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On the south the capital is now connected with its suburb by several bridges, not inferior in magnificence and solidity to the noblest works of the Caesars. In 1685, a single line of irregular arches, overhung by piles of mean and crazy houses, and garnished, after a fashion worthy of the naked barbarians of Dahomy, with scores of mouldering heads, impeded the navigation of the river.
In most nations a numerous progeny is considered a blessing, as being likely to prop the declining years of their parents, but in Dahomy, children are taken from their mothers at an early age, and distributed in villages remote from the places of their nativity, where they remain with but little chance of being ever seen, or at least recognized by their parents afterwards.
Dahomy, Alladah, Maha, and Badagry were claimed as tributaries; and the king of Benin was referred to as an ally. The government is an hereditary despotism, every subject being the slave of the king; but its administration appears to have been for a long period mild and humane.
Adultery is punished by slavery, or the value of a slave, by the offender, and the lady likewise subjects herself to be sold, but it is remarked that this measure is seldom resorted to, and it sometimes happens that a handsome wife is repeatedly turned to advantage by her husband, in alluring the unwary into heavy damages. The state of women is upon the whole very abject in Dahomy.
The king of Dahomy, and other despotic princes, do not scruple to seize their own people and sell them, without provocation, whenever they happen to want anything, which slave-ships can furnish. If a chief has conscience enough to object to such proceedings, he is excited by presents of gunpowder and brandy.
A mutinous wife or a vixen, sometimes the treasure and delight of an Englishman; the enlivener of his fireside, and his safeguard from ennui, is a phenomenon utterly unknown in Dahomy that noble spirit, which animates the happier dames in lands of liberty, being here, alas! extinguished and destroyed.
Canoes being obtained, the party proceeded slowly up a branch of this river, as far as the mouth of the Gazie creek, which comes from the north-west, running through part of the kingdom of Dahomy, having its rise in the country called Keeto.
Elephants are common in Dahomy, but are not tamed and used by the natives, as in India, for the purposes of war or burthen, being merely taken for the sake of their ivory and their flesh, which is, on particular occasions, eaten.
Dahomy, including the subjugated districts, extends at least a hundred and fifty miles into the interior, the principal town of which is Abomey, lying in about 3° east longitude. Dahomy produces in perfection all the immense variety of fine fruits found within the torrid zone, and amongst others one of a most singular quality.
Among the first stands Burton, who ranks as a great traveller in all parts of the world, and who, besides his trip on Lake Tanganyika, has visited Dahomy, the Cameroon Mountains, Abeokuta, and many other places. We regret to have to omit the travels and wonderful adventures of Du Chaillu through the gorilla country and other portions of tropical Africa.
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