66 BULLETIN OF THE LIVERPOOL MUSEUMS. 
their instruction? Was it an art developed among the Beni; or only the clever 
imitation of the handicraft of foreign prisoners or dwellers among them? Or 
were these ‘“‘ bronzes ” entirely the work of foreigners? At the present time 
it is impossible to answer these queries or to do more than make sugges- 
tions, and to institute comparisons between these works and those of various 
races in Africa and elsewhere, or with the descriptions of them left by various 
observers. 
The City of Benin has been ‘renowned,’ since it first was certainly made 
known to Europe, in the sixteenth century, by the celebrated navigators of 
that epoch, the Dutch and the Portuguese. Since then its fame has been 
more or less before the world, from accounts partly by exploring traders, who 
have personally visited the city, partly by those who have collected infor- 
mation from natives of 
the region. It long had 
the reputation of being 
the most powerful king- 
dom in West Africa, ‘“‘a 
City of that largeness,” 
to quote from Ogilby’s 
Africa, “as cannot be 
equall’d in those Parts, 
and of greater civility 
than to be expected 
among such Barbarous 
People. «2 -) "i Bg 
the King’s order yearly 
festivals are kept iu 
commemoration of the 
deceased Kings ; where- 
in they make horrible 
sacrifices of Men and 
Beasts to the number 
of four or five hun- 
dred, but never more 
than three and-twenty 
in one day.” On the 
cruelties of these ‘ cus- 
tom days” has chiefly 
rested, during _ later 
times, the celebrity of 
Benin, and the power- 
ful Fetish which has 

ih eee ieee ee hedged about its deity- 
MMe a att nab aa ou n “ . (geuiie a 5 ° : 
~ king who, with the aid 
Fic. 14.—PrLaquer In British Museum. of his priests, was an 
object of adoration and of terror to those living within a wide circuit of the 
city. 
Although we have records, more or less fragmentary, relating to Benin, 
scattered through the past two or three hundred years, none of its historians 
have related anything to prepare us to expect from it objects of art so numerous, 
and of such surprising excellence ; nor do they appear to have heard of artists 
or craftsmen living there capable of producing them. The nearest approach to 
the plaques, already mentioned as being so abundant, are the “melted copper, 
whereon are Ingraven their Warlike Deeds and Battels, kept with exceeding 
curiosity,” which covered the supporting pillars of the King’s house, about 
1630, as recorded in Ogilby. 
