores,' and
what a terribly bad politician from Indus to the
Pole your reverend man mostly is!
C
The Sierra Leone settlers are numbered at 2000.
They have the name of being prime disturbers of the
public peace-especially those who have had the mis-
fortune to visit England-and they are openly accused
of relapsing into the lowest heathenism, and of slave-
trading, under the specious pretext of redeeming
captives. Of course they deny the charge, and if
by any chance they speak the truth this time, they
have been greatly maligned. But of them more in a
future page.
The number of converts registered is about 1500,
the communicants may amount to 800. The slave-
trade, in its slow but sure reflux from the west to the
east, has done this much of good. The Mombas
Mission in Eastern Africa, where there are no re-cap-
tives, could, in the same number of years, boast of but
one convert, and he had been a maniac. As might
be expected, the stranger hears of shining lights
amongst the Neo-christians of Abeokuta, such as John
GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.
247
Baptist Dasalu, Martha Dasalu, Mat. Oluwalla,
Mary Ije, and Susannah Kute. There is even a
Christian Balogun or Caboceer, John Akirona, i.e.
John the Great, and he is favourably spoken of as
an independent and honest man. The neophytes
are exposed to sore temptations. I have heard con-
vert-women on the coast declare that their native
catechists are holy men, that to offend with them is
not the same as to sin with the laity; besides which,
under such circumstances, it is not their-the weaker
vessel's—' palaver.' In the more degraded stages of
the Roman Catholic religion the penitent thinks the
same of her confessor. Moreover, if I am rightly
informed, convicts are preferred for conversion,
which must naturally lead to breakings out.'
6
The schools contain 265 children, who are crammed
with hymn-singing, reading, and other civilized arts.
As an American missionary rightly observes, the
English language is held to be a second revelation to
mankind, and thus becomes a curse to the people.
The natives should be induced to found, and to sup-
port their own schools; and, until they discover the
value of education, it is perhaps better not to force
their minds.
As for the adults-chiefs and commons-of Abeo-
kuta generally, there is in their minds an ingrained
idolatry, against which even the outburst of mis-
248
THE USUAL SKETCH.
sionary spirit, in the days of Cary and his contem-
poraries, would prove futile. 'At least thirteen
apostles,' as I heard a Scotchman say, 'would be
required for the people Egba.' The power of the
Ogboni is unlimited; it extends from Abeokuta to
Sierra Leone, where the 'Akoo companies' form a
complete vehm gericht, and no foreigner can expect to
swim against such a tide. This may explain the
later failures of our political relations with Abeokuta.
And the Egba is stubborn, most suspicious and hard
to change when he has once adopted an idea; it is
to be feared that without main force-which we can-
not apply—the Ogboni will succeed in defeating all
our best intentions.
249
CHAPTER VI.
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
THE morning of Monday saw me on foot betimes.
At 6 A.M. I again ascended the Ake Hill, behind, or
north of the Church Missionary compound, and pro-
ceeded to take, with prismatic compass, bearings of
Abeokuta, which as yet has not been honoured with
aught worthy the name of plan. My first thought
was to measure by gun-sound, secundum artem, a base
between Ake and Olumo. The timid English resi-
dents feared, however, lest his potent majesty the
Alake might take umbrage at the shooting, and sus-
pect sinister intentions.
The next motion was to meet the Akpesi or Prince
of Eruwan, the second dignitary in the town, who
had called on Commander Bedingfield previous to
this day's interview, for the purpose of communicat-
ing ideas of his own. As at Komasi, and in Great
Benin city, it is not etiquette' for subjects to visit
6
250
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
a stranger before the ceremony of presentation: that
over, however, they call singly and in mass.
The Akpesi is a tall, thin, wrinkled senior, very
plain, close-shaved, as usual, little ornamented, and
poorly clad. He is one of the wise, who never bring
forth their best clothes till after death. His discourse
was sensible, and to the point. Amongst other things,
he declared that Abeokuta did not want this, showing
the backs of both hands placed side by side (hostility),
nor this, one palm up and the other down (double-face
or deceit), but rather this, and this only, both palms
up (a sign of friendship). I took the opportunity of
asking him if he could not procure me admission
into one of the Ogboni lodges. He replied-a great
man never says 'No'-that it would require large fees.
When the amount was demanded, he named twenty-
two bags of cowries, two sheep, and two goats. As
this did not seem to deter me he doubled the sheep
and goats. The sum being acceded to he declared that
there was much death to be seen in those places; and
as this again failed, and he was driven into a corner,
he requested me to 'let it go' at present, but that
on some future occasion I should be satisfied. This
was conclusive, but not satisfactory. It is astonish-
ing how much Asiatics and Africans make of these
mysteries, and how long it takes to fathom them.
I was nearly five years in India before a Brahmin
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
251
could be induced to invest me with the thread of the
Twice Born; and my attempts to discover the secret
of the Jatawalla* were all in vain. My plans of
sketching the interior of an Ogboni lodge failed at
Abeokuta, though Mr. Wilhelm, the catechist, did
his best a week was not sufficient. The last answer
was, that their excellent friend Mr. Townsend had
advised them never to admit a European. At Iko-
radu, however, my friend Mr. M'Coskry and I, hap-
pening to pass an Ogboni lodge, which was full of men
and elders, quietly walked in, and stepped round the
building before the assembly, stupefied by the sudden
appearance of white faces, dropping as it were from
the skies, found presence of mind to protest.
<
Mr. Bowen translates Ogboni, a sort of freema-
sonry, a respectable, elderly man.' It is neither one
nor the other. Any naked boy, running about the
streets, may, when ten years old, if a free-born Egba,
of good repute-integer vitæ scelerisque purus-rise
to this dignity. Nor is it in any way connected
with European freemasonry-a favourite comparison
with the uninitiated. Freemasonry, properly consi-
* The Jatawalla worships Shiva, and is so called from his jata, or huge
mop of hair, which he twists in the shape of a turban. I have found the
length, by careful measurement-passing my thumb-nail down it to detect
plaiting, if possible-six feet and upwards. If there be any secret in this,
what a fortune it would make, even compared with the incomparable oil,
Macassar!'
252
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
dered, is a faith per se-holding the grand tenets-
1st, Monotheism, or the belief in one God, without
which no man can become even an "entered appren-
tice;' and 2ndly, Brotherhood, or the mutual fellow-
ship of man, in all conditions and circumstances of
life. It is evident that neither of these sublime ideas
are indigenous amongst the Egbas. The Alake is
superior to the chief of the Ogboni, and the others
follow in their several degrees. They are elected by
the people, and, together with the war captains, they
form a council, whose powers are said to be unlimited.
They rule during the long interregnums, and at all
times they manage the revenue and the taxes. In
emergencies they are assisted by companies of old
and young men, representing the masses. The
Ogboni have proved a serious obstacle to the progress
of El Islam and Christianity, by their strict surveil-
lance over the juniors, and by the inquisition which
they exercise in the inner affairs of life. Conse-
quently, some missionaries object to converts belong-
ing to it.
I have already alluded to its political
influence.
The Ogboni lodge, which thus resembles the
Muanza of East Africa, the Purrah of the Susu
Timni and Bulloms near Sierra Leone, and the
Endowment House of the City of the Saints, is found
in every town. Supported by the fees paid every
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
253
A
seventeenth day by the members of the lodge, it is a
long, low building, only to be distinguished by the
absence of loungers, fronted by a deep and shady
verandah, with stumpy polygonal clay pillars and a
single door, carefully closed. The panels are adorned
with iron alto-relievos of ultra-Egyptian form; snakes,
hawk-headed figures, and armed horsemen in full
front, riding what are intended to be horses in pro-
file; the whole coloured red, black, and yellow. The
temples of Obatala are similarly decorated.*
gentleman, who had an opportunity of overlooking
the Ogboni lodge from the Ake church steeple, de-
scribed it to me as a hollow building with three
courts, of which the innermost, provided with a
single door, was that reserved for the elders, the holy
of holies, like the Kadasta Kadastan of the Abyssi-
nians. He considered that the courts are intended
for the different degrees. The stranger must, how-
ever, be careful what he believes concerning their
mysteries. The Rev. Mr. Bowen asserts that the
*The doors have distinct panels, upon which are seen a leopard, a
fish, a serpent, and a land tortoise. The horseman is also common.
Mr. Bowen remarks, that one of the carvings was a female figure, with
one hand and one foot,' probably a half Obatala, or the female principle
of Nature; and the monster was remarkable for having a queue of very
long hair (which no negro can have), with a ball or globe at the end.'
Opposite to this were the symbols of the Lampsacan god, or rather the
Yoni Lingam, in juxtaposition. I differ from Mr. Bowen in the opinion
that no negro can have long hair; the Fans of the Gaboon River, to men-
tion no other tribe, often wear it falling upon their shoulders.
254
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
1
initiated are compelled to kneel down and drink a
mixture of blood and water from a hole in the earth.'
The Egbas deny this: moreover, they charge Mr.
Bowen with attempting to worm out their secrets
for the purpose of publication. As all are pledged
to the deepest reticence, and as it would be fatal to
reveal any mystery-if any there be-we are hardly
likely to be troubled with over-information.
The Alake had summoned us to audience at the
early hour of 10 A.M. We went punctually, and
were met at the door by Beri, his Majesty's M.C., who
informed us that his master was then unprepared,
but would let us know when visible. We left the
palace not unamused by this second attempt at, and
success in, 'doing dignity,' and we sauntered about in
the shade outside. Two of the trees showed a pecu-
liar fruit. One had a brace of skulls with tenpenny
nails through the forehead, and bits of brown skin,
like dry fig-peel, still sticking in patches to the half-
bleached bone. These had been women who, accord-
ing to one account, had been executed for attempting
to poison their master, a native Christian merchant;
according to others they had been sold by the said
Christian merchant for sacrifice. Another tree showed
seven of these relics: one of them was almost mum-
mified, and the lower jawbone was still attached by
remnants of cartilage. His Majesty the Alake-who
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
255
had soon heard of our visit to the place-afterwards
informed us that four of these belonged to Egbas who
had been executed for kidnapping their friends and
allies the Ijaye. The Tyburn trees were distin-
guished by the clothes, probably the attire of the dead,
wrapped round the boles up to the branches. I
amused myself with sketching the blossoms that grew
on those boughs, and the scene was quite Dan-
tesque I could not but wish that M. Doré had been
there to borrow from it certain details.
Returning to Mr. Wike's house, we were shown a
small collection of industrial specimens prepared by
the Commercial Association of Abeokuta for the Great
Exhibition of 1862. There was some poor líf, or
palm-tree fibre, used as a sponge throughout Africa;
specimens of the silk-cotton from the bombax; and
someye, or native silk produced by a worm that feeds
upon a fig-leaf. This article may some day become
valuable. Beans were in great abundance, of several
varieties purple, the common kind, red-peckled,
yellow (Calavances), white haricots, black, pink,
whity-brown, and some large red, like our kidney-
beans. I recognized, for the first time, the Njugu ya
mawe (Voiandzeia subterranea) of East Africa, which
is there regarded as the tiger-nut of the western
regions. Besides which there was a soft, useful chalk
dug up near the town, and farm-grown piper cubebs,
*
256
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
whose oil, like that of the ricinus, when not rancid, is
much prized for sauces. I defer an account of the
cotton to a future page.
At 11:15 A.M. we were again summoned to the
palace, and, entering, we found all in statu quo ante,
except that there was a greater gathering than be-
fore, and that the curtains relieving the majestic form
of his Majesty were a fine green velvet and a striped
silk. He receives, it is said, unofficial visitors far less
formally, and the cooking in his verandah is not
interrupted. The same old deal table and native
body-cloth, the same jugs and basins, glasses and
case-bottles, stood before the presence, and he was
fanned by a young wife, who, perceiving the admira-
tion excited by ses appas, veiled her bosom with a bit
of velvet. Behind me sat a handsome young Alufa,*
or Moslem, who told me that he was an Arab, born
at Burnu he certainly spoke the purest Semitic.
'And how about the Jihad? I inquired, in his
vernacular. 'Give those guns and powder to us,
he replied, with a gleaming eye, and we will soon
Islamize these dogs!' The Alake grunted out that
he did not understand dat mouf,' and a sign to the
Alufa caused him to rise and depart.
"
6
Commander Bedingfield opened the palaver by
Alpha' is the usual English way of writing the word, which I pre-
sume is a corruption of the Arabic Árif.
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
257
6
asking explanations concerning our being sent
back from the 'palace.' Fault was thrown upon
Beri, the M.C., and we had the grace to accept this
apology for a designed impertinence. This time it
was business and no mistake.' The Akpesi of Eru-
wan was the king's orator, and he spoke well,
dividing his speech topically, touching upon all the
interesting heads, quoting proverbs, monopolizing
attention like a diner-out, and exciting us against his
enemies. He began by saying, after the usual com-
pliments-the Arabic afiyah, health, was repeatedly
used, and the reply was amin, or amen-that he
must be allowed to give us a detailed account of the
events that had lately happened. On our consenting,
he commenced a good two hours' speech, talking ten
minutes at a time, and then resting whilst his words.
were interpreted to us by Lagos Williams, who, as-
suming all the tone of a Methodist preacher, spun
out his words to the finest length, lest his African
brethren might suspect him of 'skipping' or 'fudging.'
The assembly was hushed, except when some chief
vociferated 'silence!' or some sycophant drawled out
'don't die!' The mad dogs of Ibadan,' we were
told, had repeatedly rejected the king's messengers,
had bought ammunition at Lagos, had declared their
intention of first shaving the forehead, then the back
of the head, i. e., of destroying, as a preliminary, Ijaye,
VOL. I.
6
S
258
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
6
their neighbour, and afterwards Abeokuta; and they
had threatened, in case of interference, to blacken
every Englishman's face as cloth is dyed with indigo.
'These,' he said, pointing to six seniors squatting in
the opposite verandah, three brown as Mulattos, and
all the half-dozen naked to the waist, with the vari-
ous appurtenances of chiefdom-cowrie-bags, chauris,
gun-barrel walking-sticks, and huge broad-brimmed
beavers, trimmed with half a foot of faded gilt lace
these are the kings of cities which have fallen
into the hands of the Yorubas,* and which we will
recover before we rest.' He scouted the report that
the people of Ijaye had been sold off by their allies,
the Egbas; the cry had been raised at Lagos by
the Yorubas to excite the English against innocent
Abeokuta; and in disproof of it he pointed in the
direction where four men's heads had been taken off
for kidnapping. He explained the notorious dis-
appearance of the Ijayans by the fact that the Are,
their king, had made sale the penalty of fainéance in
war, and that the people, pressed by hunger, had been
compelled to dispose of their slaves and children, their
wives, and even themselves, for two bags, or about
one pound sixteen shillings each. All of which was
plausible, but not true. He then slipped into another
subject, declared that Mr. Sam. Crowther, jun., should
* Yoruba Proper, Ibadan, and Ilori, is here alluded to.
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING. ¦
259
never again enter the gates of Abeokuta, protesting,
as the cause of the people's wrath, that Europeanized
Egba's spite against the Rev. Mr. Townsend, an ex-
cellent man, ever their friend, who kept five hundred
kegs of powder ready for the defence of their city.
Waxing aggrieved, he entered into a complaint touch-
ing the conduct of the acting governor of Lagos, who
had written insulting letters to them, and the
late Captain Jones, who, bribed with four hundred
bags by the Ibadans, had not only broken his promise
to bring up from Lagos, for the purpose of drilling
the Abeokutans, a detachment of ten men from the
West India regiment, but had also attempted to visit
their very enemy-that scum of the country-who
was sworn to dye white men black, as with indigo.
He concluded with the apposite remark that all of
public had now been said, and that what remained
must be spoken in private. This was the gist of an
harangue which did not cease till men began to
yawn; many followed the example of the farmer-king
and snored, a few rose to depart, and all appeared to
be tired. Even the palaver soon wearies the cobweb
brains of these Africans.
Commander Bedingfield saw his opportunity,
and sensibly declared that as they had had their
say he also must have his. As regards the war
with Ibadan, it was their own affair, their loss
S 2
260
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
and not ours; we wanted not Abeokuta, but peace
and plenty of cotton; and although we might aid
her in defence, we should never abet her in offensive
war. With respect to the man Crowther, he also was
entitled to a fair hearing; and although the Alake
had a right to banish a foreigner offending against
the laws of the land, still allegations against a British
subject holding property in the place should be sub-
stantiated before being acted upon. Captain Jones's
letter to government-it had, by its entire truth,
given great offence at Abeokuta to white men as
well as to black-might contain a few expressions
better omitted, still excusable in so young an officer;
but no one wearing her Majesty's uniform was capa-
ble of receiving a bribe (as this was stated with
indignation, the Akpesi rose and explained that the
bribe had been given by the Ibadans to the Ijebus).
Moreover, it is an European practice for a non-com-
batant to visit both armies in the field. An allusion
was then made to a human sacrifice, whose object was
good fortune in war against the enemy, offered up, on
the 12th October, 1861, outside the Ijaye gate, with
the permission of the Egbas, by the people of Ikesi and
Ife, the town destroyed, it is said, by the Ibadans
four or five years ago. An Ibadan prisoner, who had
long been in chains, of which he showed marks, was
led out, loaded with cowries, and made contented with
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
261
rum; a crowd collected round him, sending messages
to their departed friends, and begging the victim to
remember their wants, children for the women and
wives for the bachelors. The captive, at first, made
some objections, but presently became in excellent
humour, and sang his epicedium with a will. Mr.
Stone, an American Baptist missionary, had heard
what was to take place, but did not arrive in time.
The man was duly decapitated, and the usual cere-
monies followed the death, such as entreating the ghost
not to be wrath with, or to haunt his slayers. This
was the tale palmed upon us: it was a systematic
falsehood. The Alake had become possessor of an
Ife idol,* and the chiefs had told him that a man
should be offered to it for peace. The job was given
to the Ife people because the idol was from their
country, and the rite was performed outside the gate
to throw dust in European eyes. 'The captain'
reprobated all such proceedings, and concluded by
informing the Alake that H.E. the acting gover-
nor of Lagos, who had offended them, had done so
under orders, and that, as he was acknowledged
by the home authorities, he must be treated with
respect. Whereupon a form of written apology was
*The Rev. Mr. Crowther informs us that all kinds of idols are to be had
at fe, and that celebrated gods are frequently purchased there by the people
of other tribes.
262
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
passed to Mr. King, a coloured missionary sitting
hard by.
But kidnapping and human sacrifice are still sore
subjects with the West African. Presently we had
a scene. The old Alake had ceased to doze, and
gradually his one eye lighted up, he forgot to fan
his under-arms, to swab his face, to snuff, and to
drink. As he insisted upon breaking silence, many
chiefs, turbulent and unvenerative as Africans ever
are, left the assembly, audibly declaring that, as their
king would speak, they washed their hands of the
consequences. His Majesty began by telling us
fiercely that he himself had written the letter to the
acting governor of Lagos without the knowledge
of his councillors, and that since the time of the
Ado war, he had ever known him as a merchant and
as an enemy. He then entered upon the subject
of the war, his voice changed from a low sing-song
recitative to a louder tone, he lashed himself into
a rage—the listeners half applauding-and finally he
rose upon his feet and bellowed like a rickety old
bull. He was rather an effective figure; a tall, large,
aged man, amply clad-only his left eye, the bright
side, showing. He thumped his breast, and not being
over-firm upon his legs, he leaned back so much that
his wives were compelled to hold on his white-topped,
blue-fringed, scarlet velvet cap. Never,' he ex-
6
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
263
6
claimed with violence, will my word be for peace
as long as Ibadan holds the graves of our fathers,
our homes, and our ancestral farms!" And he
foamed at the mouth with the idea. Some of my
companions thought the display natural. I was too
much at home with African customs-the scene is
by no means unfamiliar to Europe-to mistake the
movement, but I judged from it that our mediation
would not be highly acceptable. At last the Alake,
who had gradually left his cage, sank back into it,
the curtain fell amidst shouts of applause, and the
assembly-warned by the cold gusts and the lively
dust that a tornado was at hand-prepared to break
up. We drank a little peppermint, and as we were
told that the king would meet us outside, Mr. Eales
and I left the palace. Commander Bedingfield, how-
ever, more sensibly sent in a message that he must
shake hands with and be duly dismissed by the Alake,
who, after some delay, returned smiling in fresh clean
robes, and hobnobbed with his 'distinguished visitor.'
The palaver was well managed, and in one sense
successful: it seemed to promise an early, though not
a satisfactory, adjustment of a very complicated affair,
which however was not fated to be. As the expla-
nation throws light upon the customs and politics of
this part of the world, I will enter upon it at some
length.
264
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
6
The war between Abeokuta and Ibadan, which
formed the subject of the late palaver, began twenty
moons ago,' i.e. in May, 1859, and in 1863 it is far
from settled.* It is an old quarrel. As early as
Richard Lander's day that mysterious race the Fulas†
were driving the pure Yorubas southwards, and
they in their turn were ousting the Egbas. As has
been shown, the dispersion of the Egbas was mainly
brought about by the Ijebus and the Ibadans, who,
being warlike and quasi-Moslems, took possession of
the rich farm lands north of comparatively barren
Abeokuta, and have now made them their own.
There has long, therefore, been bad blood.
origin of the last quarrel is stated to be that the
Ibadans slew the wealthy mother-in-law of Murummi,
Are or chief of Ijaye, who seized the murderers, and
*The style of fighting will be described in a future chapter.
The
+Fula,' a word said to signify brown or yellow, has been traced back
to the Psylli, or Psulloi, of the classical authors; and others make them
descendants of the shepherd kings. They are known by a variety of
names-Poul, Poulh, Peul, Pheul, Pholey, and Phoulah: in Hausa and
Yoruba they are known as Filani and Falani; in Burnu as Filata or
Fillatah; and their country is called Fuladú. The race is said to come
from Masina, near Tinbuktu, and to have inhabited the three Fula
countries which are derived from Phut, the grandson of Noah. About
a century ago, their celebrated Shaykh Usman (alias Danfodio) built
Sokoto in the woods of Ader, organized an empire, and marched under
a white flag to the Jihad. He conquered Hausa, Kubbi, Yaori, Nupe,
and Moslem Burnu, and became Amir el Muminin over followers that
have now spread from the Senegal River to the Ibos, at the head of the
Niger Delta, an extent of country larger than Russia in Europe.
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
265
Where-
refused to give them up without ransom.
upon Ibadan marched against Ijaye, and the latter
threw themselves into the arms of Abeokuta. On
the other hand, it is generally believed that the
Ijebu Remo and Dahome, those ever-watchful ene-
mies of the Egbas, supported Ibadan. The quarrel
has lately been complicated by the threats of Dahome,
who is preparing his sacrifices: the arrangements
usually begin in September and October, and the
attack takes place in December and January. To
make matters worse, the Mohammedans of Ilori, to
the north of Ibadan, thinking, I suppose, that when
Kafirs fall out Moslems come in, have promised aid
and comfort to Abeokuta. The war has produced
great scarcity, trebling the price of many articles in
Yoruba, besides causing a serious deficiency in palm-
oil and other products. It was generally supposed
that both were weary of the affair, but that they
would not cease without the intervention of a third
party. Further experience, however, has proved the
error of the supposition.
There was, morever, a deeper cause of quarrel
than old and obsolete animosities, and this was care-
fully kept concealed. To an African power, direct
connection with the seaboard is a necessity. Dahome
was unknown in the last century until she had con-
quered and absorbed the maritime kingdom of
266
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
Whydah. The Ashanti wars in the earlier part of
the present century were waged against the Gold
Coast races and ourselves with the same object; and
at the present moment there are actual hostilities for
the same end. The possession of a port gives two
great advantages. The first is a power of exportation
and importation without paying the heavy African
transit dues. The second is the right to claim such
transit dues from neighbours and nations dwelling
inland. The African ever aspires to the condition of
a middleman, when, Jew-like, he can live gratis and
labourless by the sweat of another's brow. Such is
the condition of the whole of this coast, a broken line
of broker settlements, some numbering, like Grand
Bonny, nine thousand souls, and such has from time
immemorial been the condition of the shores of
Eastern Africa. Abeokuta having obtained by means
of the Ogun a direct communication with the sea, is
determined to charge a heavy transit duty upon the
produce of Ibadan and the inland kingdoms. And
those who can find no other direct road will fight till
they can obtain access to the ocean. This greed of
gain-not the pious and patriotic aspiration to re-
cover the lands of their forefathers-has sustained the
Abeokutans in a four years' conflict with the Ibadans.*
*The missionaries, headed by Mr. Townsend, take an opposite view of
the affair. According to them, the Ibadans seized Ido and Ilugun,
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
267
It remains to consider the causes of complaint
brought by the Egbas against the Crowthers and
Captain Jones-they are as instructive as the causes
of the war. Mr. Sam. Crowther, like his brother
Mr. Josiah, had made himself wonderfully unpopular
at Abeokuta. He had refused to pay certain fines
leviable on certain offences. His accusations against
Mr. Townsend were the cheval de bataille of the
Abeokutans. But as before, so here, the true cause
of complaint lay much deeper. Mr. Sam., like his
respected father who was proposed for a bishopric,
had been witness to and an active hand in promoting
a treaty, upon which the Alake, his chiefs, and his
subjects, soon learned to look in its real light, and
were seized with violent indignation.
I quote this instructive instrument in extenso below."
stopped the trade road to Ijaye and Isehin, and drove the Abeokutans
out of their farms. Her Majesty's Consul at Lagos, and the British mer-
chants, sent deputations to Abeokuta and Ibadan, to prevent the war:
at the former place it succeeded, at the latter it failed. My belief is,
however, that the Abeokutans were, and are still, the aggressors.
* TREATY.
THIS treaty, made between His Majesty Okukenu, Alake; Somoye,
Ibashorun; Sokenu, Ogubonna, and Atambala, chiefs and baloguns of
Abbeokuta, on the first part; and Martin Robinson Delany, and Robert
Campbell, of the Niger Valley exploring party, commissioners from the
African race of the United States and the Canadas in America, on the
second part, covenants—
ART. 1.-That the king and chiefs, on their part, agree to grant and
268
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
It speaks for itself: it is sublime in its impudence.
If carried out it would create a system of fueros more
assign unto the said commissioners, on behalf of the African race in
America, the right and privilege of settling, in common with the Egba
people, on any part of the territory belonging to Abbeokuta, not otherwise
occupied.
ART. 2.-That all matters requiring legal investigation among the
settlers be left to themselves, to be disposed of according to their own
custom.
ART. 3.-That the commissioners, on their part, also agree that the
settlers shall bring with them, as an equivalent for the privileges above
accorded, intelligence, education, a knowledge of the arts and sciences,
agriculture, and other mechanic and industrial occupations, which they
shall put into immediate operation, by improving the lands, and in other
useful vocations.
ART. 4.—That the laws of the Egba people shall be strictly respected
by the settlers, and in all matters in which both parties are concerned,
an equal number of commissioners, mutually agreed upon, shall be
appointed, who shall have power to settle such matters. As a pledge of
our faith, and the sincerity of our hearts, we each of us hereunto affix our
hand and seal, this twenty-seventh day of December, Anno Domini One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine.
(Witness)
(Attest)
His mark X
His mark X
His mark X
His mark
X
OKUKENU, ALAKE.
SOMOYE, IBASHORUN.
SOKENU, BALOGUN.
OGUBONNA, BALOGUN.
His mark
X
ATAMBALA, BALOGUN.
His mark
×
X
OGUSEYE, ANABA.
His mark X
His mark X
(Signed)
(Signed)
NGTEBO BALOGUNOSC.
OGUDEMU, AGEOKO.
SAMUEL CROWTHER, Jun.
SAMUEL CROWTHER, SEN.
M. R. DELANY.
ROBERT CAMPBELL.
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
269
6
it
exceptional than any that Mexico has yet seen:
would found an imperium in imperio, bringing into the
heart of the country a wholly irresponsible race. There
is no possible guarantee for Art. 3. Whence is the
intelligence' to come, and what may be its measure?
Moreover, though signed by eight names, of whom
half died before the end of 1861, it was never sub-
mitted to the greater chiefs and to the Ogboni lodges,
or Upper and Lower Houses of the land, and it de-
grades the people because it places their freedom in
the hands of a king and of a few chiefs. The reader
has already seen that the Alake of Abeokuta is no
autocrat.
That needy and greedy coloured fugitives from the
western world should enter into such speculations is
no wonder. That the late Sir Culling E. Eardley,
Bart., of Bedwell Park, should 'heartily recommend'
the scheme in a preface to Mr. Campbell's brochure,
and call upon Manchester to second the movement,
is, as I have already shown, the error of those who
make Africa a no-man's land. Land quarrels caused
the old Egba troubles, and nothing but agrarian wars
could result in the haven of refuge opened to his
brethren by the Pilgrim to his Motherland. What
would Sir Culling E. Eardley have replied to a depu-
tation of gipsies, who proposed to settle themselves
as a free republic under the spare shades of Bedwell
270
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
Park? Yet that is what he advocates for Egba-
land.*
Meanwhile, the Alake and chiefs, far more acute
than the English philanthrope, declare that, whilst
perfectly ready to admit settlers subject to the British
authorities at Lagos, and amenable to English law,
they will have nothing to do with these irresponsible
adventurers, who, in time, may become too strong
for them. They have already tasted the sweets of a
negro immigration from Sierra Leone, and they are
by no means willing to see anything more of the
Oibo dúdú, white-blacks, or trouser-white-men, as
they call their guests. They therefore adopt the
African, I may say the universal plan, of denying
the transaction in toto. The Alake was half asleep
when he affixed his mark; moreover, 'black and
white' does not bind firm and fast in these lands.
The chiefs assert with truth that they have no power
to execute such instrument without the full permis-
sion of the Ogboni lodges. The people declare that
they know nothing of the matter which most con-
cerns them. And I venture to opine that, as a mere
* With similar simplicity, Mr. Abraham Lincoln proposed shunting off
his spare contrabands into the Republics of Central America, who, as might
be expected, gratefully declined the boon, declaring, like the Abeokutans,
that they are ready to receive emigrants of every colour, but not those who
appear as an independent power.
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
271
act of justice, we should allow the Egbas to do what
they like with their own.
Mr. Consul Foote had applied for a detachment of
two hundred soldiers of the Second West India
Regiment, to instruct the Egbas in military matters.
The idea was not brilliant. These negro troops
naturally despise 'niggers,' and are not willing to
serve with them: the men, however, were forwarded
to Lagos, were kept there till they became trouble-
some, and were sent back to head-quarters. Mean-
while, Capt. A. T. Jones, of the same corps-the son
of a well-known military name—was a young
was a young officer
of considerable talent and energy, of an ardent tem-
perament, strong in body, but unfortunately in ill-
health. He was directed to obtain 'military informa-
tion touching the resources of the country, and the
means the Abeokutans may have of carrying on of-
fensive war.' Delayed by a fever caught on the Osa
Lagoon during the affair at Porto Novo, he left his
detachment of ten men at Lagos, reached Abeokuta
on the 11th May, 1861, and was graciously received
by the Alake. After stating his object, he was
forwarded to the seat of war with an escort and in-
troductions to the chiefs. On the 20th of May he
arrived at Okomeji, the camp of observation, distant
thirty miles from Abeokuta, and he visited its com-
mander, the late Ogubonna, who, ten years before,
272
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
had repulsed the Dahoman attack. He then pro-
ceeded forty miles northwards to Ijaye, and on the
22nd of May he started for the front. The enemy,
hearing from spies of the white man's arrival, re-
solved to waylay him: however, by hard riding, and
by preceding his escort, Captain Jones entered the
Egba lines that same evening. On the next day—
operations were hurried by both parties, who were
anxious for the fetish of the white man's presence-
took place the battle of Ijaye. Captain Jones placed
himself near the first rank of the Abeokutan army,
about three hundred yards from the enemy, and
watched the tactics of both parties. He withdrew
only when his interpreter was wounded in the thigh
by his side, a bullet grazed his own leg, and a third
ball struck the tree against which he was leaning,
a few inches above his head. When the action,
which proved a drawn battle, ended, he retired to
the Egba lines, and returned to Abeokuta on the
31st of May.
The report written by Captain Jones, after his
return to Lagos, caused great umbrage at Abeokuta.
The older missionaries were vexed to see the place
'shown up,' and declared that it had been malig-
nantly described. The natives, influenced by one
Turner, a coloured man, now living with the King of
Ijebu, were loud in their complaints. They declared
}
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
273
that Captain Jones had appeared their friend, that
he had made all manner of promises, and that he had
deliberately broken them for the worst of purposes-
all of which was of course false. Perhaps he was a
little hot and hasty in his expressions touching the
lukewarmness with which our offer of auxiliaries was
received, and the 'scorn and indifference' manifested
by the Abeokutans in neglecting certain useless
pieces of artillery sent to them from England. But,
on the whole, his report was perfectly truthful, and
redounded greatly to the credit of this young and
promising officer.
Captain Jones remained at Lagos for a few days,
suffering from fever. He then set out via Ijebu for
Ibadan, taking with him a servant, an interpreter
named Thomas, and a messenger or mihmandar from
King Dosumo. Falling ill on the way, he was
advised to return, and at last he was carried in a
hammock from the landing-place at Ijini, twenty
miles down the Lagoon, to his canoe. The breeze
being against him, he was delayed there for some
time, and he breathed his last-Europeans say from
congestion of the lungs, natives say from poison-on
the Ikoradu Waters, within sight of Lagos, 7th
July, 1861.
Monday's evening was as gloomy as its morning; the
tornado, after exhausting its electricity, poured down
VOL. I.
T
274
OUR SECOND VISIT TO THE KING.
6
·
a slow, steady rain, which effectually confined us to
in-door amusements. The séjour was becoming bien
triste. On Saturday the Ake converts and those
of Abaka had a prayer-meeting for general pur-
poses, for the success of Commander Bedingfield's
mission. Sunday was of course a day of rest'
(7 A.M., native service and school; 10 30 A.M.,
English service, followed by school; and 430 P.M.,
native service-such is 'rest'). On Monday after-
noon there was a monthly prayer-meeting of all the
churches and chapels for the forwarding of peace-a
custom, I believe, originating with the Loodhianah
Mission in Northern India; and on Tuesday, it
being the 5th of the month, there will be a gathering
for the benefit of the natives; ministers, school-
masters, and native agents all meet, and the converts
are expected to attend. It is evident that the Abeo-
kuta mission cannot be accused of neglecting its
duties.
275
CHAPTER VII.
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
MATUTINE, I ascended the Ake church steeple,
pulled out a board to enable me to catch a glimpse of
the Ogboni lodge of Eruwan, and succeeded only in
seeing that it had three courts, which confirmed the
account of my informant. This day, Tuesday, the to
us memorable 5th of November, was to become more
memorable yet. His Majesty the Alake had over-
whelmed Commander Bedingfield with the prof-
fer of a return visit an event rare in Abeokuta;
moreover, his Majesty had the grace to be punctual
to his time, 10 A.M.
The Egbas, it must be remembered, are a race of
bushmen and farmers, clothiers and blacksmiths, com-
pelled by their enemies to collect and centralize.
They were naturally unwilling to elect a king till
necessity drove, and then they did it with all manner
of limitations. The Alake, I have said, possesses
neither the state nor the power of the pettiest Indian
T 2
276
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
Rajah. The only king ever known in Yoruba was
he of Oyo (Eyeo), the capital, who was described as
living in regal state.
Negrotic Africa-not unlike her sisters Europe
and Asia-has three distinctly marked forms of
government. The first and strongest is a military
despotism, like that of Ashanti, Dahome, Kongo, the
Balonda people, the Kazembe and Urungu; Turkey,
Persia, and the Great Mogul of the olden time, are
their equivalents. In these the ruler owns no law
but custom, which means right, and which cannot be
transgressed even by the most powerful.* The
second is a kind of feudal monarchy, modified by the
personal character of the king; oftentimes he is
inferior in weight to his councillors and officers, and
even a slave may refuse to obey him. Instances are,
the Kafir races, Umyamwezi, Karagwah, Yoruba, and
others, in which, like those of Maskat, Yemen,
and most parts of Arabia, the regal power is some-
times almost obliterated. The last and lowest are
rude republics, in which a kind of autonomy prevails:
they are chiefly found amongst the Bedouin tribes, the
hill people, and the jungle races of Asia and Africa.
To the second of this category belongs the
ment of Abeokuta, a weak constitutional monarchy,
govern-
*So Darius (Dan. vi. 13—15), unable to change the 'custom' which
he had established, could kill but not spare,
I
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
277
blighted by the checks and limits which were in-
tended to prevent its luxuriance. The king com-
mands in his own town, but nowhere else, like the
magistrate of a Swiss canton-to which, indeed, the
state of Abeokuta may fitly be compared-and his
orders hardly extend within gunshot. His is a mo-
narchy engrafted upon the old barbarous patriarchal
rule. The chiefs and councillors, more formidable than
the barons in King John's day, are bound, though they
often refuse, to render suit and service to their su-
zerain. Ancient tradition is their statute law, which,
amongst civilized people, sanctions the most arbitrary
injustice, and which breeds a hundred tyrants instead
of one. Their king is also fettered by the laws of the
land, of which the Ogbonis are the conservators and
exponents. He and his council may act in judicial
proceedings, or the case may be carried before the
Ogbonis in lodge assembled, or, if generally import-
ant, it may be decided by a 'monster meeting' of the
lieges. No treaty or agreement is valid, unless rati-
fied by all those who have a voice in it. No ordi-
nance against witch torture or human sacrifice would
be respected, unless the bill pass through the House
of Lords, viz., the Bale,* with the chiefs, civil and
*The Bale of a town is its governor, subject only to the king. In each
house there is a Bale or householder. Like the king, these Bales also have
their associates or lieutenants.
278
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
military; the head fetishmen, who are the peers spiri-
tual; the select elders, who are the law officers of the
crown; and the House of Commons, or Ogboni lodges.
A subject transgressing such law would put himself
under the protection of a chief, and then, unless the
popular voice be unanimous, he cannot be punished.
'An Englishman's house is his castle,' says the Euro-
pean proverb. Every man is king in his own
house,' is the less moderate Yoruban saying. It will
now be clear to the reader how much can be expected
from civilized treaties and conventions with such
barbarians.
6
After this long digression, return we to the Alake's
visit.
'Shouts of applause ran rattling to the skies'
First
in most discordant music, whilst a braying of horns
and a beating of tom-toms, giving notice of his
Majesty's arrival, brought us all to the compound's
gate. The procession was not imposing.
came the family-chair or stool; it was probably a
common framework of bamboo, hidden by a cloth of
coarse red serge. This venerable utensil '
6
accompanied by the Akpesis and other chiefs, who
ominously seemed thus to pay more attention to it
than to its master; so amongst Moslems the turban
often fares better than the wearer. Succeeded a few
lads carrying drawn knives and coarse swords; they
was
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
279
acted cutlass boys or pages to the Alake. The great
man himself appeared under an umbrella of huge
dimensions, inferior only to the little tent under
which the King of Ashanti walks in state: the mate-
rial was a glaring pink silk, with a heavy red fringe,
and it was bran new, as the paper lingering about
the wires showed. During the visit it was placed
outside, against the house-wall, and its accidental fall
was followed by the sound of cudgelling, and the
normal results. The Alake was habited in the larger
fez, with its band of blue beads, and he tottered
along with difficulty under a ponderous robe of
scarlet velvet-in shape somewhat like the proctor's
at Alma Mater-worn over an Ewu ágbadá or
Guinea-fowl pattern of similar shape, but of less gor-
geous hue. He propped himself on a beaded staff,
some five feet long-canes and swords here do the
duty of European cards and Asiatic signets* - and he
flirted a white fly-whisk, with beaded handle, but with-
out the little bells. His pantaloons were of purple
velvet, with a broad stripe of the veriest tinsel gold,
and his carpet slippers were fringed round with black
monkey's skin, reminding one of the 'pair, large
enough for an elephant,' worn by that dread Nigerian
potentate who declared all embarkation in a canoe to
Similarly, in the olden times of England, a stick called Irmin Sule or
the Pillar of Irmin, and sacred to Thor, was used in musters.
280
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
be essentially unkingly. Never before was such an
old 'Guy' seen. Being very fond of children, he
led by the hand a son and heir; the boy was by
no means plain, and was dressed somewhat after the
fashion of his papa. Around them pressed a multi-
tude of wives and slave girls, with bare heads, and
hair dressed melon-wise, coral necklaces, and bosoms
veiled with white cloths, over which, at the waist,
were fastened sacques of black and variegated cotton
velvets, girt with light-coloured kerchiefs.
harem was accompanied by the hoi polloi, cowrie-
bag bearers and other officials of the household,
armed with huge black whips of hippopotamus hide,
decorated with brass tacks. The total might have
been eighty souls, and they all crowded into one
not large room. The atmosphere soon became that
of a slave-ship.
The
After com'liments-to use the customary initial for-
mula of diplomatic communication in these regions-
which were acknowledged by the chief protruding his
tongue, he sat down, handed his chob or stick of office
to an attendant, placed the son between his knees, and
became the central point of a female semicircle. The
eldest wife, a gaunt old woman, standing bolt upright
behind him, supported his upper regions with both
hands upon his shoulders, and occasionally passed a
yellow bandanna over his pearl-studded face and
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
281
neck. Two others, on his right and left, used
cow-skin fans: when undue warmth troubled the
great man's body, he raised his arms high in the air,
threw off the wide sleeves, and directed the cooling
draught to be applied where most wanted. The rest
grouped themselves near the wall, in a crescent, open
to the front. Commander Bedingfield sat down
opposite the Alake, Mr. Eales on the right of his
chief officer, whilst I took my place in the rear for
the purpose of easier sketching. The chiefs ranged
themselves round Mr. Wike's room, crowding on the
chairs and sofas, and looking daggers if compelled to
squat, as they do at home, upon the floor. The usual
afiyah and amin-these words sounded like signs of
'a good time coming'-concluded, the palaver pro-
ceeded, the interlocutors being the captain,' through
Lagos Williams, who, having lately been made an
Ogboni, had become ultra-Egba; the Akpesi, and at
times the Alake.
6
The subject of the human sacrifice was again
brought upon the tapis. As has been said, when the
Awajali of Ode dies, his servants are slain. Lately
an attendant youth, seeing the royal personage likely
to 'hop the twig,' endeavoured to make his escape in
time. He was seized, however, and history is silent
as to his fate.
I need hardly enlarge upon the national duty of
282
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
putting down with a strong hand such abomina-
tions as those of Abeokuta and Ode. The late Mr.
M'Gregor Laird describes moral suasion in Africa
as a twenty-four pounder, with British seamen be-
hind it; and Mr. Consul Hutchinson equally happily
defined an English official's moral force to be a moral
farce without a gun-boat. When children require
the stick, we apply it; when adults misbehave them-
selves, we put them in irons; and if Africa, Western
or Eastern, requires the twenty-four pounder and the
gun-boat, we ought not to withhold them from her.
6
England is passing from one phase of sentiment
into another. Before the mutiny of the mild Hindu,
all was ordered to be suaviter in modo, till the natives,
our respectable fellow-subjects,' were petted and
spoiled by over-indulgence. In those fiery times we
found that the fortiter in re-measures which, a year
before, would have provoked a national shudder-
was necessary to our very existence. In the due ad-
mixture of both, the narm and the garm--as the people
have it-the rough and the smooth, the bakhshish
and the bastinado, lies the secret of preserving the
health of the Asiatic and African body politic. The
old trader was not so far wrong who advised his
friends, when dealing with a 'black fellow,' to hold
out one hand for shaking, and to keep the other
ready for knocking down.
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
283
The Akpesi of Eruwan again explained—without a
word of truth-that the human sacrifice in question
was the work, not of Abeokutans, but solely of men
from Ife and Ikisi. But Commander Bedingfield,
who now knew the whole affair, simply replied
that he was shocked at such an event; that it was a
step in the wrong direction; that it would be a hard
nut for the English people to crack, and that the
Alake should not have allowed it.
A little lying on the part of the natives ensued,
when it was broken off by the sudden irruption of
Mr., Mrs., and Master Gollmer, and Messrs. Wilcoxon
and Roper, of the Church Missionary Society.
The first-mentioned did not fail to impress us care-
fully and intelligibly with a sense of the high honour
conferred upon us by the presence of the Alake. All
Windsor Castle in the house of a subject would
hardly have produced an equal amount of congratula-
tion. Master Gollmer was politely received by the
young prince, who was about the size of a small
French poodle; but the European juvenile, alarmed at
the novelty of the scene, began to boo-hoo in a style
which soon caused the precipitate retreat of the
party. We resumed the palaver.
Many solemn promises of reform, not to be
broken, as the phrase is, till the next opportunity,
were voluntarily given to us. The Akpesi then
284
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
observed that it might be the wish of English-
men not to behead criminals; that yesterday we
had been looking at and writing' the skulls, and
so forth.
'
This was easily settled. Legal executions are not
yet objected to by the civilized people of England.
C'est incroyable, mais c'est vrai.
The Akpesi then referred to the correspondence
from Lagos, which he insisted had been far from
courteous, and which he said had been answered in a
similar spirit. The fact is, they did not say so, but
they could not get over the charge of having pulled a
beast's whiskers.
Commander Bedingfield suggested bona verba,
remarking that litera scripta manet, and that civility,
is a sine quâ non in official correspondence.
The Akpesi then uprose and spoke as he was wont
-submissè, temperatè, granditer. He ran through a
brief history of the white men who had visited Abeo-
kuta, beginning with Mr. Townsend and ending with
Messrs. Beecroft and Forbes. He then digressed into
a little violence touching the Crowthers. Mr. Sam.
Crowther, Sen.'s name was Ajai, struggling for
life,' a native of the little village of Ishoggo (Os-
hogun), who had been taken prisoner in a Fula
attack about 1821, and who had been rescued from a
Portuguese slaver by H.M.S. ' Myrmidon,' Captain,
6
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
285
afterwards Sir Henry Leeke. Ajai was therefore
still a subject of the Alake, but, from respect for the
English, he had been allowed to wear pantaloons,
and to call himself an Oibo dudu.
Yet his son,
Mr. Samuel Crowther, Jun., had proved himself
a bitter enemy to his black brethren, or rather
masters, by traducing their friend Mr. Townsend.
Therefore he had better stay at Lagos; and if he
came to Abeokuta, the people would certainly kill
him.
The reply was, that the Alake could object for a
good and sufficient reason to any one setting foot
in his city, but that killing was not to be spoken
of, as such an event might lead to serious complica-
tions.
6
Then,' quoth the Akpesi, 'he-Ajai's son-shall
not come back till Tow'sen' returns.'
6
6
Presently,' replied the captain, we shall know if
it be Mr. Townsend's wish to revisit Abeokuta.'
The Alake, who awaking after a long doze, now
wreathed his face with curious smiles, and took
up the thread of discourse. His delivery was not
pleasant; the loss of his incisors, and the length of
his canines, rendered him almost unintelligible. His
tongue protruded in a queer, paralytic way. He
spoke so low as to be hardly audible, and at times he
broke forth into a crone-like chuckle. He spoke with
286
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
the utmost deliberation, and when he stopped to be
fanned and wiped, his claqueurs vociferated the usual
cries. He also thought it necessary to go through
the history of his white visitors, beginning, not as
German savans with the inevitable Adam, but with
the siege of Ado, when the acting governor of Lagos
first became his enemy. It took place, I may observe,
in 1840, or one year before Mr. M'Coskry came to
the coast. He ended with Mr. Foote and the attack
on Porto Novo. 'White men,' said the Alake, 'have
stood before me in three forms missionaries, war-
men, and merchants. Missionaries are good men who
'teach book,' and who dissuade people from slavery
and sacrifice, exhorting them to live in peace and
quiet, but never meddling with their neighbours'
business. (!) War-men are also good men; their trade
is to fight, and yet they fight for order, not to gratify
their own passions; they harm no one but enemies;
they are heroes-they are giants. As for merchants,
they come to get what they can; they care for no-
thing but cowries; they trade with a man, and his
enemy-in fact,' said the Alake, raising his voice,
they are liars and rascals.' N.B.-Two members of
this unjustly abused body were sitting in the room,
and one was looking uncommonly glum. As for
the Oibo dudu '—the white-blacks, or Sierra Leonites
6
6
resumed the king, 'I must call them even worse
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
287
than the merchants.'* After this ebullition of feeling
Okokenu ran over all the Ibadan war; how the
Ibadans had intrigued with Lagos and with Fallun-
King Dosumo's string-puller-how they had brought
Dahome to war with him, and how they had slaugh-
tered his Ijayan friends. Could he be at peace with
* H.M. was not so far wrong. The following, which is an exact copy of
a letter addressed to Dr. Harrison, will show what is going on at Abeokuta
on the part of the Sierra Leone settlers:
DEAR SIR,
'To the Editor of the Iwe Irohin.
'Lagos, Sept. 28th, 1861.
'Sorry you have not inserted the whole of our defence against
such notorious falsehood of the W. African of the 26th May.
'But as you take upon yourselves to refute our defence. We therefore
pray you most earnestly to proof the fact, who is this Sierra Leone Emi-
grants that thus denie, that he is not an emigrant from Sierra Leone, and
in the next place to proof, which of the Sierra Leone Emigrants, has at any
time claimed to be tried by native law, which is another error, which you
must either proof or correct.
6
We belief that whatever is inserted in any such paper for public perusal,
must be true and nothing but the truth.
We are not forced by the late Consul Foote to register our names as
you imagine.
'With regard to a S. Woman who you said to be exacting five strings
out of seven from a boy slave who was servant to a whiteman "Pray
Messrs. Editors," It is in your place to report such one to H.B.M. Consul
and to be punished, and if not, you can name such one, but not to charge
the whole population with an offence committed by a single individual. It
was in order to distinguish one man from another was the reason a name
given to every man.
'We remain, dear Sir,
'Your Obedient Servants,
THE SIERRA LEONE EMIGRANTS.
'P.S.--Pray to insert the whole of the above.'
288
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such people? Finally, he again warned us to write
to England, that Agbome was engaged in the sacrifices
preliminary to a commando. This may be true:*
that amiable people are mustered at the end of every
wet season for the annual slave hunt; the king then
inspects the force, makes all preparations and forms
a camp always away from the place which he pur-
poses to attack. The next step is a rapid raid, direc-
tion unknown.
Breakfast was being placed on the table, and at
noon the palaver ceased, the king retiring in state
under the salute of trade muskets, which, loaded like
chambers, were fired from the hip. The next day
was fixed for signing the reformed treaty. These
people, I have said, will sign everything, but they
have no idea of keeping anything.
In the evening, the chiefs, privily meeting Com-
mander Bedingfield, consented to append more strin-
gent clauses to the treaty concluded in 1852 by
Commander Forbes, and left him well contented. He
had expected another summons from the king, but,
* It was true, but the attack was not directed against Abeokuta. Early
in the ensuing spring King Baddahun, with six thousand warriors, fell upon
Ishagga, which had treacherously attacked his father. The plans were well
laid, and the place was surprised; only sixteen men defending themselves,
The Daho-
the others flying to a bush a quarter of a mile from the town.
mans slew some five hundred souls and carried off the church bell, the
catechist Doherty, and seventeen or eighteen converts of both sexes, natives
and Sierra Leonites. This is the fifth Egbado town destroyed during the
Ibadan war, the others being Jigá, Mashaye, Shampa, and Igo.
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
289
fortunately for us, it did not come. The day ended
with another fierce tornado, and a steamy heat, which
fully accounts for the complexion of the European
and the Europeaness at Abeokuta. Physiologists
inform us that blue and green are not found in the
human skin; I have now seen both-aye, and yellow-
green, too.
This chapter will conclude with an account of the
strategy and the military force of the Egbas. The
admirable report of the late Captain Jones has been
my principal authority.
War in Yoruba is carried on much as it was in
India some two centuries ago. There is no regular
army, but each chief has his armed retainers like the
Highland clansmen, and these form the force. After
an 'Oro-palaver,' which sometimes lasts three days,
when the time and place of rendezvous are settled
upon, the warriors march out, with the usual mob of
sutlers carrying their beds and provisions upon their
heads, and laden with arms and ammunition. They
march better even than Spaniards or Portuguese, and
they can easily get over forty miles in twenty-four
hours. When the quarrel is not very popular, an
edict threatens all who lag behind with the loss of
their heads. Those who cannot afford horses, walk
-after Nelson's saying, 'Let the man trudge it who
has lost his budget.'
VOL. I.
U
290
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
The warriors arm themselves. Their principal
weapons are 'buccaneer guns,' called 'long Danes,'
because first imported from the Gold Coast: these
are large flint pieces in gaily-painted stocks, costing
in England from seven to ten shillings each, and here
seven to eight gallons of palm-oil fourteen to six-
teen shillings. Africans rarely, if ever, pay any-
thing like a decent price for muskets. The process
of firing is peculiar, the gun being either discharged
from the hip, or held out at arm's length, with
averted face, for good reason; the kick is that of an
ass, and it would lay open even Deaf Burke's cheek.
The state finds a coarse powder, mostly exported
from Boston, more than three parts charcoal, and of
this two hands' breadth is the usual charge; the
bullets are bolts of bar-iron, cast and cut by the
blacksmiths. Pistols are rarely worn; spears and
bows and arrows are little used. Swords seem in-
tended principally to hack and hew the wounded and
dead. A few, especially Moslems, have straight,
double-edged blades, with brass handles and leather
scabbards, from which they are drawn with difficulty,
and only Arabs use the scimitar or curved blade.
Bowie knives have of late formed an article of
importation, and are found handy. The only artil-
lery consists of wall-pieces, about 1 inch bore,
crammed with a handful of bolts or nails, fired from a
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
291
rest, and easily transported from place to place.
Rockets are as yet unknown; these and case-shot
would be found uncommonly serviceable.
Arrived at the field of action, the Egba army's pro-
ceedings explain the phrases going out to war, sit-
ting down, and encamping before a town.' They
select ground about three-quarters of an hour's march
from the place to be attacked, generally choosing the
bank of a stream. The first operation is to dig a
scarpless, narrow ditch, facing towards the fields.
The earth thrown out is mixed with water, and
made into a swish parapet, which, besides wanting
height and thickness, is weakened by round loop-
holes. A rain-thatch is then placed over it, and
at certain points scaffoldings are prepared for sen-
tinels and look-out men, only the chiefs having spy-
glasses.
This part of the encampment being concluded,
the warriors house themselves. The camp is laid
out without streets, the rule being for the retainers
to live pell-mell near their chief. The huts are
built with four corner-posts, two forked poles sup-
port the ridge of the roof, which is composed of
three large bars with smaller between, the whole
being covered with grass or matting. These places
are laid out generally in three rooms, the centre for
reception, and the two sides for sleeping and storing.
U 2
292
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
Compounds are often attached, and in the rear, away
from the enemy, they prepare fields of maize and
beans. The siege may last for years, and commis-
sariat there is none: women and camp-followers
attend to hold bazars; provisions are sometimes
sent from the town; and when 'provaunt' fails the
warriors walk home.
The
There is no attempt at uniform. The soldiers
wear shogoto knickerbockers—or waist-cloths, and
war jackets, striped blue, white, and red.
bullet-bag is neatly made of leather, far inferior,
however, to Mandenga or Morocco work. The
powder-flask is either a calabash or a skin bottle,
the latter often having the hair outside. The accou-
trements hang from the right shoulder to the left
side. The chiefs are elaborately dressed, with teeth
cowries and a multitude of talismans sewn upon their
garments and accoutrements. Being thus somewhat
conspicuous, they avoid the danger of discouraging
their men by a rare prudence when under fire. Like
the North American Indians, the Egbas ignore de-
fensive armour : a few Wilkinson's coats of mail
worn under the dress would soon turn the tide of
battle.
The army, it will be observed, is wholly infantry,
and the actions are settled by skirmishers and light
troops. Though here and there a man fights on
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
293
horseback, it seems never to have occurred to these
people to organize a troop; yet there are animals
enough in the country to form an excellent light
The
cavalry, and irregulars are much wanted.
temper of the beasts, however, would require them
to be Rareyfied or prepared for discipline by such
treatment as was adopted in the Poonah Horse,
Western India.
There is an attempt to divide the army into a
resemblance of the civilized brigade and the regi
ment, under the several chiefs: moreover, the Egbas
do not wholly ignore the use of the reserve. Both
parties are perfectly well acquainted with each
other's movements, many men having in both camps
friends to whom they are bound by oath. It will
sometimes happen that a chief refuses to go forth to
war, pleading brotherhood with the enemy; and the
reason is rarely disregarded.
Before an action begins, bribes are freely given to
learn the strength of the enemy, his health, his
spirit, and his number; all manner of false reports-
now the intention of a retreat, then the advent of an
auxiliary-fly about, like Crimean shaves, to little
purpose. Ambushes are tried, and invariably fail.
After this preliminary the hosts find themselves
embattled opposite each other as unwillingly as in
the præ-Napoleonic German wars, when it was the
.
294
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
*
general's great object to avoid the enemy. The
chiefs tree themselves, and receive reports in the
rear, not unlike a certain commander-in-chief in
Crim-Tartary-most unlike him who never said Ite,
but Venite, or his Chinese equivalent the great
Wang. The action begins by ordering a corps from
each brigade or division to the fore. Instead, how-
ever, of charging-bayonets are unknown-they
spread out in open order, skirmishing till their
ammunition is exhausted, and then retiring to ask
for more in the rear. At times A. feigns a retreat,
and B. advances, perhaps sufficiently to produce a hot
fire, but never so far as to reach the enemy's walls,
which he instinctively fears. If there be any danger
of a hand-to-hand fight B. then retires, and A., in
his turn, advances. No one dreams of outflanking
more than of charging home, and the reserve sits
quietly, as did the commissariat behind the sand-
heaps at the Battle of Meeanee.' Even platoon
firing is unknown. This kind of Champ de Mars
work is kept up till sunset, when both hosts wend
homewards to sup, dance, boast hugely, and claim
the victory. A Sikh review in the olden days,
6
* This general, after tying up his beard in two knots, would take a sabre
in each hand, and filling up the rear of his men, so lustily belabour all
who hung back, that the Chinese terrified rush never failed to secure the
victory.
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
295
when the followers of Nanak Shah disdained to
sponge their guns or to box their ammunition, was
a bloody affair compared with a pitched battle in
Yoruba; and a single civilized regiment would, I
should say, scatter an army.
6
After ten thousand rounds the dead are counted
by units, the wounded by tens. The battle of
Ijaye' was fought by seventeen thousand men: of
these, five were killed and fifty were hurt. From
the weapons used we could hardly expect otherwise.
In the campaigns of the first Napoleon a man's own
weight in powder, and ten times his weight in lead,
were consumed for each individual placed hors de
combat by their ridiculous musket. In 1851 Brown
Bess expended at the Cape three thousand two hun-
dred rounds to each Kafir, and in the Crimea the
French fired away five millions of small-arm car-
tridges without killing twenty-five thousand Rus-
sians. It is becoming the belief of military men that
the use of arms of precision, cannon and rifles,
assisted by skill and practice, will eventually settle
the fate of campaigns-which remains to be seen.
But at any rate a reliable weapon is an absolute
necessity to the soldier. It might not be advisable
to arm the Egbas with Enfield rifles, Prince's breech-
loaders, and Colt's revolvers; still they might supply
themselves with sound Tower muskets and bayonets,
296
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
with tolerable sabres for their horsemen, and with
pikes for a select body, which, forming in column,
would take that initiative in which all are so notably
deficient. These people have a modicum of inven-
tion, and a total want of progressive power. It is
as if a certain amount of knowledge is spontaneously
evolved by them, and then ceases.
The Egba army fought at a considerable disad-
vantage at the time when Captain Jones was present.
The commander-in-chief, His Highness Ogubonna,
had won a certain prestige by his conduct in 1851
against Dahome. He was, however, a very old man,
said to be seventy-equal to ninety in England,
gross, effete, wholly addicted to women, and rarely
in the habit of leaving his hut. Yet it is the deli-
berate opinion of Captain Jones that, with all its
faults of commission and omission, Abeokuta is
'capable of carrying on an offensive war against any
neighbouring native power.'
The tactic to be used against this people is that
which never yet failed in India; and the superiority
of European weapons would at once give the victory
to a civilized force. All our disasters in the East
have been caused by abandoning the one true and
easy system—an opening by a hot fire of artillery,
round shot, howitzers, and rockets; a steady advance
of infantry in masses, covered by sharpshooters; and,
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
297
finally, a rush of cavalry to cut down the fugitives
and to render the rout complete.
It is at present our policy in these regions to
maintain the strictest neutrality. We have hitherto
been persuaded to side with the Abeokutans, think-
ing that they were engaged in a defensive when they
were really waging an offensive war.
The great
variety of tribes to whom the broad lands of Yoruba
belong are all willing, in their several degrees, to
become our 'faithful friends and allies;' and we shall
have no difficulty in keeping them so. The object
of each is of course to monopolize our amity and
assistance for the pure purpose of self-aggrandize-
ment, and to the prejudice of its neighbours. Peace
with us, however, would be its object when nothing
is to be gained by war.
It will wholly conduce to proper relations with
the interior when we have a sufficient armed force at
Lagos. The Egbas, like the people of the West
African coast generally, have persuaded themselves
that the English are invincible at sea, and upon the
seaboard, where their ships' guns can be brought to
bear, but that they are no soldiers. This is the
first lesson that should be taught them. Europeans
are unnecessary, except as officers, and the Upper
Yoruba country, with Hausa and Burnu, supplies
an admirable material for native soldiers. The
298
THE KING'S RETURN VISIT.
province of Lagos will hold a very different standing
in the country when provided, not, as proposed, with
two hundred men, but with a weak troop of light
irregular cavalry, a battery of field artillery, and a
small regiment of four hundred infantry.
299 .
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DE OMNIBUS AND COTTON CHAPTER.
Or Egba society it cannot be said to be 'based upon
slavery.' It has a variety of ranks. Omo bibi, a
child born born, i.e., twice born, the Hindu 'dwija,'
is one whose parents are both free Egbas. The son
of a free mother by a domestic slave is called omo
ohi wabe. Omo odo, or 'the child of presence,' is a
domestic, and eru a common slave. Either of the
two, when manumitted after the master's death, is
called eru edili, which is also the name of the pro-
geny of a slave girl by a free father. Those pawned
by others—a custom reminding us of the old Roman
Nexum are termed ofá, or wafa, apparently an
Arabic derivative; one pawned by himself is faru so
fá. Of the population, probably four-fifths are free,
large proportion in this part of Africa.
There are, therefore, three great classes of Egbas.
The first is the rich free man, the second the poor
300
THE DE OMNIBUS
free man, and, thirdly, the serf, colonus, or slave. If
we reckon the fetish men as the fourth class, we ob-
tain that quadruple division which prevailed amongst
the old Egyptians, Hindus, Greeks, &c., and which,
under the name of caste,* has so often and so igno-
rantly been abused. The license of liberty to be
observed amongst the Egbas probably results from
their habits of domestic slavery. As was said of the
citizens of Athens and Sparta, and in the later days
of the Southern States of the American Union, the
masters of slaves, if free themselves, are ever the
freest of the free.†
* Caste is one of the most enlightened inventions of the civilized East.
It supplies an admirable system of police, acts as practical conservatism,
and leads to high excellence in the crafts, arts, and sciences, by breeding
generation after generation, till an instinctive superiority is acquired. The
Englishman exclaims, ‘What a shame it is, because my father is a tinker, that
I am forbidden by the laws of the land to be prime minister;' and he objects
to caste because it 'keeps the people down.' He forgets, however, that he is
talking, not of petty European kingdoms of twenty or thirty millions, but
of some two hundred millions of human beings, and that each caste is quite
numerous enough to form by itself a first-class nation.
†The 'Iwe Irohin,' appearing October 1862, has the following sensible but
curious article upon the subject of slavery: 'It is the boast of Englishmen
of the present day that no one is a slave on British ground; and they have
a right to be proud of it, for in 1834 they gave the large sum of twenty
million pounds sterling as a compensation to the slave owners; but though
there is no doubt that a land where every man is free is in a better state
than where slavery exists to a large extent, yet we must remember that
slavery is recognized throughout the Bible, not only in the patriarchal
times and under the Mosaic law, but also very distinctly by St. Paul, who
lays down the relative duties of masters and servants to the Churches of
Ephesus and Colosse, and exhorts Timothy to teach the slaves at Ephesus
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
301
African slavery here, as elsewhere, results from
four causes famine, captivity in war, debt, and
crime. Captives of course prefer the chain to the
sword, and insolvents and felons would be imprisoned
in Europe. The Egbas are, now, too much of a
trading people to sell their brethren except for the
best reasons.
Whilst our cruisers cut down the
branches of slave export, trade in cotton and oil-
the 'little palm-nut' has been described as the 'true
emblem of peace in Africa
in Africa '-fells the trunk and digs
up the stumps of this Shajrat el Zukkum. But the
development of commerce naturally increases the
necessity for slave labour in a land where hired
labour is expensive and uncertain, whilst the in-
creased price of provisions greatly adds to the mise-
ries of the servile.* Thus the Abeokutans-who
to count their own masters worthy of all honour, especially if their masters.
were Christians, 1 Tim. vi. 1, 2; and sent back to his master, Philemon,
Onesimus who had been converted under his ministry at Rome, St. Paul
had fully acknowledged the right of Philemon to his servant, though he
thought it convenient for him as a Christian to release him; and he insists
upon the duty of Christian servants to obey their masters, though he
wished them to obtain their freedom if they could, 1 Cor. vii. 21. The
tendency of Christianity is no doubt to diminish slavery, but it does not do
this by exciting the slaves to revolt or run away; on the contrary, it com-
mands them to please their masters well in all things, but it exhorts
masters, as it does all other Christians, to do to others as they would they
should do to them.'
* Upon the present state of things that results from cutting off all slave
export, I shall have more to say at some future time when treating upon
the Oil Rivers of West Africa.
302
THE DE OMNIBUS
are far from being disciples of Clarkson and Wilber-
force, Acland and Buxton-took the earliest oppor-
tunity of enriching themselves at the expense of
their allies the Ijayans. Of this unhappy tribe no
less than twenty thousand have, it is said, disap-
peared. But the Egbas are fighting without pay or
rations, consequently their friends form their com-
missariat. The enemies, of course, vend their captives,
and even the Ijayans sell themselves for provisions, or
are sold by their chiefs as a penalty for shirking the
war. Kidnapping is severely punished by the Egbas,
who, in April 1847, passed a law making the penalty
death. Once it was so common that at Badagry and
other places no poor man could sleep in peace.
Lagos was then one of seventy exporting points on
this ill-fated coast, extending three, thousand six
hundred miles, from Cape Verde to where the shores
of the Camaroons deflect to the south. The traffic
has naturally diminished. In 1825 the export was
probably two hundred thousand; in 1839 Lord
John Russell announced that the number of slaves
annually introduced into America and the West
Indies exceeded one hundred thousand; now it has
diminished to a maximum of half the latter total,
and north of the equator it is almost entirely con-
fined to the Slave Coast, or the western half of the
Benin Bight.
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
303
The Yorubas have a marked national character.
Divided into a number of little states, or independent
cantons, they are eminently clannish. An Egba will
feel hurt if his people be not properly appreciated,
and the 'Aku' race at Sierra Leone produces the
most dangerous because the most intelligent recap-
tives. They have strong virtues and vices, and, by
dwelling upon one side, to the neglect of the rest of
the moral development, it would be easy to make
them the best or the worst of men.* They are kind
and courteous, hospitable and not eminently dis
honest, except in and around the cities. On the
other hand, they are covetous, cruel, and wholly
deficient in what the civilized man calls Conscience.
With considerable shrewdness in business, they are
as simple in some points as children. They believe
that white men fabricate cowries, and an old farmer,
seeing a cloud, will say to a missionary, 'Please let it
rain for us!' There is the usual African want of
invention; a plough, a saw, or an alphabet are
equally beyond the limits of their organization.
They are somewhat litigious, and there is a nume-
rous judiciary, whilst private disputes are settled by
a kind of consiglio di famiglia. Their cruelty is
shown rather in their religion than in their laws.
.
*As a case in point, compare Richard Lander's and the Rev. Mr.
Bowen's estimates of the race.
304
THE DE OMNIBUS
Murder, treason, and arson, sometimes adultery and
theft, are punished by death, the offender being
beheaded or garotted with a rope. In Ilori the
neck is broken with an iron mace. Minor of-
fences are visited with the whip, fine, or imprison-
ment.
Men amongst the Egbas are farmers, tillers of
ground, blacksmiths, wood-workers, carpenters,
weavers, tailors, and barbers. Women do the house-
work and sell at market; between whiles they spin,
wash, cook, draw water, dye cloth, and make soap and
pottery. The Egba rises with the dawn, brushes hist
teeth, bathes at home or in the brook, and repairs to the
jungle, which, as in India, is twice visited; if once only;
the exception would be attributed to disordered health.
The breakfast, or first of the three meals, is usually
eaten round the pots of the market women.
It is a
light affair, of the hot diluted paste, or burgoo, here
called ekko. The farmer then repairs to his fields,
and the townsman to his business, whilst the gude-
wife either busies herself at home or sits selling in
the bazar. Dinner, from 10 A.M. to noon, is eaten
either in the farms or the streets. The farm-wives
and hill-wives bring in the material and the towns-
women prepare it. It is something hot and simple,
yam balls or Indian corn cakes, with a 'kitchen' of the
highly-seasoned palaver sauce: the trash in which
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
305
Europeans delight, papaws and pineapples, plantains
and oranges, are mostly left to the monkeys. Vege-
tables, farinaceous food, and meat, especially the
two latter, are the general favourites. The rich will
eat rats and snails, and the poor carrion, rather than
condemn themselves to become vegetarians. Meat,
however, as in Asia, is rarely cooked solid, hashes
and stews being preferred to roast and boiled. Those
of easy means pass the greater part of the day in
dressing their hair, consulting Ifa, saluting friends,
and visiting the Ogboni lodges. After dark they eat
once more, sometimes in the streets, more generally
in the house, and then gossip, play, if not gamble, see
dances or dance themselves, smoke, snuff, drink palm-
wine, maize-beer, and trade-rum, and retire to rest
when they can do no more.
As regards the Yoruba language, spoken by the
Egbas, Egbados, Ijebus, Iketus, and Otas, as well as by
many of the people of Badagry and Lagos, and said to
extend along the coast to New Calabar, and internally
to the Niger, I know nothing of it except what the
two grammars, Mr. Crowther's and Mr. Bowen's,
teach.* As many people have not read even these,
I may still be able to offer something new to them.
The language is decidedly difficult. In other coun-
* Mr. Crowther's is copied too servilely from Murray, itself an Anglo-
Latin modification.
VOL. I.
X
306
THE DE OMNIBUS
tries missionaries expect to speak fluently after the
second year; here they usually take five. Mr. Bowen
is said to have learned it in eighteen months; but he
was uncommonly 'cute in picking up languages,
though he turned his knowledge to scant account.
Learning the Yoruba dialect is a severe exertion to
a brain relaxed by the climate, and students com-
plain that all books published upon the subject are
mere sketches, leaving the learner to fill in details.
Something of the same kind was asserted touching
Persian by Sir William Jones. And it certainly is
now time for a work upon the scholarship, not the
mere accidence, of African speech.
Mr. Bowen finds in the Yoruban language affini-
ties with Sanscrit, Greek, Latin, Pahlivi, Persian,
German, Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac, Saxon and Eng-
lish, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Esquimaux, Basque,
Welsh, Celtic, Slavonic, Albanian, French, Spanish,
Portuguese, Celebes, Philippines, Brazilian, besides a
host of African languages, Okem, Opandi, Kufa,
Nupe, Uchan, Isubu, Ashanti, Oloma, Accra, Kru,
Dahome, Mahi, Opaddi, Fula, Mbariki, Kaniki, Mbe,
Wolof, Mose, Dey, Shoa, Filham, Bullom, Mandenga,
Goali, Bassa, Golal, Benin, Melou, Kakanda, Ma-
dagascar, Galla, and others. This is not the way to
treat philology, we may not argue radical affinity from
a chance resemblance of words. I must also differ in
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
307
6
opinion with the learned Bishop Vidal,* who wrote
his Introduction' before the Yoruba was classified,
and before the alliteral languages of Southern
Africa, of which the types are the Kongoese and the
Zulu, were sufficiently studied. The bishop, by the
absence of classified prefixes and modifications of the
particles contained in the verb, judges Yoruba to be
unconnected with the large family of Kafir tongues.f
On the other hand, there is an artful system of pre-
fixes and a purely conventional euphony, which, to
say nothing of minor points, denotes a similarity of
origin.
The Yoruba language is mostly one of intonation,
and in many cases the accent and the articulation
determine the sense of the words. This is trying to
the dull ear of the northern race, and many are
unable to master the difficulty; yet a stranger, with
the organs of tune highly developed, finds little diffi-
culty in separating the words, which do not, as in Popo
and in English, run into one another. The sounds.
peculiar to the tongue are pk and gb, sounded almost
like a single consonant, and, like Arabic, it wants the
v and the p. There is neither passive voice nor
* Introductory remarks to Mr. Crowther's Vocabulary of the Yoruban
language.
+ The peculiarity which the bishop notices in the adverbs, viz., that
there is a distinct word to express the quality or degree of each substantive,
is already found in Arabic adjectives, especially those of colour.
x 2
308
THE DE OMNIBUS
variation for number and person, nor indefinite
article, in which the Greek and Latin are also de-
ficient. It seems to be built upon a century of bili-
teral roots, and Mr. Bowen's vocabulary contains.
about twelve thousand vocables. The language is
therefore sufficiently rich for the wants of a simple
and barbarous race.
It is noted as a curious point that the Yoruban is
wealthy in abstract terms, that it possesses distinct
words for such far-fetched ideas as sin, guilt, honour,
atonement, faith, mediation, repentance, pardon, adop-
tion, salvation, perdition, justification, and sanctifica-
tion. The same, however, according to the Rev. Mr.
Walker, is true of the Mpongwe, or Gaboon dialect;
and, indeed, we may expect it to be an invariable
characteristic of these languages, which have a regu-
lar system of compounding words, equally intelligible,
root and branch, to all speakers.
The Yoruban tongue has no poetry, like the
Hausa, nor are words set to tunes as amongst the
musical Fulas, except a few artless attempts like the
corn-songs of the American negroes. But the African
development of the language-power fills it with
riddles and childish puzzles; moreover, it is rich in
proverbs, the infant literature of the world. Bishop
Vidal seems to have thought the Yorubas distin-
guished amongst the nations of the world by the
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
309
6
number and terseness of their proverbial sayings.
So far from this being the case, there is hardly a
tribe upon the West African coast which has not as
many and as good. The same philologist also sees a
high standard of morality in this popular code, if it
can so be called, a vestige of the Universal Conscience
bearing witness amongst men.' There is, accord-
ing to him, no virtue, sin, nor human relation which
is not enforced, described, or forbidden by some pithy
dictum. As a rule, methinks, the most exalted views
in proverbs and poetry evidence a rather low actuality.
Thus the unwarlike delight in tales of slaughter, liars
hold high theories touching truth, universal selfish-
ness proclaims aloud mutual dependence, the most
reckless of human life have a hundred reasons for not
taking it, and no nation more despises the poor,
or has more saws against a right to despise him,
than the Yoruba. Moreover, all the world over,
proverbs run in pairs, and pull both ways: for the
most part one neutralizes, by contradiction, the other.
Thus the Englishman bids him who would thrive to
consult his wife, and warns him at the same time
that women, being unreasonable as spaniels, are
greatly improved by being beaten.
The Yoruba proverbs have been divided into three
kinds, firstly, the paranomasia, play upon words,
or, in simple English, pun; secondly, sprightly
1
310
THE DE OMNIBUS
descriptions of natural phenomena and visible ob-
jects; thirdly, moral truths and rules for conduct.
The Bishop of Sierra Leone naturally saw in them a
touching resemblance to the parallelism of Hebrew
national poetry, and divided them into the gradational,
the antithetic, the synthetic, and the introverted. But
parallelism is natural to the Semitic mind, one of whose
rudest but sublimest expressions is in the northern
dialect called Hebrew. Every page of the 'Thousand
and One Nights' will supply instances of it. The
other more artful divisions may be found not only in
Hebrew and the Yoruba, but in all the Asiatic lan-
guages with which I am acquainted.
Abeokuta lies in the zone of almost constant rain.
The warmest months, which are also comparatively
dry, are December, January, February, and early
March. In January trees cast their leaves, and thus
enjoy their annual repose. February is essentially
a spring month, as the greenness of the country
shows. At the end of that time the Harmattan wind
will blow from the north and the north-east for two
or three days, and perhaps bring on a few light
showers. April and May are distinguished by tor-
nados, thunderings, and the former rains,' which
are now heavy and continuous, reaching a crisis
when the sun attains the tropic of Cancer, whilst
storms are frequent and severe, and Shango does con-
6
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
311
upon
siderable damage. Here the heaviest downfalls are
not when the sun is directly vertical, but when he is
northing or southing. On this coast of Africa, how-
ever, the rainy monsoon' is not constant and per-
sisting, as on the eastern shores of the continent,
which Trade-winds from the South Atlantic
directly impinge. Four inches at a time is severe,
and twenty inches is the rare extreme. June is
generally the wettest month in the year. About
mid July and August there is mostly an inter-
mission in the rains, but not so marked as in the
Gaboon country and the coast south of the equator.
This second dry season is cool and pleasant, broken
only by a few showers. September is again plu-
viose the latter rains,' however, are rarely heavy,
but mostly short and sharp. From October to mid-
November is the second tornado season, whose storms.
are more violent and dangerous than those of the
first, and December recommences the dry season.
6
Thus there are four dry and eight wet months,
the former corresponding with our winter, the latter
with our spring, summer, and autumn. That,
however, is the hot, and this the cool time of
the year. The rainy is also the healthier season.
From the days of Mungo Park, who attributed most
of his misfortunes to the hot weather, the dry season
has been assumed as the fittest for African travel,
312
THE DE OMNIBUS
and the idea has led to many a loss. In the West
Indies, the rule is, that both dry and wet weather
are healthy, whilst irregular rain and sunshine are
feverish. Here, as in most parts of intertropical
Africa, the worst months are those immediately
before and after the rains, the middling is the dry
season, the best is the wet, especially August and
September. There is but one serious disadvantage
to those explorers who are compelled to walk their
journeys, the inundations will certainly cause swollen
feet, a trivial evil, but which may arrest progress.
Still there is less malaria, that mysterious agency
which, like the pestilence walking in darkness, ever
hides its origin from the world, and leaves us to
grope for its origin in cosmical causes,-vegetation,
geology, geographical position, and a rarefied atmo-
sphere deficient in oxygen. Happily for us the old
African treatment-‘A. B. caught fever, gave him
calomel, bled him, blistered his feet, died on the
third day '—is now obsolete: I would not, however,
advise any white man to expose himself for more
than two or three consecutive years to the climate of
Western Intertropical Africa.
At Abeokuta the nights are not oppressive; some-
times they are even chilly, with damp and heavy dews:*
* New comers are apt to expose themselves needlessly at night by sleep-
ing in open rooms, and thus by checking perspiration, when the temperature
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
313
inland they are hotter and more trying. The heat
of the day is between 10 A.M. and 4 P.M.: near the
coast, however, there is a strong and regular sea
breeze, charged with vapour, and blowing from the
south, the west, or the south-west. The average of
summer heat may be 80° Fah. in the shade. During
our three weeks' stay we had three violent storms
in five days, and a heavy fog every morning. The
difference between the wet and the dry bulbs varies
from 0° 2' Fah. in the rainy season to 25° Fah. during
Harmattan winds.
We will conclude with the commerce and the pro-
ductions of Abeokuta. I have shown that at present
she aspires to become the great highway of transit
between the Sudan-that is to say, the countries
north of Guinea-and the coast; and that it is our
object to give the unmaritime peoples direct com-
munication with our markets on the seaboard.
For the twenty years previous to 1787, the whole
import trade of Western Africa, Morocco included,
with England, fell short of 72,0007. In 1810 it had
increased to 535,5777. It may now safely be assumed
The only
changes after midnight, to awake with fever or dysentery.
Spanish officer who has escaped fever at Fernando Po attributes his im-
munity to sleeping in a well-closed apartment. We read in 'La Médecine
des Prophètes (Traduit de l'Arabe par M. le Docteur Baron. Paris, 1860.):
Le sommeil refoule les esprits à l'intérieur du corps, et alors l'extérieur
se refroidit; aussi a-t-on besoin dans le sommeil de se couvrir davantage.'
314
THE DE OMNIBUS
at three millions sterling.* And there is hardly
any limit to its future development. Yoruba is a
* The following is an extract of the Returns made to Parliament of the
West African imports and exports
There was imported into the United Kingdom, in the year ended 31st
December, 1861, from the Western Coast of Africa, produce of the value,
in round numbers, of one and a half million sterling. This amount is ex-
clusive of the imports from the British, French, and Spanish possessions on
that coast.
Palm-oil is the chief article of commerce brought into this country from
thence, the value of which, in 1860, was not less than 1,684,5327. The
other articles, consisting chiefly of dye woods, cotton, ebony, and elephants'
teeth, had a total value of only 92,000l.
The last made-up returns are given below, as well as the increase or
decrease as compared with 1859:-
1860.
£
Increase.
£
Decrease,
£
Barwood
Camwood
Copper ore
8,939
2,046
:
7,370
519
648
515
Cotton
Ebony
Guano
Gum animi
copal
Oil (palm)
Orchil
Teeth (elephants')
6,094
405
:
3,797
1,184
:
:
2,590
1,186
222
531
865
727
:
1,684,532
263,503
:
29
35,672
6,203
Wax (bees')
2,134
5,590
All other articles
23,702
4,147
Total
1,776,565
272,990
13,602
13,602
259,388
Increase in 1860 over 1859
The exports of British produce and manufactures were valued at 865,8047.
for the year 1861, which is less by 85,4917. than for the preceding year.
[By
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
315
valuable and an unexploited field. Its products are
cereals (maize and millet), vegetables (peas, beans,
cassava, yams, and koko, onions and sweet potatoes),
sugar-cane, ginger-in small quantities, and lately
introduced—cubebs, and various oil seeds, bene or
sesamum, telfaria, castor plant, ground nuts, cocoa-
nuts, and physic nuts (Corcos purgans): coffee has
been grown, but it has been allowed to die out.
By the subjoined table it will be seen that the largest shipments in 1860
were cotton goods, gunpowder, guns, spirits, and earthenware, and that
with one exception all the articles exhibit increases over 1859 :-
1860.
Increase.
Decrease.
£
£
£
Apparel
Guns ..
24,158
6,582
61,613
22,230
Gunpowder
100,169
28,785
Beads..
8,338
5,264
:
Brass manufactures
20,820
1,846
Cottons
464,661 138,216
Earthenware
23,227 11,418
Hardware
Iron and steel
Silk manufactures
Spirits (British)
Staves
Woollens
:
:
50,314
2,405
25,147
4,442
14,421
6,429
:
15,695
12,078
56,538
1,909
11,074
4,032
1
All other articles
Total
75,120
13,450
951,295 257,177
1,909
1,909
255,268
Increase in 1860 over 1859
Of foreign and colonial produce and manufactures exported from this
country to the Western Coast of Africa the value in 1860 was 194,1397.
The principal articles were beads, cowries, silk manufactures, spirits, and
tobacco.
316
THE DE OMNIBUS
4
Copper abounds in places. Indigo and coarse
tobacco would flourish anywhere,* and the minerals
have not been explored. The present exports are
palm-oil from the nut, now worth 11 heads per
measure of 10 imperial gallons, and black oil from
the kernel, worth 7 to 7 heads; ground-nut oil and
shea butter or 'Niger grease,' which has been almost
stopped by the war; indigo in balls of 1 lb. each,
worth 2 strings; and lubi (natron), worth 1 head 10
strings per pound; a few hides; cotton; ivory, costing,
when prime, 3 heads per lb.; country cloths sent to
Bahia and up the coast, and Niger mats worth
2 heads 25 strings to 3 heads each. The minor
imports are hardware, pottery, velvets, red caps,
silks, beads, and coral, especially the red; trinkets,
fancy looking-glasses, mostly German.† The chief
objects are cowries from East Africa, and a few from
England, manufactured roll tobacco from Brazil,
and leaf tobacco from the Anglo-American States,
either via England or direct; Manchester cottons,
rum and spirits, arms and ammunition.
The four latter articles are a serious injury to the
* The tobacco, like that of Africa generally, lacks strength and flavour:
whether cultivation would improve it remains to be seen.
†The traveller's best outfit would be grey domestics, a few striped ditto,
some silk velvets (red and green, with white stripe), a little coral, some
fez or tarbushes, a few umbrellas, and trifles like needles, scissors, and little
looking-glasses.
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
317
country, and present a sad contrast between the
West African coast, whose commerce is in the hands
of Christian merchants, and the Eastern shores,
which the Moslems and Hindu Banyans supply with
foreign goods. On the shores of Zanzibar, until the
Messrs. Oswald and other Hamburgers settled in
the island of the same name, muskets and gunpowder
-used almost entirely for slave-driving—were un-
known except amongst the Beloch and Arab subjects
and mercenaries of the local government. That
house sold off, it is said, 13,000 guns in one year.
The interior-Unyamwezi, and the regions about the
Tanganyika Lake-is still in the hands of Arab
traders, who never allow the natives to become
possessed of civilized weapons, and who would incur
eternal infamy if they sold ardent spirits to the
people. I shall never cease to protest against the
sale of rum, guns, and gunpowder, when an inno-
cent trade of worked cottons, salt, and the minor
luxuries of life would be equally profitable.* It is
* According to the 'Iwe Irohin' (Appendix, Oct. 1862), 'the chiefs of
Abeokuta are beginning to feel the evils which are being inflicted on the
town by rum-selling.' The obvious means of discouraging the importation
would be to impose a duty of 5 per cent., gradually and by very slow
degrees, raised to 50, and even to cent. per cent. on ardent spirits, and
with great prudence to make the imposts on gunpowder so heavy as to be
almost prohibitory. To effect such innovation, however, we must be free
from the presence of rivals; upon the Gold Coast, for instance, and at
Lagos, under present circumstances, hasty steps would lead to ruinous con-
sequences.
318
THE DE OMNIBUS
my sincere belief that if the slave export trade were
revived, with all its horrors, and that rum, guns, and
gunpowder were things unknown, the country would
greatly gain in happiness by the exchange.
Abeokuta, like Lagos, has been inundated with
cowries, which, used in Europe for the arts, here
become a coin.* Formerly the small white Indian
=
* The following is the usual computation :-
40 cowries
=
1 string (ojo), which varies, according to the market, from
f. to 1d. The string of 50 cowries is called Adotta.
5 strings = 1 bunch.
10 bunches = 50 strings, or 2000 cowries 1 head (Egba or Egbawa)
$ 1, whence probably the word 'head' was derived in former times,
but now varying from 2s. to 1s. 5d.
10 heads, or 20,000 cowries
20 heads = 1 oz. gold dust
-
1 bag (okkekan), now worth 18s.
£4.
Thus assuming the dollar to be at the old value 4s. 6d. (it has lately
been reduced to 4s. 2d.)—
Bags. Heads. Strings. Cowries.
S. d.
One bag,
worth 18 O contains
1
0
0
0
dollar
4
6
0
2
25
0
""
"
"
· head
1 91
0
1
0
0
""
""
,, shilling
1 0
0
0
27
31
""
The natives, as might be expected, have a number of names and minor
subdivisions, even a single cowrie being made to buy snuff and similar
small articles. The following are the names generally known:—
Ogonu (i. e. one hundred) = 2 strings.
Igbio 5 strings; in Portuguese, Gallinha; Anglicè, bunch,' or
smaller bundle.
Ojuluba (5 strings and 1) = 6 strings.
Enowo = 10 strings.
=
15
= 20
Egbeta
Egbeni
Egbenu
= 25
""
=
Egbefa 30 strings.
""
Egbejję = 35
Egbejja 40
Egbisi
= 45
After which comes the head = 50 strings.
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
319
shell, costing 607. per ton at home, and 80%. on the
African coast, was the currency, which extinguished
the round trade or barter. Presently the Hamburg
merchants settled at Zanzibar, where the cypræa
can be collected for a mere trifle, made a speculation
which succeeded; the large, coarse, blue African,
being much cheaper, arrived in shiploads, brought
fifty per cent. to the importer, and supplanted the
small Indian, which are now rare, and bought up
by chiefs and fetish-men. At present there is a
glut, and in every village you tread upon bits of
cowries. Moreover, fewer are found, and therefore
fewer are sent.
The plump-breasted dove,' as the Yorubas call it,
is a vile currency, an intolerable burden. Lycurgus
did not fetter the commerce of Sparta more effectually
with his iron bars. Every shell must be pierced and
strung upon grass or palm fibre, which takes no
short time. At Dahome a hundred slaves will be
engaged in this occupation, and a merchant at Lagos
must employ eight or ten 'cowrie-girls.' The weight
of each bag of 2000 blue Africans will be from 80
to 90 lbs., and of white Indians from 35 to 45 lbs.,
and yet it is barely worth one pound sterling.
Mungo Park, when he opened a shop during his
second journey at Sansanding, was obliged to em-
ploy three tellers to count his cash-25,756 cowries,
320
THE DE OMNIBUS
worth at Lagos 17. 5s.*
Lieut. Forbes complains
that to carry 50 dollars, he had to hire five women.
A horse will cost 60,000 to 120,000, a sheep 4000
to 6000, and a fowl 200 to 250 of this barbarous
small change.†
It is fully time to change the system. At Zan-
zibar and Maskat, the late Sayyid Said found no
difficulty in so doing. He applied to the East
Indian Government for some tons of pice or copper
coins, and the improvement was readily adopted by
his subjects. The experiment should be tried without
delay at Lagos, and, if successful, it would probably
soon extend into the interior.
At present the country has the nuisance of twelve
different dollar-coinages in circulation, and when these
different dollars have been got rid of there still re-
mains the inconvenience of two currencies, English
money and cowries, which, as has been seen, bear
no fixed relative proportion. And the Abeokutans
are little aware of their losses by the system of barter
to which the retail purchaser is sometimes driven:
it obliges them to pay one hundred per cent. above
* At Sansanding, however, 3000 cowries were = 1 minkalli of gold
12s. 6d.
=
+ The only thing in its favour is that it teaches the children arithmetic.
Mr. Crowther informs us that they begin by counting one by one, then by
twos, and lastly by fives. It is a taunt to say 'O daju danu o oʼmo essan
messan'—with all your cleverness, you do not know nine times nine.
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
321
the invoice price for English goods, which, if the
currency were settled, could be profitably sold by
the merchant at a maximum of fifty per cent.
Provisions are somewhat expensive at Abeokuta-
the luxuries of life especially so.
The price of maize
25, and in the best
or Indian corn,* of which 15 to
lands 30 bushels, are produced by the acre, varies
from 20 to 75 cents per bushel. At present the
bushel of 60 to 70 lbs. costs from 2 heads 25 strings
to 3 heads, and it has fetched 5 in times of scarcity.
Guinea corn (H. sorghum) is rare, and sells at fancy
prices; the measure is a calabash, containing about
one gallon, and is usually worth double the price of
maize. Rice and farinha, or cassava flour, are being
introduced; the latter fetches 10 to 20 strings per
basket, and makes tolerable tapioca. True arrow-
root is as yet unknown. The indigenous yam† is
* Maize, called muhindi, i. e. Indian or Hindostan corn, in East Africa,
is here called yangan or agbado, i. e. agba odo, 'what is beaten in the
mortar.' It is said to have been brought from the eastward, beyond the
Niger, by a yellow monkey-the Oibo, or white man, according to the
boys, is the 'old baboon,'-which tends to show that it is not a native
of the land. We cannot however as yet answer the question whether
maize and the arachis be African or purely American growths.
† Mr. Bowen mentions a Yoruban tradition, that yams were the primi-
tive human food. The first man vainly attempted to eat it raw: he
afterwards found one accidentally roasted before the fire-somewhat like
Elia's genesis of the sucking pig-and succeeded better. Europeans, less
sensible, eat the yam boiled, in which state it is detestable, though far
superior to potato when roasted.
VOL. I.
Y
322
THE DE OMNIBUS
here the staff of life: a dozen costs from 1 head to
1 head 5 strings. Native beans, per basket of 40 lbs.,
fetch from 2 heads 25 strings to 3 heads. Sugar-
cane is sold in bundles of 40 canes, four feet long,
for from 40 strings to 1 head. Fruits, being despised,
are cheap there are grape-vines of several varieties,
but all with produce equally dry and insipid: limes,
papaws, and pineapples command 2 cowries each,
oranges 10, and bananas 15 to 20 strings per bunch.
Europeans use milk; the negroes, more sensible, do
not.*
Butter and ghi, the clarified butter of India, is
here supplied by the butyraceous çe or shea butter.
,
Large and, for Africa, well-bred cattle are as com-
mon in the country as the buffalo-the 'jackass cow
of Sierra Leone-is rare. The common cow may be
bought for 4 to 5 bags: the ox of course costs less.
The price of beef varies from 5d. to 6d. per lb.
The sheep-after the first hot season it becomes
hairy, not woolly-is worth 7, and if full grown 20
heads. The goat, which, unlike that of the Oil
Rivers, is here cheaper, averages from 6 to 15. The
hogs are black and heavily built, and the professional
hunters bring wild boars to market. Poultry is
common, fetching 10 to 20 strings, and a fine fowl
* It is considered heating and bilious, especially if drunk whilst the sun
is hot. The Portuguese, on both coasts of Africa, carefully avoid it.
I prefer tea à la Russe, with a small quantity of sugar, if procurable, and a
slice of lemon instead of bullock milk.'
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
323
may be had for 25. Guinea fowls are dearer and
better, costing from 1 to 1 heads: there is a wild
species with a black silky tuft.
Horses are of fancy prices, and are never used for
packs or bât: asses, mules, and camels, common in
the regions north and south of the confluence, are as
yet unknown. Ladies and children use a peculiar
kind of palanquin-a chair fastened by woodwork
to the carrying pole, and covered with an umbrella-
like awning. Domestic slaves are always in the
market: men, women, and girls fetch from 8 to 10
bags, but being preferred for exportation, are worth
from 12 to 16 bags.
The coming exportation from this region will be
the shea butter-nut, an indigenous bassia. How-
ever much the palm and palm-kernel oils may fall
before the earth oils of America, shea butter will
maintain its price, from 50l. to 521. per ton of
2252 lbs.—about 51. per ton more valuable than
tallow. The tree, which is mentioned with enthu-
siasm by Mungo Park, grows in immense forests:
there is one between Ilori and Bida, of nine days'
march; and between Ilori and Sai there are plentiful
scatters, here thick, there thin. It is a fine, large
growth, producing an emerald-green plum, whose
pulp is sweet and edible. For butter, the fruit is
gathered in April or June, and smoke-dried in a
Y 2
324
THE DE OMNIBUS
country oven; a cone of clay, with the smaller
end downwards, containing the fire, and divided
from the nut by a wall of pierced clay. It is subse-
quently reduced to powder in a mortar, but so care-
lessly that the husk is not removed: it is hand-
washed and worked in three or four waters, and
when it rises to the surface it is ladled off. It is
then boiled in large country jars, and stored in
smaller earthen pots, after which it will keep un-
tainted for years. This 'Niger grease,' as Europeans
call it, is beautifully white, hard, and subaromatic.
Park prefers it, when fresh, to 'butter from the
cow.' It is used by the people for all the purposes
of cookery, and, as an unguent, it is considered in-
valuable for alleviating rheumatic pains. At Abeo-
kuta, owing to the war, there is but little in the
market. At Ilori it still commands a price of one
shilling per pound-far too expensive for commerce.
The opening of the Niger will bring this valuable
vegetable butter in enormous quantities to our
shores; and the varieties of butyraceous nuts are
almost wholly unknown: there are several even upon
the Niger, whilst the Gaboon River and the coast
south of the equator abound in tallow-nuts, with
which the people are acquainted, whilst we are not.
It remains to consider the subject of cotton-growing
about Abeokuta, and throughout Yoruba generally.
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
325
·
6
The shrub is of various qualities, and, as in Africa
generally, all are of tolerable staple. The black-
seed' resembles the sea-island (G. arboreum), and
the 'green-seed' (G. herbaceum) is the short staple
or upland cotton of the Southern States of Anglo-
America. Besides which, there are many hybrids,
and all the varieties are grown in the same field.
There is brown cotton, but not the red, long-stapled
species, with small boll and leaf, which flourishes in
Hausa. The best kind is called akashe, and is too
expensive for exportation, a penny being the price of
eight seeds. It is not uncommon, however, round
Abeokuta, and it merits a trial in a jardin d'essai.
The feel is as soft as silk, and the seed is white: the
yarn shown to me was dyed grey. Nothing can be
worse than Abeokutan manufactures, even those
made from the finest cottons. The Egbas are as far
from the jenny of James Hargreaves as from the
power-loom. Their materials are still a distaff and
spindle, exactly resembling the artless implements of
India and East Africa. The bhaunri is a bit of
wood, weighted with a lump of clay, and painted with
the brightest colours.
Cotton must ever be an interesting subject to a
country in which five millions of souls-about one-
sixth of the population, and a number exceeding the
total of Holland and Portugal-are or were interested
326
THE DE OMNIBUS
directly or indirectly; which possesses 200,000,0007.
of fixed and floating investments; which, in 1860, pro-
duced an interest of 80,000,0007.*-more than equal
to the whole revenue of the empire; which imported
from one country alone 35,000,000l. per annum,† and
manufactured to the value of 55,000,000l.; which,
in less than a century, has increased its operations
three-hundred-fold-from 4,000,000 lbs. in 1767 to
1,200,000,000 lbs. in 1861; which, during the last
fifty years, has consumed 20,000,000,000 lbs., equal
to 750,000,000l., or nearly the national debt; and
which for years has paid at least twopence per lb.
over-price to the Southern States of America. ‡
The wars of secession have brought two great
rivals in the field, India and Africa. Despite the
persevering efforts of adventurer and speculator to
extract money from the pockets of the British capi-
talist, little can be expected from the former. The
old Court of Directors spent lac after lac in improving
the staple, and failed. After a few months the pro-
duce returned to the old stock as surely as the Eng-
lish bull-dog became a pariah and the English child
a degenerate. It is a law of nature-mysterious, un-
* 25,000,000l. consumed, and 55,000,000l. exported.
† England takes 85 per cent. from America, 8 from foreign, and 7 from
British territory.
And it is said landowners have often sold for 9d. what they have
raised for 3d. per lb.
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
327
intelligible, yet not to be mistaken. Wherever-as
in Mekran or Zanzibar-the American domestics,'
which are all made of medium staple, met our cot-
tons, in which medium staple was eked out with
Indian or short staple, the former invariably beat the
latter out of the market. Hindostan and the East
certainly did miracles in the olden time, as the Dacca
fabrics and the Mosul muslins prove. These tex-
tures, however, were, like the shawls of Kashmir,
hand-woven, at an enormous expenditure of time and
trouble, and it is folly to expect them to be imitated
by the coarse appliances of machinery.
When Indian cotton is cried up for the English
market, and is represented as likely to supersede
American, either ignorance or deceit should be sus-
pected. Mr. H. R. Cassels,* a most competent
observer, shall be placed in the witness-box. Leaving
other presidencies to speak for themselves, that
gentleman maintains that the experience of half
a century of cotton cultivation in Bombay teaches
that-
1. Exotic cotton cannot be successfully cultivated on a large scale in
the Bombay Presidency, except in a limited portion of its southern districts.
Cotton; an Account of its Culture in the Bombay Presidency, pre-
pared from Government Records, and other authentic sources, in accordance
with a resolution of the Government of India.' (London: Smith, Elder,
and Co.)
328
THE DE OMNIBUS
2. Indian cotton may be improved in clearness, and somewhat reduced
in cost, but the general characteristic of the staple will not be materially
altered.
'3. In so far as this quality of cotton is serviceable to the manufac-
turers of England, India can compete with America; but if a finer descrip-
tion be required, India cannot adequately supply it.
4. Unless, therefore, such alterations in machinery can be devised as
may render the manufacturer indifferent to length and fineness of staple
(and of the probability of this others must judge), India is not likely to
replace the United States.*
5. It seems evident, then, that Indian cotton must continue to hold a
subordinate place in European markets, and that there is a point at which
its competition with other growths entirely ceases.'
Here, then, is the whole truth. From such cold
comfort as this let the political statistician turn to
Africa.
I will not delay to prove that, whereas India
yields short staple, medium staple and long staple
are indigenous in Africa. It is also evident that the
cultivation can be developed in a short space of time.
Cotton culture began under the orders of Mohammed
Ali in 1818 the first exportation was in 1823, and
in 1855, besides five or six millions of lbs. worked
in the country, it exported 56,874,300 lbs. The
United States of America exported, we know, eight
bales in 1784, and it was doubted at Liverpool that
so much could be produced in the country: in 1850,
* It has been contended that an improvement of machinery will make
short staple do the work of medium staple. This, if true, only shifts the
difficulty; the same amount of alteration in machinery will make medium
staple do the work of long staple.
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
329
or within the assumed 'time of a man's life, America
grew
550 millions out of the 1000 millions of lbs.
which the world affords. Algeria is another case in
point, proving the adaptability of Africa for cotton-
growing, and Natal will be.*
Africa can produce the 'tree wool' which Eng-
land so greatly requires she has, however, two
grand drawbacks. The first is the inadequacy of
regular labour, the second is the want of roads,
tramways, and canals, and the expensiveness of
freight.
It is clear
The first is a most serious difficulty.
that, without slaves or quasi-slaves, like the Hindu
ryot and the Egyptian fellah under Mohammed Ali,
cotton has not yet anywhere been cultivated in any
considerable quantities, or with any great success.
There are certain stages of the growth when a war,
a strike, or anything that removes the labourer, is
fatal to the year's harvest. Africa, as will be seen
by the example of Abeokuta, cannot depend upon
herself; she must look elsewhere. We have, though
tardily, recognized the fact that nothing can be more
suicidal than the emigration of Kulis (coolies) from
a land which, instead of being over-stocked, really
* Natal has all the constituents of climate which render the coast of
Georgia so famous for cotton-growing: it is not too constantly hot for sea-
board or upland, and its current is a fac-simile of the Gulf Stream.
330
THE DE OMNIBUS
suffers from a paucity of population. From Southern
China, however, we can draw supplies of hands
almost ad libitum. At present the best fields yield
about one-fourth of the average of the United States,
and the prosperity of the crop will depend upon
careful manuring and selection of seed. I have
every confidence in the eventual triumph of free
versus slave labour, but it is hard to say how, at
present, any extensive movement of the kind can be
organized, at any rate for the use of Africa.
Transport and freight remain to be considered.
There is a difficulty about road-making in Africa
which appears strange to the English reader; yet it
is not a little real. The habits of the natives, and the
power of the climate, would reduce in a few months
the best macadam to the condition of a bridle-path.
Beasts of burden are wanting; carts have to be in-
vented;
the country is unfit for canalization, and
tramways are long before its civilization. Finally,
freight from the coast is one penny per pound by
steamer, and three-farthings by sailing ship-equal,
in fact, to the Indian, and double the American.
As might be expected, the attempts to develop
African cotton have hitherto been desultory in the
extreme. We have tried the ridiculous Zambezi,
and the Spaniards have talked of Fernando Po.*
* Early in 1862 I sent, kindly assisted by D. Pellon, four samples of
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
331
Abeokuta has had a fair trial, and hitherto has failed
with an almost total failure. In the immediate neigh-
bourhood of the city, where farm land lies, there is
little grown, and that little is brought to market in
baskets and blies by the women. The country to the
north, especially about Ilori, supplies the best and the
largest quantities. Planted after the harvest in July,
the shrub lasts, they say, for several years, and not
being lopped, attains a height of ten feet. Abeokuta
entered the lists with every prospect of success. She
was presented with machinery, agents were sent to
her, she doubled her produce every year, and the
Manchester Association published their expectations
for 1859-1860 at 20,000 bales (112 lbs. to 125 lbs.
each). But the war with Ibadan broke out, the yield
fell to 3447 small bales, and between 1st October and
1st January of the present year (1861) only 500 bales
reached Lagos. This, too, in despite of famine prices
in Lancashire and elsewhere. The prime cost at
cotton, growing almost wild about Clarence, to the African Association at
Liverpool. They were described as follows:-
1. Gossipium vitifolium, good colour, uneven, staple equal to middling
Orleans, considered worth 134d. to 14d.
2.
">
good staple, rather yellow, very clean; value
the same.
3. Gossipium tricuspidatum, dull colour, uneven staple, mixed with
4.
""
short; clean, worth 122d.
colour too yellow, good strong staple, equal to
Egyptian; when clean worth 163d.
332
THE DE OMNIBUS
Abeokuta was 3d.
to 33d. per lb., and 3s. 6d. for
packing each bale. Ready for exportation, the bale
was worth twenty-eight head of cowries = 9.60 dollars
= 27. 48.; it has, however, risen to 27. 12s. in very
scarce times. But peace in America will restore the
balance of the English market, and reduce inferior
cottons to a maximum and minimum of 6 d. and 2d.,
whilst the best qualities will range between 9d. and
5d. Under these circumstances, what would become.
of cotton culture in Africa?
I presume that the benefits of the cotton famine
more than counterbalance to capitalists its disad-
vantages, otherwise they would not sit still calling
upon Hercules.
It is from them that enterprise
must originate. At present it is confined to trusting
a few hundreds of pounds sterling to any black face
with a glib tongue that promises to procure the
article cheap. Combination is wanted, and, still
more, before Europeans expend time and money in
Africa, a distinct pledge that, for so many years,
their produce will command a certain price in the
market, which is of course impossible. At present,
to tell a plain, unvarnished truth, we are convinced
that if Manchester could once more buy all her cotton
from the Southern States of America at one penny
a bale cheaper than she could obtain it from English
territory she would do so.
AND COTTON CHAPTER.
333
The conclusion which I draw from my brief visit
to Yoruba is, that it can produce cotton, and that,
for the present at least, it will not. The public is.
respectfully advised not so readily to believe those
who find for it cotton districts in every corner of
Africa. The Niger River and Valley offer, perhaps,
the best of all sites, and are of all the most neglected.
This part of the subject however must, for the best
of reasons, be reserved for future consideration.
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