DAHOMY.. 
311 
quaintance ; that he will administer justice with a 
rigorous and impartial hand, but will listen to no 
representations, nor receive any presents, except 
from his officers, who approach him grovelling in 
the dust. The Dahomans maintain the true doc- 
trine of passive obedience, and the divine right 
of kings, in the utmost purity; and their history 
exhibits no example of a deposition.. At his ac- 
ceesion, the king mlks in blood from the palace to 
the grave of his predecessor, and annually wters 
the graves of his ancestors with the Mood of human 
victims. The death of the king is only announced 
by fearful shrieks, which spread like lightning 
from the palace to the extremities of Dahomy, 
and become the signal for anarchy, rapine, and 
murder, which continue till the new king ascends 
the throne. The religion of Dahomy is vague 
and uncertain in its principles, and rather con- 
sists in the performance of some traditionary 
ceremonies, than in any fixed system of belief, or 
of moral conduct. They believe more firmly in 
their amulets and fetiches, than in the Deity ; 
their national fetiche is tJie Tiger ; and their 
habitations are decorated with ugly images, tinged 
with blood, stuck with feathers, besmeared with 
palm-oil, and bedaubed with eggs. As their 
ideas of Deity do not coincide with those of Euro- 
peans, they imagine that their tutelary gods are 
different. Perhaps/' said a Dahoman chief to 
