Biagraphical Memoir of Baron de Beativois. 9 



out, he resumed all his former habits, and s(X)ii forgot the little 

 knowledge of the French language which he had been taught. 

 Presently the inundations which each tide threw out upon the 

 ground appointed for the settlement, the pestilential stench of 

 the mud which encumbered the edges of the river, threatened 

 them with plagues more fatal than any they had yet experienced. 

 That disease, so harassing to Europeans in the torrid zone, and 

 which sometimes pursues them even to their own country, the 

 yellow fever, soon made its appearance. M. de Beauvois saw 

 his brother-in-law and the two men whom he brought with him, 

 expire. He asserts, in his narrative, that, of three hundred 

 French, who went out with him, there perished two hundred and 

 fifty during the fifteen months that he remained at Oware. He 

 himself escaped a premature death, only by being carried back 

 to the vessel which remained in the roads, and which, although 

 transformed into an hospital, was yet more healthy than the 

 land. Two other attacks reduced him to a deplorable state of 

 weakness. During all this time, however, he never lost cou- 

 rage. So long as his strength permitted, and he could have a 

 Negro to accompany him or propel his canoe, he traversed the 

 country by following the different branchings of the river which 

 waters this kind of delta, collecting all that was interesting, 

 either with respect to the moral history of the people, or for na- 

 tural history. He not only saw the Court of the King of Oware, 

 a prince somewhat less barbarous than those who live farther in 

 the interior, but whose kingdom is of small extent, and his sub- 

 jects poor and not numerous. After making a journey to Aga- 

 ton, the first entrepot of the kingdom of Benin, he made a second 

 to Benin itself, where he resided some time, and was entertained 

 as well as received by the King. This Prince, whose states are 

 about fifty miles in diameter, thinks himself the most powerful 

 monarch in the world. His subjects go farther : they are con- 

 vinced that he is a supernatural being. Not only, like those of 

 the Grand Lama, have they the opinion that their sovereign al- 

 ways remains the same, that his soul only transmigrates from 

 his body to that of his successor ; but, surpassing the inhabi- 

 tants of Thibet, they imagine that he never eats. M. de Beau- 

 vois was apprehensive of being very ill treated, for having ma- 

 nifested a curiosity to assist at one of his repasts. It is certainly 



