94 Chronicles of Science. [Jan., 



indefatigable dancers, and march with a most military swagger. The 

 women are originally of a very masculine character, and the style of 

 life they lead adds to this appearance. About a third have been 

 originally married women, but have been presented to the king (whose 

 wives the whole 2,500 are supposed to be), by their husbands whom 

 they have maltreated or to whom they have been unfaithful. Notwith- 

 standing the presumed marriage with the king, when the army was 

 lately about to march against Abeokuta, about 150 of these soldiers who 

 had no right to be so, were found to be pregnant. Under these circum- 

 stances, they have to undergo a form of trial with their paramours, 

 when frequently the guilty parties suffer death. The present king, 

 however, is somewhat more merciful than his predecessors, and his 

 jealousy is appeased by some less grievous punishment. 



Though not actually witnessing the execution of any human 

 victims at the Customs, Captain Burton saw enough to convince him of 

 the enormous amount of blood spilt on these occasions. The whole 

 subject is a curious one, and those who wish thoroughly to understand 

 the extraordinary nature and origin of these sacrifices, must study the 

 volumes themselves : we can only give a brief outline of some of the 

 performances. The original idea is that of filial piety. The deceased 

 monarch requires to be accompanied to the land of shades by his 

 principal and other eunuchs, by various wives and a variety of other 

 attendants. Accordingly victims who would amount to a small army, and 

 may amount to 500 in number, are despatched at the Grand Customs. 

 But besides these, others are sacrificed every year. Under the present 

 king these amount to about forty men, and as many others are mur- 

 dered by the Amazons, so that nearly eighty persons besides the first 

 fruits of prisoners of war and all criminals are butchered yearly by 

 these savages to fulfil their notions of filial l^piety. On the " Evil 

 Night," moreover, all who make their appearance out of doors, do so at 

 the risk of their lives. The present king, Gelele, is rather more in- 

 clined to these sacrifices than his father Gezo, who had reduced them 

 considerably. The Amazon army had been much diminished by the 

 former attacks on Abeokuta, and had never entirely recovered its 

 numbers. Still these female warriors were in high spirits with re- 

 gard to the war which was just impending when Captain Burton was 

 at Dahome. The captainess of the Beauty Company, in an address to 

 the king shortly before the expedition, with much eloquence, if 

 eloquence consists in action, declared, after she had cut off the head of 

 an imaginary corpse, " Thus they would treat Abeokuta." But Abeo- 

 kuta refused to be thus treated, and the Amazonian army was cut to 

 pieces, and the king narrowly escaped with his life. It is not likely 

 that this kingdom of Dahome will ever rise again to its pristine con- 

 dition after this terrible blow. 



The travels of Dr. Livingstone, as well as his later movements, we 

 abstain from relating, since his work on this subject is promised early 

 in the year. This will be accompanied by the narrative of Mr. 

 Charles Livingstone's expedition to the Zambesi and Lake Nyassa. It 

 is, however, not likely to pass without severe criticism, as almost every 

 African explorer has his own opinion on the direction of every river, 



