well-meant endeavor so reassure them that, Pall Mall in Dahomey, so that this part of notwithstanding the odd tone of the "speeches," his majesty was a good Christian-like king after all, even if he did go to war" for an idea" now and then, like some of his brethren. On the 10th, the king received them in state at Cannah, eight miles from his capital. They were carried three times round the square of the palace with much ceremony. Then they entered the gates of the courtyard, and beheld his sable majesty seated with about a hundred wives round him, "most of them young and exceedingly pretty," at the upper end of a sort of state avenue of variegated umbrellas, under which were congregated his principal chiefs. All around stood "the Guards," a household brigade consisting, in this instance, of a remarkably fine body of Amazons, of whose soldierly bearing and accuracy in loading and firing the commodore everywhere speaks with much admiration: "The king was reclining on a raised dais, about three feet high, covered with crimson cloth, smoking his pipe. One of his wives held a glass sugar-basin for him to spit in. He was dressed very plainly, the upper part of his body being bare, with only a silver chain holding some fetish charm round his neck, and an unpretending cloth round his waist." 66 the ceremony has to be performed coram populo, instead of being adjourned, as with us, to the club after the levée is over. Our own reserve in the matter is, however, curiously parodied in those parts: "No one is permitted to see the king drink; all turn their faces away, and a large cloth is held up by his wives while the royal mouth takes in the liquid.” On Sunday morning, the 14th, the king entered his capital, Abomey, in great state, and the strangers were permitted to see the famous "custom "held annually by him in honor of his " father's spirit." It lasted sereral days; and the description of the king drawn round the square by his body-guard of women, the "occasional skull at the waistbelt," the scramble for cowries, cloths, etc., distributed by the king from a platform raised twice as high as his father's used to be, and the live fowls, goats, bull, and lastly, men, thrown among the crowd from a tower thirty feet high, is well worth reading; but we can now only speak of the last and best-known part of the "custom." After the romantic tales we have heard about the immolation of human victims by the thousand, it is comparatively satisfactory to learn that they only amounted to six one day and eight another. Here also, as in everything else, it is understood that the present king doubles the liber explain that the victims were criminals-murderers, thieves, etc. The commodore doubts the strict veracity of this statement; but one cannot help remembering that, not very many years ago, if a Dahomeian envoy had come to England and stood in front of Newgate-not once a year, but once a month-he might have seen a "custom" quite as curious performed with as much or more solemnity, under the presidency of sheriffs and chaplain, and at least as sanguinary. Moreover, the king good-naturedly presented one of the victims (after his black face had become "extraordinarily white" at the prospect before him) to the commodore, and another to a chief who happened to be a particular friend of his, in honor of the visit. We are not sure that our sheriff's would have displayed a similar amount of politeness: and they could not, if they would. All this, except, perhaps, the spitting appa-ality of his father; and he was at pains to ratus, is civilized enough, if one only reads it rightly. The dais might have done duty at the last lord mayor's ball; and the upper part of the body" of half the ladies in the ballroom might have been described with exactly the same fidelity, if the Court Journal on the occasion had chanced to be written by a blunt commodore, instead of veiling its descriptions of "low" dress under the conventional euphemisms. This preliminary interview, however, was simply one of ceremony. There were the usual inquiries about the queen's health, the travellers' journey, and our form of government, Eothen-fashion; the Amazons performed their feats very creditably, brandished "gigantic razors," and cut off imaginary heads with them, just like a sham-fight at a review; and the audience ended with the indispensable present of bottles of rum all round. Rum is hardly so appropriate a beverage as champagne on such occasions, and they have, unfortunately, no On one occasion during the festivities, certain emissaries from Aghwey, "hearing that THE KING OF DAHOMEY AT HOME. Let the white man' stand it was the intention of the king to attack | men's wars? He promised, however, to spare all the Chris- On the commodore's asking about the Chris- "Who knew they were Christians? The Then each chief was presented self a Christian, and dresses himself in clothes. I respect with cowries and cloth, the two principal black man says he is a white man, calls himones with a wife each." In more civilized It is an insult to the white man. latitudes, when people are chaffering about the white man; but these people are imposkingdoms, very much the same process is ob- tors, and no better than my own people. served, only that we mostly give gold and Why do they remain in a place when they bunting, instead of cloth and cowries, and know I am coming? If they do, I suppose occasionally, perhaps, a wife with the king- they are taking up arms against me, and I dom; the petitioners "eat dirt" plentifully, am bound to treat them as enemies." and the prime minister is sure to make his The commodore honestly owns himself floored speech on the occasion-in Parliament, it is here, and reasoned with him no longer on this true, but very much to the same effect. Al- subject, because he thought his observations together, one gets the notion that the King so thoroughly just and honest." We are disof Dahomey is not very much behind the rest posed to agree with him very decidedly. It of the world; or, anyhow, that for most Eu- must be rather puzzling to know how to obropean countries the process of stone-throw-serve international courtesies when "the black. ing would be a hazardous experiment. At man says he is a white man," and expects. the end of the "custom," and when the com- his enemy to believe it. Then, about human. modore had been made Colonel of the King's sacrifices :Life Guards (men and women), and had been regaled with speeches from the captains as to what they would do at Abbeokuta (the place he had come to save from an expected inroad), and congratulated on "the number of heads that would fall to his share " when this happy piece of homicide should have been accomplished, the real business of the mission commenced The objects Commodore Wilmot had in view were laid before the king in order, and his negotiations, if not betokening any very high order of statesmanship, were at all events far beyond those of the King of Prussia, or an average Bourbon. The slavetrade he could not give up : "They had seen how much he had to give away every year (indeed, the desolate aspect of the whole country showed that the scanty population almost lives on these royal doles) where was he to get money from? It was not his fault; our fathers had made his fathers do it; and now it had become an institution of his country." As to the safety of Abbeokuta, 66 I must go thither; they are my enemies: THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. "You have seen that only a few are sacrificed, and not the thousands that wicked men have told the world. If I were to give up this custom at once, my head would be taken off to-morrow. By and by, little by little, much may be done; softly, softly-not by threats. You see how I am placed, and the difficulties in the way. By and by, by and by." The sable brother rises in our esteem. We are beginning to rate him, in point of vous, considerably above the average oracles of the missionary meeting. Meanwhile, he was quite willing to allow his mulatto subjects to send their children to the Christian schools at Whydah; and he promised to send a prince to England as soon as the commodore came again to renew the friendship, and gave him "the queen's" answer to what he had said. Finally, he dismissed the commodore with handsome presents for the queen-a royal umbrella made of all sorts of velvet, a pipestick and bag, one of the state "sticks," and a couple of intelligent captive girls. These last are, considerately enough, left at Whydah for the present. On the whole, it must be admitted that THE KING OF DAHOMEY AT HOME. they live by it. "seem the King of Dahomey has something to say | language of the East," or South, the sable for himself. As is remarked by a corres- king said, on receiving her majesty's picpondent of the Times, writing under the sig- ture, nature of "An African,” “ Human sacrifices Queen of England are one; you shall hold "The King of Dahomey and the are regarded by the Africans as a part of the tail of the kingdom, and I will take the their religion; " and in no quarter of the head." At first we took it for a somewhat world is it safe for sovereigns to go too de- ambiguous compliment, depending, at all cidedly against popular and accredited tra- events, for its value on the place to which ditions. It is equally true, as we are re- Anglican and African physiologists respectminded by the same writer, that "African ively may happen to assign the seat of honor; monarchies are limited;" and it is perfectly but in Commodore Wilmot's commentary it credible, though not in accordance with the simply means that we may take possession of uniform tenor of European experience, that Whydah, the port, and supply him with "African kings are in advance of their sub- everything if we like. That is, if we mean jects." The King of Ashantee had exactly to suppress the slave-trade, he very naturally the same apology as his brother of Dahomey invites us, in the first instance, to give him to offer to an English visitor (Sir William a legitimate trade instead of it. The counWinniett, the Governor of the Gold Coast) try is admirably adapted for the growth of for hesitating to abolish the "custom" of cotton, silk, coffee, indigo, sugar, and every his dominions :product of tropical climates; the natives are heartily tired of it; " only it is their trade— not naturally warlike, and at present there seems little ht that they will avail Teach them a better, and themselves of the opportunity. Their religion, the great difficulty in most countries, will not stand in the way. culinary way-forbidding some to eat beef, "Fetish," which prescribes all manner of self-denials in the others mutton, others goats' flesh, others eggs has never yet been known to forbid be equally accommodating in the articles of anybody wine or spirits, and it will probably trade and manufactures. plains bitterly of our having listened to idle stories, and set all his neighbors at war with him; and it really seems as if our missionaries, while they have been humbugged by the tales of interested slave-dealers or by their own timorousness, have been keeping us at needless distance from the very person who, from his titular sovereignty over the native tribes, and his traditional regard for the English, is more likely than any one else to help us in drying up the slave-trade at its of the folly of mixing up political with resource. It is one more instance among many ligious missions. bearing, solid sense, and practical success, For sound head, frank Commodore Wilmot is worth a whole bytery of preachers. "What you say is good, but would you like to lose one of your epaulets?" and the king put his finger upon the governor's left epaulet. Sir William was a little puzzled at the strangeness and at the apparent inappropriateness of the question, but he replied, "Why, no, I should not." then," answered the king. Very well, "If I were to attempt to do away with human sacrifices, my chiefs would make my kingdom like your epaulet. I should lose the coat with its one half of Ashantee.' 66 What may come of the commodore's mission, time only can show: but, with a king so sensible of the evils of the present state of things, of the desolate condition of his country, and of its decaying population (it appears that it is under 180,000, of whom three-fourths are women and children), and with his high and apparently just pretensions to be, "not like these kings of Lagos, Benin, etc.," but the king of the blacks, much as Queen Victoria is chief Amazon of the whites, we venture to augur favorably of the Dahomey future. It is clear enough that, if we can fairly meet his views, he is quite ready to renew the friendly intercourse to which, oddly enough, about a hundred years ago, his family owed the recovery of its throne. In what preachers, when they come to a hitch, call the highly figurative The king com pres From The Saturday Review. BATHING ABROAD AND AT HOME. it is upon the English coast. But, at the same time, it loses its characteristic freedom. Ir is by trifles that national character is Like every other action in the life of a French most distinctly shown. All the more elab-citizen, it is tremendously regulated by the orate and important institutions of nations Government, and it is as much made the have a tendency to assimilate to each other. opportunity for the display of a Frenchman's The results of reasoning and reflection will be gregarious tastes as any other part of the the same in all countries; and the arrange- day's employment. There is no period of the ments which are the result of them cannot, twenty-four hours at which the beach looks in the end, differ very much. But in the so gay, so full, so picturesque, as during the smaller matters of life, the subjects of mere bathing time, and at the place which a patercaprice and taste, a nation's spontaneous ten-nal administration has selected as the most dencies make themselves very plainly seen. suitable. Perhaps what makes it the liveliest Bathing-a subject with which, as actors or is the curious costums in which many of the spectators, a considerable number of our read- figures upon it appear. ers will be familiar just now-curiously il- The government has taken the observance lustrates the difference of the two nations of decency under its own protection, and prewhich, in more important matters, are grad- scribes with accuracy the apparel to be worn. ually drawing more close together. The two It looks a comical kind of decency to English systems are much valued by the two nations; eyes. The men are dressed in a sort of trouand the plan of one is wholly intolerable to sers and jersey all in one, which differs from the other. The Englishman cannot endure ordinary garments of that description chiefly the restraints of the French system, and the in being much too short in the legs and arms. Frenchman boldly sets down all our talk about This arrangement seems to be a compromise morality as humbug when our laws and cus- between the government's appreciation of toms tolerate such outrages upon decency as decency and the natural human desire to be are witnessed at an English watering-place. as naked as possible in the water. But to a To an Englishman the charm of his system is stranger, it looks as if all the male populaits independence. His bathing-machine is tion of the place had been seized with a sudhis castle. The little bit of sea it encloses is den fancy for dressing in the clothes of their his peculiar property. No one can encroach little boys. But they are not the oddest figupon the few cubic feet of water he has ap-ures of the scene. The government, having propriated for the time. If he likes to sally ascertained the minimum of clothing that is forth for a swim, he comes and goes regardless of the existence of any one else. It is not necessary for him to take any notice of his most intimate acquaintance who may be bathing in the next machine. He adopts precisely that amount of clothing or nudity which comports best with his own idea of what is comfortable or decent. He need take heed of no regulations, and recognize no public opinion in his proceedings. The sea and he have it entirely to themselves. That mixture of freedom and seclusion which constitutes an Englishman's chief happiness finds its highest ideal in an English bathing-machine. To carve out for the time being a private property even in the sea, and to have contrived a movable house for the enjoyment of a luxury in which seclusion seemed impossible, is quite a triumph of the national peculiarities. In France, the whole spirit of the scene is changed. The pastime ceases to be the isolated, surly, exclusive affair which respectable for men, appears to have come, by a kind of mechanical logic, to the conclusion that a similar quantity is abundant for women. The result is, that the beach is peopled with a number of nondescript-looking figures, bearing very much the appearance of short, ill-made men, scantily dressed in chocolate-colored serge-a sort of a forked radish turned brown from keeping-which it requires some effort of reasoning, on the part of people who are not habituated to this Paradisaical innocence of costume, to believe may possibly be ladies. All these figures wander about in the aimless dilatory way which appears to be an integral portion of amusement. Some are approaching the water with lazy steps, wondering whether it is not rather cold, and, in the agonies of deliberation, displaying the beauties of their costume to considerable advantage. Others, who have had their dip, are picking their steps wearily over the shingle, looking in vain for the the dripping garments which cling to their figures with a tenacity which gives rather a staturesque effect. All this time, by way of contrast, the beach is full of non-batherswomen dressed as only French women can dress-who are come to enjoy the spectacle. The contrast between the well-distended cones of gorgeous drapery which sweep along to and fro across the beach, and the poor brown, dripping, bifurcated spectres who are creeping over the pebbles up to their cabanes, may give a philosopher food for reflection upon the distinction between accidents and substance. If any anxious parents wish to provide a cure for some love-stricken youth, let them take him to see the mistress of his affections bathing at a French sea-place. Romance itself could not survive the sight of the fair one, associated in his mind with graceful movements and flowing lines and harmonious coloring, emerging from the water in the similitude of a magnified brown rat on its hind legs, which has narrowly escaped from drowning. Few who have not witnessed it can imagine how much of feminine beauty can be left behind by its owner in a cabane. cabane where they may relieve themselves of "headers," sometimes they take "footers ;" but the fairer portion of creation, unaccustomed to these athletic feats, is very apt to take that compromise between the two to which Etonians were in the habit of assigning uneuphonious name. It is fair to say that all these pastimes are not invariably conducted under the rough manipulation of the muscular French baigneurs. Ladies who are fastidious prefer that the male hand in whose guardianship they struggle with the waves shall be one with which they are not wholly unfamiliar. Such an arrangement may be correct, but it is not nearly so comfortable. Uninitiated males are much more apt to be upset by the waves themselves than to be able to give much assistance in the critical moment to their tottering charges. Husband and wife may often be seen entering the water affectionately hand-in-hand, and returning more speedily than they had intended, clutching each other in an involuntary embrace as they are tumbled over by some unusually large wave. Brothers, or even casual friends, are put to the same use by ladies who shrink from the baigneaur's sinewy arm; and it is quite the proper thing for a lady to make an But the scene in the water is stranger still appointment with her male friends for a to English eyes. It looks like some mytho- swimming party, always assuming that her logical picture representing the Tritons car-accomplishments enable her to bear her part rying off the Nereids, or the Satyrs pursuing in it. But experienced bathers do not trust the Nymphs. The first thing that meets the to such a frail support. It is no consolation spectator's eye is several couples in the water, to the fair one who is let go at the critical holding each others' wrists, and to all ap-moment, and washed up by the surf in adpearance struggling violently. One of each of these couples is one of the brown rats we have described, and whom, by this time, the spectator has learned to speak of in the feminine gender. The other is a very muscular broad-shouldered Frenchman in a sailor's dress, who appears to look upon the brown rat as his own peculiar property. Generally, he seems to be shaking her violently by the wrists, and taking the opportunity of each successive wave that passes to duck her under its crest. Sometimes he is grasping her round the waist; sometimes he is tugging at one arm; sometimes she seems to have been just cast ashore by a very violent wave close by him, and to be lying in a suppliant attitude at his feet. At one end of the cabane, for the better display of manly and feminine forms, is erected a spring board, from which these strangely clothed beings, of either sex, are projected into the sea. Sometimes they take mired disorder, that the arm which played her false was a conjugal or fraternal limb. And after all, it is a pity, when you have gone so far, to distress yourself with any remnants of English decorum. When you have once persuaded yourself to run the ordeal of walking in the comical tights, into which your dress is converted by the water across a large open place, in presence of crowds of well-dressed gentlemen and ladies, any further display of fastidiousness is an unnecessary injury to your comfort. Englishmen, at least, will never be very partial to this system of bathing. They gain nothing by it except the very questionable privilege of being allowed to swim about among their female friends, both parties disguised, par ordre superieur, in a dress of exquisite absurdity. Though all opportunities in which the sexes are allowed to mingle freely are of course valued by young men on their |