The World and Its People Part 35

In every town well-stocked and well-regulated markets are held. These supply the natives with the necessaries of life and with the various European manufactures that are in demand. The poorer cla.s.ses subsist almost wholly upon fish. The common drink of the people is palm wine.

At all festivals and public meetings the most cruel acts and brutal customs prevail. Should a chief die, many lives must be sacrificed in his honor; and, on the death of the king, all his personal attendants and many others, male and female, numbering often several thousands, are sacrificed.

The chief employment of the Ashantee agriculturist is clearing the ground from the rank, luxuriant growth which covers it. This he does by means of fire. In this way he clears his ground and spreads it over with a layer of rich fertilizer.

The only agricultural implement is the hoe. This is of the crudest description; but it answers the purpose in a country whose productive soil is flooded twice each year, yielding two crops of most kinds of corn, and an abundance of yams and rice.

The natives lay out the plantations with a good deal of regularity. The cultivated grounds are extensive, though not equal to the wants of the people.

The Ashantees do not smelt ores like some of the African tribes, yet they have blacksmiths and gold-smiths much superior to what we might expect to find among them. There are also dyers, potters, tanners, and carpenters.

The fineness of texture and the variety and brilliancy of coloring in the native cloths would do credit to an English or an American manufacturer. Several specimens of the handiwork of the Ashantees are to be found in the British Museum.

Various insurrections and frequent wars have occurred, in some of which the Ashantees have come into collision with the British nation. Finally, a few years ago, war was formally declared; for the Ashantees paid no regard to treaties formed with neighboring states under the protection of the British flag, and resented bitterly any interference on the part of Great Britain with the slave trade.

They not only insulted and robbed persons trading with the British settlements, but even killed them, in their bitter hatred. At last they took up arms against the British. A war followed, which terminated quite recently, and resulted in the defeat and disbandment of the Ashantees, and in the overthrow of the kingdom.

The capital, as well as the palace, was burned, and the king, in spite of his cunning and duplicity, was finally forced to sue for peace.

A treaty was formed, the conditions of which were most important; human sacrifices were to be abolished, the slave trade discontinued, and honorable commerce protected. Well will it be for Ashantee land if these conditions can be enforced; for the defeat of a native king in Africa means, usually, political chaos and ruin.

Even at the present time many of the Ashantees have thrown off their allegiance to the king; and the kingdom will, no doubt, resolve itself into a number of petty chieftainships similar to those from which it was formed.

The kingdom of Dahomey is the most celebrated of all the West African countries.

The limits of the kingdom are somewhat uncertain; but the whole country over which the king of Dahomey originally ruled cannot have been less than four thousand square miles.

Formerly, the kingdom was engaged in the slave trade. Whydah, its seaward outlet, was one of the ports where the slavers were loaded with their human cargoes. Now it is an insignificant little town of ruined factories.

The kingdom, since the abolishment of the slave trade, furnishes little of value to commerce, with the exception of olive oil.

The people, and the king in particular, have long furnished the subjects of the most marvelous of stories. Travelers have brought back accounts of the curious serpent house at Whydah. Here are kept the sacred fetich serpents.

The edifice is merely a round structure, with a conical thatched roof.

The hut, as we should call it, is from ten to twelve yards in diameter and seven or eight in height. The walls consist of dried earth, similar to those of the dwellings. Two openings, on opposite sides, furnish the doorways through which these serpent divinities trail their hideous forms, in their pa.s.sage in and out the sacred temple.

Strings of cotton yarn hang from the roof. On the floor, which, like the walls, is whitewashed, are several pots of water.

One traveler found as many as one hundred serpents within the sacred house. Another found but twenty-two on his visit. They were harmless, for their fangs had been removed.

The length of these reptiles varied from one to three meters. They had spindle-shaped bodies, which terminated gradually in a tail one-third the entire length of the body.

They had large heads, somewhat flattened and triangular, but shaped as if the corners had been rounded off. Their necks were somewhat thinner than their bodies.

Their color varied, ranging from a clear yellow to yellow green. Most of them were marked with two brown lines down the back; a few were irregularly spotted. Dr. Repin believed them to belong to the species of non-poisonous reptiles cla.s.sified as pythons and adders.

As he watched them, some ascended and descended the tree trunks placed within the sacred house for them. Others suspended themselves by their tails, balanced themselves above his head, and peered down at him with their narrow eyes. Some were coiled up asleep under the rafters which supported the roof, after a feast from the last offerings of the faithful worshipers.

Strangely, weirdly fascinating as the sight was, and wholly devoid of danger, yet he could but give a sigh of satisfaction as he stepped into the open air.

Every one of these serpents is held sacred. If one of them, astray from its home, is encountered by one of the superst.i.tious negroes, it is approached in a most reverential manner, often on the knees, and then lifted carefully in the arms and carried back into the sacred house with the most humble apologies from the worshiping savage for the liberty he is taking in touching anything so sacred.

When, by accident, a European, unaware of its sacred character, has killed one of these serpents, it has been only with the greatest difficulty that his life has been saved from paying the forfeit for the sacrilegious act; so great has been the wrath of the priests and their fanatical people.

The serpent is thus reverenced because during a siege in war time it appeared to the army, and so inspired the soldiers with courage and ardor that a victory was won.

Abomey is the capital of Dahomey. It is situated seventy miles inland, and stands upon a level plateau. It is a walled city. The walls are of clay, and measure about eight miles in length. They are pierced by four gates, according to some writers; by six, according to others. Each has a double opening, one for the exclusive use of the king, the other for his subjects.

The walls of the town are twenty feet in height. A ditch from four to six feet deep is an added protection, in case an enemy should storm the walls. This ditch is crossed by means of light bridges of wood, which can easily be moved in case of danger.

The houses are widely separated, and in some instances are surrounded by small farms. The streets are broad and tolerably clean, but by no means crowded; many of them are shaded by magnificent trees.

Near the center of the city is a small edifice, with a round roof sustained by a wooden colonnade. This is the building in which the human sacrifices formerly took place.

Near this is the palace of the king, consisting of a number of ordinary dwellings separated by courts and gardens, and serving as the lodgings of the king's female soldiers and his domestic slaves.

These dwellings are made of clay dried in the sun, and roofed with bamboos, which extend over the fronts and form verandas; only one of them has a doorway which opens on the princ.i.p.al street. This is the royal treasure house and is two stories high. Its walls are festooned with strings of cowries, hanging from the eaves to the ground, an ornamentation which is found nowhere else.

The king has no special apartment out of the many that comprise his palace, but chooses any, from time to time, which suits his fancy.

Surrounding all these dwellings is a wall of clay. This is from fifteen to twenty feet high, and pierced with several gates. Here and there at intervals iron hooks project, and from these are suspended the heads of decapitated subjects, some whitened and bleached by time, others ghastly tokens of recent sacrifices in pagan worship.

In front of the doorways of the dwellings, piles of elephant bones may be found heaped up. These are probably trophies of the chase, and yet they seem to be held in superst.i.tious fear by the natives.

The Dahomans are tall, well formed, and intelligent. For an African race they are wonderfully honest, and are well advanced in a knowledge of agriculture. They are almost all pagans, and practice the most heathenish rites. The king is an absolute despot, having complete control over the lives and the possessions of his people.

One of the cruel practices, formerly, was the tremendous sacrifice of human lives during any of the religious ceremonies. One king caused seven thousand followers to be killed at the death of his father.

A peculiar feature of the army was the corps of Amazons, or female soldiers. They have been described as more effective than their male comrades in time of war. The flower of the corps perished in a siege in 1867, and the soldiers were greatly reduced in numbers. The remaining force since then has been divided into three brigades, each of which has a distinguishing mode of dressing the hair.

Leaving the Dahomey kingdom, we reach the dead levels of the delta of the Niger, which has twenty-two main channels, separated by swamps of mangrove trees.

The navigation of the Niger is now carried on by a half dozen or more light steamers. These ascend the current from the Atlantic to the factories situated at the junction with the Binue, and even farther up both streams. These steamers carry on an exchange of European goods for ivory, palm oil, and b.u.t.ter from the olivelike seeds of the b.u.t.ter tree.

All these steamers need to be well armed, in case of an attack from hostile natives.

Abo, at the head of the delta, is in the very heart of the oil section.

There are two or three important native towns farther up the river, and at the mouth of the Binue is an important mission station. This is under the management of a negro bishop. This mission station, Lukoja, is also a great depot and trading station of the British Niger Company, which has control over the government of the river.

Egga, a large Mohammedan town a day's journey by steamer above Lukoja, is at present the limit of the European trade on the Niger.

Beyond the delta of the Niger we find the estuaries of the Old Calabar and Cameroons rivers. These are famed as being the "oil rivers" of West Africa, owing to the great supply of oil which is brought down their currents from the interior.

At the coast all kinds of European goods are given in barter for the oil in a crude form. This crude oil is then melted and stored in sheds, ready for transportation.

The oil rivers, as far as Rio del Rey, are controlled by the British.

The Cameroons coast has been ceded to Germany.