2^2 
HISTORY OF THE [book it. 
he had himself, in his youth, frequently regaled on 
this horrid banquet: and his account received a 
shocking confirmation from a circumstance which 
occurred in the year 1770 in Antigua, where two 
negroes of the same country were tried for killing 
and devouring one of their fellow-slaves in that 
island. They were purchased, a short time before, 
by a gentleman of the name of Christian, out of a 
ship from Old Calabar, and I am told were convict¬ 
ed on the clearest evidence. 
Of the religious opinions and modes of worship 
of the Eboes, we know but little } except that, 
like the inhabitants of Whidah, they pay adoration 
to certain reptiles, of which the guana (a species- 
of lizard) is in the highest estimation.* They uni¬ 
versally practice circumcision, cs which with some 
* I have been assured by an intelligent person who had visited ma¬ 
ny parts of Africa, that the Eboes frequently offer up human sacrifices 
in their worship of this animal. Perhaps the certainty of this may be 
questioned; but the following anecdote is undoubtedly true. In the 
year 1787, two of the seamen of a Liverpool ship trading at Bonny, 
being ashore watering, had the misfortune to kill a guana, as they 
were rolling a cask to the beach. An outcry was immediately raised 
among the natives, and the boat’s crew were surrounded and seized, 
and all trade interdicted, until public justice should be satisfied and 
appeased. The offenders, being carried before the king, or chief man 
of the place, were adjudged to die. However, the severity of justice 
being softened by a bribe from the captain, the sentence was at length- 
changed to the following, that they should pay a fine of 700 bars 
(about £.75") and remain in the country as slaves to the king, until 
the money should be raised. The captain not being willing to advance 
so large a sum for the redemption of these poor wretches, sailed with¬ 
out them, and whai became of them afterwards, I have not heard* 
