198 WESTERN AFRICA. 



quent intercourse with Europeans. The interior countryj' 

 extending parallel to the great central chain of mountains, 

 of which the principal branch is here called Kong, presents 

 nothing of that desert and arid character which is stamped 

 on so great a proportion of the African continent. The 

 soil, copiously watered, is liable rather to an excessive 

 luxuriance ; but, where well managed, it is highly fruitfuU 

 There are found, too, in this tract, several very powerful 

 kingdoms, better organized and more improved than any 

 near the coast. They have not, however, the slightest 

 tincture of European civilization ; and their manners, in 

 several important respects, are stained with habits and 

 practices that belong to the very lowest stage of savage life. 

 Of these greater states the first to which Europeans 

 penetrated was Dahomey, which had distinguished itself 

 early in the last century by the conquest it then achieved 

 of the flourishing kingdom of Whidah, on the slave-coast. 

 The Dahomans committed the most horrible ravages that 

 were ever witnessed,- — reducing their country, the most 

 fertile and beautiful then known in Western Africa, to 

 almost utter desolation. As the king of Dahomey con- 

 tinued to hold sway over this province, Mr. Norris, in 1772, 

 undertook a journey thither to observe the character and 

 position of this extraordinary potentate, and to make 

 arrangements for the benefit of the English trade. He 

 passed through a fine country, abounding in the usual tro- 

 pical productions, and rising by a gentle ascent about 150 

 miles inland to Abomey, the capital. He arrived at an 

 appalling season, that of the annual customs, when the 

 great men were assembled from every quarter of the king- 

 dom ; and he was truly astonished to see those fierce and 

 warlike chieftains, whose very name spreads terror through- 

 out Africa, prostrating themselves before the monarch, flat 

 on the ground, and piling dust on their heads in token of 

 the most abject submission. This homage is yielded, not 

 from fear, but from a blind and idolatrous veneration, which 

 makes them regard their king in the light of a superior 

 being. In his name they rush to battle, and encounter 

 their foes with Spartan intrepidity. One of them said to 

 Mr. Norris, " I thnik of my king, and then I darfc engage 

 five of the enemy myself" He added, " My head belongs 

 o the king, and not to myself; if he please to send for it, I 



