Chapter VII

SMALL RECEPTION AT AGRIME, AND ARRIVAL AT KANA, THE KING’S COUNTRY
QUARTERS.

On Friday, the 18th, about mid-afternoon, we were warned that the royal messenger or escort was approaching. A table was forthwith disposed outside the palace, opposite some elephant skulls and bones[172] heaped up under an ayyan, or thunder fetish shrub; and we ranged ourselves behind the board. After a few minutes a loudening hum of voices heralded a rush of warriors into the Uhon-nukon, or cleared space, with its central tree, fronting the royal abode. Dahomans much affect these sudden and impetuous movements, which impose upon the eye, making the few appear many. The flag-bearer was the first, waving, at the end of the thinnest of staves, a long calico rag with a preposterous blue anchor. Then, habited in the war uniform of the “Blue Company,” dashed a tumultuous column of war-men, four deep and about eighty in number; followed by two neat kettle-drums, and all singing the loudest chants. They saluted us by circumambulating the central tree, defiling before us from the left with right shoulders forward, jumping, springing, pretending to fire their weapons, and imitating all the action of an attack.

During this wild “pass round” sundry calabashes of food, carried on slaves’ heads, appeared from our left, and were displayed in order before us. Meanwhile, behind the soldiery, in distinct procession, walked the civilians, seven married men preceded by a white calico- covered object which, conspicuously borne aloft on a carrier’s head, announced itself as an old friend, the venerable liqueur-case of former days. Its damaged front and broken legs would disgrace an English pot- house; but it has been the pride and ornament of the Dahoman Court for the last half century. Behind it, with much solemnity, marched Aiseku, a medicine boy of the Meu, or Second Minister; and after him, habited in a shabby paletôt of brown-black alpaca, tomahawk in hand, stalked, with even greater dignity, Sosu Bleo, politely called Podoji-noto—less courteously, “state-spy” upon the old Buko-no.

The Blues, after grovelling in the dust before the Sublime Porte, cried out the royal “strong names,[173]” presented arms to it after their fashion, and formed up in line before our table. Then the king’s canes were, according to custom, produced from their _étuis_, and all admired their novelty. Instead of King Gezo’s _rococo_ old lions, sharks, and crocodiles, we now found out, after some study, chameleons, parrots, and monkeys half-swallowed by snakes, the whole ornamented with thin plates of beaten dollars.[174] I handled them standing and bare-headed, whilst the messengers prostrated; and in this position the usual questions, answers, and greetings were exchanged.

The old liqueur-case was uncovered, and, besides the invariable aqua pura, three case-bottles made their appearance, with muscadel wine, trade gin, and bad Portuguese rum. The Dahoman etiquette is to drink thrice of different liquors: foreseeing much of this kind of thing I resolved at once to show preference to the muscadel, and, despite all protestations, to decline the rum.

Whilst we imbibed to the King’s health and to my own, the escort fired salutes; they then grounded arms, and began the usual “Gillie Callum,” their “decapitation dance.” Amongst the knives and tomahawks I remarked a jambíyah, or Arab side-dagger. The line moved from side to side, capering and raising the near leg, and at times all rushed like madmen round the tree. Ensued solos of three chiefs, and the usual frantic singing and valour-boasting. After emptying the gin and rum into the principals, civil and military, I retired. The small reception ended with the King’s dole of provaunt—five calabashes of stews and vegetables, with one pot of good water. It sufficed for fifty, whereas we had a hundred mouths to fill; ensued the usual scene of disgusting selfishness, the missionary youths, with “Elijah” at their head, greatly distinguishing themselves.

Nothing could be meaner than the whole display, which every year grows worse; Gezo attempted to keep up state; his son is either unable or unwilling to do so.

When all was over we set out in hammocks, preceded by the guard firing at spurts carbines and muskets loud as little mortars, and capering all the way. I have heard an Englishman doubt the possibility of “polking” from Dan to Beersheba—let him visit Dahome. A delicate French grey, touched with the lightest pink in the western sky, told us that the day was dying fast. The soil, before whitish, again appeared deeply tinged with oxide of iron, and the vegetation displayed cactus, as well as the acacia which had characterized the scenery between Agrime and its swamp. In places it perfumed the atmosphere like that of the Azbakiyah Gardens at Cairo, where the native perfumers extract from the “locust” a faint and peculiarly oriental perfume appropriately called Fitnah. The land, seemingly a dead level, had everywhere been burned, and the lively young grass was sprouting out of death. After about an hour we halted at a Danh-hwe, or “Rainbow house,[175]” a little wall-less thatch-slope, like the Australian “breakwind,” in the centre of a dwarf mud wall, circled with the thunder fetish plant. The head “religious” attached to the establishment came forth with the usual ceremonies, presented water to us, begged and received alms.

The next halt was at Zogbodomen, so called from its chief, who was slain by Dako,[176] the first Dahoman king. The few miserable thatch huts are shaded by the fleshy-leaved figs, called on the Gold Coast “Market trees,” and are almost buried during the rains by densest grass, from which rise the stateliest palmyras. Presently crossing level ground, with vegetation here tall, there dwarfed; now green, then brown; we sighted from afar a deep depression stretching from east to west.

On the farther side of this valley, which during wet weather must roll in a considerable stream, stands Kana. I could not but feel, during my former visit, a thrill of pleasure at the first sight of the “country capital.” It is distinctly Dahome; and here the traveller expects to look upon the scenes of barbaric splendour of which all the world has read. And it has its own beauty: a French traveller has compared it with the loveliest villages of fair Provence; while to Mr. Duncan it suggested “a vast pleasure-ground, not unlike some part of the Great Park at Windsor.” After impervious but sombre forest, grass-barrens, and the dismal swamps of the path, the eye revels in these open plateaux: the seducing aspect is enhanced by scattered plantations of a leek green studding the slopes, by a background of gigantic forest dwarfing the nearer palm files, by homesteads buried in cultivation, and by calabashes and cotton-trees vast as the view, tempering the fiery summer sun to their subject growths, and in winter collecting the rains, which would otherwise bare the newly buried seed. Nor is animal life wanting. The turkey-buzzard, the kite, and the kestrel soar in the upper heights; the brightest fly-catchers flit through the lower strata; the little grey squirrel nimbly climbs his lofty home, and a fine large spur-fowl cries from the plantations of maize and cassava.

After two hours of slow travelling we passed the site of a village now level with the ground: it is called Logozokpota,[177] or the Tortoise’s Rise. Here is a detached thatch which the king visits before beginning his campaigns; and when passing it we were saluted with five muskets—an honour always punctually reported. Descending into the depression, we could see the town—a city no longer—straggling beyond the northern bank. A nearer glance at the habitations showed us that they are those of Whydah and Savi, heaps of haycock huts or penthouse thatches enclosed in “compounds” of mud wall or palm-leaf, and jealously detached. There is palpably more field than habitation, and far more fallow than field.

At this point we reach a trivia. Two paths setting to the N.N.W. lead to the town; the south-eastern is in the direction of the king’s drinking water, called Hanan. I afterwards visited it. A well-cleared road leads over several waves of ground, alternately maize-field and palm-orchard, towards a serpentine line of tall dark trees—a formation ever denoting water in those lands. About half a mile from the outskirts of Kana places the visitor at the rivulet; it is a deep ditch, sunk, canal-like, 10 to 12 feet below the ground-surface; the bed is black with vegetable humus, and the water after being puddled is white with clay. The direction is easterly towards the Denham Lake.

This streamlet is said to supply during the dry season all Kana. It is visited throughout the night by the humbler classes. At the earliest dawn the women slaves of the palace,[178] who are shut up during the hours of darkness, wend their way in long lines, carrying huge pots on their heads. They claim the road, which is consequently provided with a number of foot-made offsets. At the words, “Gan ja[179]!”—“The bell comes!”—even if it is tinkled by a slave girl-child four years old, the native must throw himself “into the bush,” that is to say, out of the road, and await with averted face till the long train has passed. If a palace water-pot be broken, the nearest male would be accused and get into trouble.[180] When out shooting in the morning, we were often called to by these slaves, telling us not to startle them. The Dahoman officials show their loyalty by “clearing out” as far and as fast as possible. If a stranger does only what is strictly necessary, one woman will say, “He is a white, and knows no better!” and the other will reply, “And has he no law in his own land?” The lower, the older, and the uglier the slave girls are, the louder and longer they tinkle—which is natural—and almost all of them seemed to enjoy the ignoble scamper of our interpreters and hammock men, whom the old women order to look the other way. At times, men and boy water-carriers for the palace, known by their switches, arrogate to themselves the same right. This is one of the greatest nuisances in Dahome: it continues throughout the day; in some parts, as around the palace, half a mile an hour would be full speed; and to make way for these animals of burthen, bought perhaps for a few pence, is, to say the least of it, by no means decorous.

Continuing our way to the N.W., the next feature observed was the Gau Nehori, explained to be “Fetish place, when the Gau or commander-in- chief opens the campaign” by performing certain ceremonies. It is nothing but a long shed with a shady verandah, and a few huts under a splendid Ficus. A little beyond it, on the left of the road, is a white clay depression in the grass—a pool during the rains, and in the dries a surface pitted with empty holes two feet deep—this is the Gau-te.[181] Then came the Kana-’gbo-nun,[182] or town gate, consisting of a pole or two, but warning men that their heads are within the lion’s jaws. The space is open; there are two ragged trees on the left; to the right lie a few small huts, and a gigantic Bombax denotes from afar the entrance to Kana.

When the party with much singing and dancing had been formed up, we were once more allowed to advance. This time, however, the circuitous official road was preferred. The large open spaces were crowded with spectators, whom the bright moonlight enabled to satisfy their curiosity. On the left lay the blacksmiths’ quarter, dotted with round thatched huts, open at the sides, and presenting all the appearance of the Central African smithy. Another half hour being duly wasted, we turned to the S.W., passed a couple of dwarf temples, when the _impudique_ Logba looked more priapus-like than any priapus, and were carried into the “English house,” whence the crippled old landlord Degen-no[183] came out to receive us.

This was a disappointment: although ex-officio guests of Buko-no, the English landlord, we had looked forward to the comfortable hall and superior establishment of the Akho-vi,[184] or Prince Chyudaton, the Lieutenant-Governor of Whydah. Of course we remonstrated loudly about the narrowness of our quarters, and we sent a message to the head doctor, without other result than the usual “put off.” Let no reader of African travel, however, suppose that anything so noble as jealousy influences these negro worthies. Their object in securing the guest is purely and simply for dirty pelf. I have heard and read much of African hospitality; but I have never seen a trace of it in the true Hamite.[185] He will take you into his hut, and will even quarrel with you if you pass him unvisited: he will supply you with food, and will assure you that you are monarch of all you survey. But it is all a sham: he expects a recompense in double and treble, and if he does not obtain it, his rudeness will be that of the savage _gratté_. The self-called “civilized” negro, like the _emancipados_ of S’a Leone and Fernando Po, admit you into their houses, and keep you there as at an inn: they would be equally hurt and offended by your calling for the bill and by your forgetting to pay exorbitantly, but indirectly. The fact is, they would combine the praise of hospitality with more solid advantages; and they do so with the transparent cunning of children. Such has been my experience in Africa—may others have fared better!

Kana is less correctly written Canna, Cannah, and even Carnah: the old travellers prefer Calmina, or Canamina, a corruption of Kana-mina, from a palace once built there, according to “country custom,” by one of the Dahoman kings.[186] The History declares it to have been the first place of importance which (about 1620) fell into the hands of the Foys (Ffons), or early Dahomans, by the assassination of its chief. That authority, however, uses the word “Calmina,” which should evidently be Kana, the “Mina” being an addition of a later date. According to Commander Forbes, “Cannah, formerly capital of Foy, then called Dawee, conquering Agbome, has retained a peace of upwards of 200 years.” This sentence contains a treble inaccuracy: “Dawee,” as has been seen, should be “Uhwawi”; secondly, Agbome conquered Kana; and thirdly, they have hardly ever been at peace till the present century.

As the History proves, Kana was a settlement claimed of old by the independent “Oyos,” or Eyeos,[187] the northern and equestrian Yombas. The Dahomans, since the days of Agaja (A.D. 1708-1730), agreed to pay to them an annual tribute in November, and the failure of this subsidy invariably brought on a war. When Tegbwesun (the Bossa Ahadee, of our writers), about 1738, refused his contribution, Kana was plundered; in 1747 the foe retired after being duly satisfied. The Oyos must have been troublesome neighbours to Dahome, ever demanding increase of supplies, interfering in domestic policy, harassing them by constant wars, and assuring the Southrons that “Dahome belonged to Eyeo.” Mr. Norris, writing in 1772, shows that the town was in Dahoman hands, but it has doubtless frequently been taken and retaken.

Early in the present century, King Gezo (who came to the throne in 1818) seized his opportunity, and after hard fighting, finally drove out the warlike Oyos, who were sinking before the Fula or Moslem movement in the north,[188] and distributed the tribute amongst his people,—one of his proudest achievements. He made Kana a kind of _villagiatura_ for the Court, free and easy as such country quarters generally are, and resided in it when his troops went forth to their lesser wars. The remnant of the Oyo population was enlisted in his army, and was well-nigh killed out during the attack upon Abeokuta in 1851. And that the subjugation of so terrible an enemy might not be forgotten by his dynasty, Gezo—not his son, as the missionaries believe,—then instituted a sacrifice at Kana, which opens as it were the customs of Agbome. The victims are made to personate in dress and avocation Oyos, a pastoral and agricultural people.[189]

There is little to be seen at Kana, a wall-less scatter of huts and houses, thickening as usual around the palace and the market-places, and straggling over some three miles of ground. The population may at usual times amount to 4000, about one-third that of Whydah.[190] According to some enthusiastic travellers, the cultivation rivals that of the Chinese; at present all such art has been lost. The situation is low; the air hot, humid, and unwholesome: the sea-breeze somewhat tempers the day, but the nights are extremely oppressive, and during the rains, fevers are rife.

About one mile to the south-westward of the English house is an old palace of a Dahoman king, by some named Agaja, by others Tegbwesun. It was in poor condition; in many places the wall was tattered, in others patched with matting, and the interior was a mass of bush and jungle. As usual, however, the entrances were kept in repair, and the ground before them was swept and sprinkled every morning by slaves established for that purpose. There is a tradition that the founder of this decayed palace lies here buried: if so, the remains have been removed to the great Agbome palace, where there is a single “family vault.”

[Footnote 172: The animal, in 1803, was common throughout the country; now it is a “curio,” having been well-nigh killed out. About three months before our arrival at Whydah, Mr. Dawson had bought a pair of tusks, and spoke of the occurrence as rare.]

[Footnote 173: This old Africo-English term is a literal translation of the Ffon “nyi siyen-siyen.”]

[Footnote 174: The wood is light, canary-coloured, and pretty much like what I have seen at Fernando Po. The stick-making industry seems here to pay: the cheapest specimens cost half a dollar. Before an axe-edge of iron or silver can be added, the King’s permission must be obtained.]

[Footnote 175: For an account of the rainbow worship, see chap. xvii. Danh, as has been seen, also means a snake; but the seaboard god has few honours here.]

[Footnote 176: Zogbodo also means a woman’s top-knot of hair, the Shushah of the Arab. Mr. Duncan (vol. i. p. 205) writes Togbado; not a misprint, but probably an error of his notes.]

[Footnote 177: An iron figure of the Logozo, the land tortoise, or terrapin, is much used in the Bo-Fetish. The Egbas believe mirage to be caused by an underground fire with which the tortoise fells the trees. I could not find the idea in Dahome.]

[Footnote 178: They are not Amazons, as Commodore Wilmot (Appendix iii.) thinks, but the slaves of the fighting women, who each hold from one to fifty. When any of the King’s wives appear they are preceded by such attendants, and are accompanied by Amazons, who, however, carry only their muskets. It is the same with the royal Fetish women when going to fetch water for the great Nesu; they are known by their white raiment and long strings of cowries. On these occasions the male lieges must run off afar and turn their backs. Women only clear the way.]

[Footnote 179: Gan is any metal; gan-wi (lit. black metal) specifies iron. The bell in question is a rude unbrazed affair not unlike that appropriated to our sheep, and it is carried suspended to a cord round the neck of the file leader. At the sight of a man it is vigorously shaken up and down with one hand.]

[Footnote 180: The same is the custom amongst the Dembos of the old Congo empire. A man who refused to quit the path when a chief’s wife approached, or who stood talking with her, would be sold with his family into slavery: on the other hand, the woman, under pain of her lord’s displeasure, yielded the way to a white man or a black-white—one authorised to wear shoes and other articles of European toilette.]

[Footnote 181: I could not obtain a reliable translation of this name. Mr. Beecham rendered it “commander-in-chief’s pool.”]

[Footnote 182: Agbo (with the peculiar “gb” pronounced simultaneously, a gate), and nun (mouth, or side).]

[Footnote 183: A name always given to children that have been sent from Deadland by their great-grandmothers.]

[Footnote 184: Akho, or Akhosu (a king), and Vi (a child, son, or young one). So “Tom” was known amongst the people as Yewe-no-vi (literally, godmother-son), young missionary.]

[Footnote 185: “The people, I have said already, are void either of sympathy or gratitude, even in their own families; and the poor horse is not held in half so much esteem as the swine, because they cannot eat it.” This is a true remark by Mr. Duncan.]

[Footnote 186: “Mina” must not be confounded with Dutch Elmina, on the Gold Coast; it refers to Elmina Chica, on the Slave Coast. Locally all the peoples between Little Popo and Accra are called “Mina.” When Dahoman kings fail to capture an attacked place, they erect at one of the capitals a palace which is dubbed after the victor, and this satisfies the vanquished. Hence, because Dahome was defeated by Ashanti, the Kumasi palace at Agbome was added to the older establishments. Mr. Duncan errs (vol. ii. p. 274) when stating of the latter, “This palace was built and named about the time when the present king (Gezo) threw off his allegiance to the kingdom of Ashantee, the king of which formerly boasted that he could hold Dahomey in vassalage.”]

[Footnote 187: The word “Eyeo” has greatly vexed West African writers before the days of Clapperton and Lander. D’Anville uses Gogo; Rennell, Gugoo; Adams (1823) writes it “Hio.” The “History of Dahomey” (1793) gives us Yahoo (from Snelgrave); Oyeo and Okyou (Barbot); Eyeo (Dalzel); and, in conclusion, they confound it with Anago, or the Egba country. “Probably this may be the kingdom of Gago (Kuku, or Gugoo!), which lies to the northward of Dahomey eight or ten days’ journey. The Moorish aspirated sound of G being nearly like a hard H, as in the word George, spelt jorje by the Spaniards, and pronounced Horké, or Horché; whence Gago may have been sounded Haho, Haiho, or Haiko.” Admirable reasoning! Mr. Norris’s map places the Ayoes or Eyeos north of Lagos, which is not far wrong. Bosman speaks of an invasion of Ardra, in 1698, by a powerful inland people, which some conjecture to be the “Eyeos.” Oyo (pronounced Awyaw), _alias_ Katanga, was the capital of Yoruba proper on the northern region, destroyed in 1835 by the Moslem Fulas, and still, I believe, a heap of ruins. When the falling structure crumbled, the maritime provinces asserted their independence, and have ever since preserved it. The History gives wonderful accounts of Oyo’s former power. It frequently sent forth 100,000 horsemen. The general, it is said, used to spread a thick buffalo-hide before his tent and make the soldiery pass between two spears till a hole had been worn in it. When greater undertakings were in prospect, two hides used thus to be treated.]

[Footnote 188: See “Wanderings in West Africa.”—Abeokuta, chap. v.]

[Footnote 189: It is called Gezo’s custom, and is performed at Kana, not at Agbome. Mr. Bernasko saw it in May, 1863; he describes it thus: “Near the second side of the (palace) wall were eleven platforms, erected on poles about forty feet high. On each of these was the dead body of a man in an erect position, clothed in the native style, each having in his hand a calabash or similar vessel, filled with oil, grain, or some other produce of the country. One was represented leading a sheep, also dead. All this was intended to illustrate that at Canna, of which they (the Dahomans) are now masters, they were once obliged to pay tribute.” The Kana custom is described by Mr. Duncan, vol. i. p. 219. In his day the bodies had been exposed about two moons and a half, till the skin, from exposure, had turned nearly to the colour of that of a white man. “The vulture was industriously endeavouring to satisfy his appetite, but the heat of the sun had dried the skin so as to make it impenetrable to his efforts.”]

[Footnote 190: No reliance can be placed upon native or quasi-native estimate of numbers, especially in towns. The traveller is reduced to the rude experiment of counting houses, and multiplying by what he learns to be the average household.]