186 
DAHOMANS. 
feet long, and variously formed, — some like a scythe, others like a 
pickaxe ; some with a head like a hawk, others with round heads ; 
but all are neatly made, and ornamented with carvings. The slings 
are simple, but they form the stones into a shape somewhat like an 
egg. They drive the dart by the assistance of short cords knotted 
at one end and looped at the other, called by the seamen, beckets. 
These contain a quantity of red wool, taken from the great Indian 
bat. Bows and arrows are wholly unknown among them. Their 
language bears no affinity to that spoken in the other South Sea 
islands, the word arrekee, and one or two more, excepted. This is 
the more extraordinary, as different dialects of one language w’ere 
spoken not only in the easterly islands, but at New Zealand. Their 
only musical instrument is a kind of whistle — a little polished piece 
of brown wood about two inches long, shaped like a bell, though appa- 
rently solid, with a rope fixed at the small end; two holes are made 
in it near the base, and another near the insertion of the rope, all 
which communicate with each other, and by blowing in the uppermost 
a shrill sound like whistling is produced. Many of these people were 
observed to have prodigiously thick arms and legs, which seem to be 
affected with a kind of leprosy ; the swelling was extremely hard, but 
the skin was not alike harsh and scaly in all those that were afflicted 
with the disorder. The preternatural expansion of the arm or leg 
did not appear to be a great inconvenience to them, and they very 
rarely felt any pain in it ; but after some time the disorder began to 
form blotches, which are marks of a great degree of virulence. They 
bury their dead in the ground. The grave of a chief who had been 
slain in battle resembled a large mole-hill, and was decorated with 
spears, darts, paddles, &c., all stuck upright in the ground about it. 
Lieutenant Pickersgill was shewn a chief whom they called Teabeoma, 
and styled their arrekee, or king ; but nothing farther is known of 
their government, and nothing at all of their religion. They have no 
idea of goats, hogs, dogs, or cats. 
Dahomans. 
These are the inhabitants of Dahomy, a kingdom of Africa. The 
religion of the Dahomans is vague and uncertain in its principles, 
and rather consists in its performance of some traditionary ceremo- 
nies, 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 the tiger, and their houses or huts are decorated 
with ugly images, tinged with blood, stuck with feathers, besmeared 
with palm oil, and bedaubed with eggs. The government is perhaps 
the most perfect despotism upon earth. The policy of the country 
admits of no intermediate degree of subordination between the king 
and slave, at least in the royal presence, where the prime minister is 
obliged to prostrate himself with as much abject submission as the 
meanest subject, all acknowledging the unlimited power of the sove- 
reign. A minister of state crawls towards the apartment of audience 
on his hands and knees, till he arrives in the royal presence, where 
he lays himself flat on his belly, rubbing his head in the dust, and 
