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no writing; not even the rude picturewriting of the lowest tribes. They have no gods and no heroes; no epic poem and no legend, not even simple traditions. There never existed among them an organized government; there never ruled a hierarchy or an established church. Might alone is right. They have never known the arts; they are ignorant even of agriculture. The cities of Africa are vast accumulations of huts and hovels; clay walls or thorny hedges surround them, and pools of blood and rows of skulls adorn their best houses. The few evidences of splendor or civilization are all borrowed from Europe; where there is a religion or creed, it is that of the foreigners; all knowledge, all custom, all progress has come to them from abroad. The negro has no history-he makes no history.

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Their kings are tyrants; their only law is the will of the absolute master. Africa alone knows such perfectly unlimited, arbitrary power, and here alone it is wielded with a cruelty unparalleled in the history of the human race. negro's natural impulses are, of course, not all nor necessarily bad; we believe him, on the contrary, to possess even a certain native good-nature. Almost all travelers speak of some traits, at least, that show a naturally kind disposition, and prove him to be very far from insensible to the good feelings of others. Lander and Duncan, Forbes, Becroft, and Mungo Park, received all, at times, unmistakable proofs of warm sympathy at their hands, and the tribute paid by the first-mentioned traveler to African women is so well known, that the mere allusion, we doubt not, will at once recall it to all our readers. And yet Christianity has made but little progress among them; it has been said, with more sober truth than such paradoxes generally hold, that, in the land of the negro, more missionaries have been slain than natives converted. Thousands have, of course, been baptized with water, but, we doubt not, that the mere impulse of imitation has made more good Christians of slaves in the United States, than have ever been truly won by the whole system of missions in Africa. The negro, abroad, will ingly follows good examples; he falls easily in with established customs, and, by mere dint of repetition, he may gain, at last, such ideas, and even con

victions, as make him a fit member of the Christian church. But, at home, he has no religion, no principles; he follows his instincts alone. He values good eating and drinking above all other goods on earth, and in heaven, and even mostly believes in no future life. Here, also, testimony is not wanting. When the zealous missionary Simon Jonas was sent to king Obo to teach him the arts of civilization, the pagan monarch made him his court tailor, for "he preferred civilizing the body first." Uncle Tom does not feel that he is doing wrong, and is, therefore, slow to believe the white man, whom, besides, he can hardly be expected to think quite disinterested. Duncan, when he returned from his long journey beyond the Congo mountains, even doubted that the negro felt for his own offspring; and nearly all travelers confess that thousands of children are annually sold by their own parents. In Dahomy, we are told, the father has no right whatever to his children; they belong, from their birth, to the monarch. As soon as their age will permit it, they are torn from their home and sent to remote parts of the kingdom, until their lord determines upon their final disposition. They but rarely see, and almost as rarely know, their own father and mother in after life-and all this incredible cruelty because the tyrant fears the effect of family bonds, and thus severs all ties between parents and offspring. lest they should ever be dangerous to his absolute power. Duncan had taken with him a free man from Sierra Leone to Abomy, the capital of Dahomy. One day he sent him to the market to purchase some vegetables, and with him another man to carry them, for the free negro was too proud to trouble himself with the burden. In the market place he suddenly discovered his own aged mother. More than twenty years before he had been made captive in his native country of Armagu; his captors had carried him down to the coast and sold him to a Brazilian slaver. Providence had led him back from South America to Sierra Leone; his native place, however, he knew not. A few years before Duncan's visit, the king of Dahomy had, however, invaded anew the land of his fathers, and among the booty there taken, was, also, the mother of Duncan's servant. She lived upon one of the king's private domains

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and thus, by a chain of most marvelous events, came in contact once with her long-lost son. The generous Scotchman was all joy and sympathy; the newly united mother and son were as cold and unfeeling as he was excited. He offered, of course, to purchase the freedom of the old woman, and the offer was at first accepted with apparent gratitude. But when the son came to calculate the expense that such a measure would probably devolve upon him-it amounted to half a penny! -he declared himself unable to make such a sacrifice. He thought his aged parent happy enough, and so he left her, a slave, and returned with his mas

ter.

Much of the negro's barbarism arises, no doubt, from his innate indolence. Like most southern nations, he will not work as long as he can live without labor. If it comes to the worst, he prefers stealing. But idleness is ever the mother of barbarism, as idle brains are the devil's workshop. Some excuse may be found in the enervating climate, longestablished usage and early training. But even the little republic of Liberia begins to show this defect in the national character of the negro. The freed slaves of our southern states have been compelled, as they say, to introduce a kind of slavery, hiring natives at nominal prices to perform their labor. The name is, of course, very carefully avoided, but the fact, we believe, is not denied.

No evidence of the barbarism of Africa speaks louder than the low position assigned to woman. The negro is a polygamist, not by religion nor from principle, but from self-interest. The more wives he has, the more laborers he can command. Hence they are not wooed and won, but bought for a price. Whilst the common man may not have more than twenty, the kings are almost unrestrained, and the fact that the princes of Europe content themselves with a single wife, is in their eyes a degree of modesty and folly which awakens ever anew, as each traveler reports alike, the mirth and the wonderment of negro monarchs. The king of Yarriba told Clapperton that his wives could, by joining hands, encircle his kingdom. The king of Ashantee may marry 3,333 wives, and he chooses them, as he pleases, from among the daughters of his realm. After the fashion of Russian levies, every year sees the re

cruits arrive in squads in the capital, Cumassi, when they are all paraded before the monarch. He first inspects his present wives, rejects those he wishes to keep no longer, and then replaces them by those he likes best among the newcomers. Their beauty lies in their weight, and thus the dream of Pharaoh is here annually realized. Of the king of Dahomy the German traveler Halleur gives a still more startling account. His range and command are perfectly unlimited, for he owns, by what is facetiously called the law of the land, all females that dwell in his kingdom. To grant one or more of them to a subject is, therefore, an act of special favor. The manner of obtaining this is truly African. The petitioner falls at the feet of the dread monarch, presents his requests and places himself and his earthly possessions at the disposal of the sovereign. His majesty replies, if favorably inclined, by spitting upon him, and the energy with which this is done marks the depth of his gracious affection.

Whilst the wife works, the husband enjoys his unbroken dolce far niente: To rid himself of all trouble, even in the distant future, he uses the most energetic means. If the new-born infant looks weakly, he kills it; if it cuts its first tooth below, he kills it, and if nature sends twins, the feebler is sacrificed. Even the manner in which they dispose of the unwelcome guest is peculiar and not to be met with but here: they blow finelyground pepper into the infant's nose until it is smothered! To compel his wife to work even when she cannot be parted from her tender child, he makes her carry it on her hip; a kind of saddle is firmly fastened to her waist, upon which the child is seated, while a strip of cotton binds its upper part to the body of the mother. Thus the great end is obtained, and she can, unimpeded, carry heavy burdens upon her head for her husband. Not less peculiar are their duels, of which examples are not wanting in our own southern states. The negro does not attempt to knock down or to strike his offender; he runs with lowered head against him, and butts with a precision and force that would shame the hard, horned brow of a sheep or a goat.

Unwilling to hide his dark beauty, except by a small piece of gay cotton, the negro is nevertheless as fond of insignia and paraphernalia as our own secret so

cieties. But he wears them in a manner not known to other nations. Every office finds its exclusive mark on his head; the royal chair-bearer shaves the right side of his head; the shield-bearer the left. The high dignitary who makes the king's bed, shaves one fourth behind, and one fourth in front, while the still higher official, who occasionally washes his majesty, shaves his head in alternate portions. One of the most important men in the whole kingdom, the executioner, is in front altogether bald; his dignity is lofty and sublime, and so is his forehead. Whatever remains of the hair, is carefully plaited in a thousand braids; slaves, however, can wear but a small brush of about three inches towering above each ear. The German missionary, from whom we quoted above, expresses his tender sympathy at the sight of the barber's proceedings; soap and water were deemed unnecessary luxuries, and a sharp shell or a piece of glass served as razor. Nor are signs wanting to mark the different nations that abound in the interior of Africa. As our Indians show them by paint or by the manner in which they carry their quiver and arrows, so the negroes declare their allegiance by deep cuts on the brow and the cheeks. Their length, direction, and number, reveal to the initiated at a glance the tribe to which each individual belongs. Only in one other spot upon earth is this mode of adornment known the strict fathers of Fernando Po punish their wicked children by cutting deep gashes into their faces, so that they may ever after remember the sins of their childhood.

To point out high office, a chair is commonly used--though no traveler has, as yet, succeeded in discovering its symbolic meaning. But is not ease the negro's sole aim and end, and an easy chair its fit emblem? No citizen of Dahomy may sit more than six inches above the ground-by special favor alone, a higher elevation is granted. Valuable services are rewarded by additional inches; men literally rise in the world, and some illustrious generals tower as much as four feet above their brethren. When they travel, their chair is solemnly carried before them: it serves, at once, to convey to all men an idea of their high rank; and the unlucky man, who owns no chair, is bound to obey him of more inches, even unto death!

Uncle Tom is a slave, at home. To be

free is the exception, in Africa; to be a slave, the rule. In the state the sovereign disposes, at will, of the property and the life of his subjects; they are his own, and, at his bidding, they live, or they die. In the family, the husband is the master, and the wife is his slave; he is the monarch of the little realm, and his servants are, again, but his slaves. He disposes of wife and child without limit or restraint; he sells even his relatives --for they, also, are his property, and he may sell, or pledge, or give them away as a present. He who sits on the "chair," is lord over all below him; and he himself is again subject to the occupant of the highest chair in the land, the throne. It is true that, ever and anon, furious rebellions break out. Africa overthrows her chairs, as France upturns her thrones; but the right of the master is not changed with the person. The coast of Guinea may be said to know no free man; for, as every tribe is ever arrayed against every other tribe, even the king on his throne may, on the morrow, be the slave of his neighbor. Slaves, therefore, are the great standard by which all wealth is measured, and all value is fixed. Flesh and blood are the only true, current money of Africa; it fluctuates in the market, as the supply is abundant or scanty; but it never fails to supply whatever may be wanted by the happy owner.

It must, however, not be overlooked, that this slavery would be intolerable and fatal to the very existence of these melancholy nations, were it not as mild and gentle as it probably was in the days of the patriarchs. Master and slave are alike ignorant, superstitious, and childish; hence, as long as they live in the same land and the same nation, their common barbarism places them, more or less, upon a footing of equality. But let the unfortunate man fall into the hands of a foreign master, let the miserable prisoner of war be dragged to the home of his conqueror, and Arkansas becomes a paradise, and the monster Legree a man overflowing with the milk of human kindness. Nor are these rare cases. Far from it; they occur every year, every day. Who has forgotten the horrors of those bloody wars which Mehmet Ali waged against the blacks of the upper Nile, and how he captured thousands and tens of thousands! As soon as the supply is exhausted, and the subjects of the monarch

cease to suffice for his wants, he calls to arms and declares war against another tribe. Under the cover of night, or of the dense mists of a river, he approaches a city, and storms it at "murky break of day." These towns are generally well defended by huge ramparts of wickerwork and thorns: but what can resist the valor of female warriors? They rush upon the walls, they tear them down in an instant; they fall, with fire and flame, upon the peaceful slumbering inhabitants-and now begins the bloody butchery, amongst wild wails and the hissing and seething of the conflagration. All who resist are killed on the spot; their heads are cut off and the scalps withdrawn after approved Indian fashion. All others are bound with ropes, of which each army carries large stores, and marked with chalk on their black backs, that the captor may recognize his unlucky victim. Slaves and scalps must both be surrendered to the king, who, as a reward, allows each one of his warriors to fasten a cowryshell-the small change of these happy lands-on her gun. The soldiers manage to cover the stock with a thick layer of curdled blood, and into this they press the coveted distinction-their Waterloo and Crimean medal. Like the crosses and stars of European governments, these insignia also are in much demand, and as but one is allowed for every skull laid at the foot of the throne, the cruelty and ferocity of the soldiers are thus excited and increased, to satisfy both their desire of booty and their ambition.

Nor need we wonder that the female soldiers of Dahomy are most anxious to obtain these sad ornaments. They form, it is well known, the king's bodyguard, and the very pride and strength of his army. All travelers who have, for the last eighty years, visited the court of this barbarous monarch, agree in praising their courage, their skill in arms, and. alas! also their cruel ferocity. They ever lead in the storm and in the attack; they occupy at parade the post of honor. On one of these latter occasions, Duncan saw more than seven thousand of those invincible Amazons, led by their general, one of the wives of the king, and animated by the sound of drums, which were fastened upon the head of one soldier, and played upon by another. Drums and banners were alike adorned with human skulls, and

the executioner of His Majesty acted as Commander-in-Chief. When all have been inspected, regiment after regiment fall upon their knees and cover themselves with dust; then they ran home as fast as they could.

Skulls, however, play a prominent part, also, in Dahomian architecture. The vestibule of the royal palace is paved, not with good intentions, like that of a certain nameless place, but with skulls; the gates of the palace are covered with skulls, the throne rests upon a pile of skulls, and in Abomy, the long approach to the king's house is adorned in like manner. A pleasing variety is, however, introduced here, by the bodies of slain men, preserved in an upright position, and performing, apparently, the duty of Lonis Napoleon's hundred guards. When Duncan proposed the health of the Queen of England, a human skull was filled to the brim with champagne, the king's face was veiled

for mortal man may not see the great monarch eat or drink-and amidst the firing of muskets and the clang and clatter of a thousand discordant instruments, the awful goblet was drained.

The king was much surprised that his guest, whom he was anxious to honor, should refuse the gracious offer to behead a few captives. As even a solemn dance, which the kind monarch performed for the Scotchman's edification, and in which he introduced much jugglery with the skulls impaled upon long poles, did not increase his desire, the premier was at last sent for, and enjoyed the signal favor with genuine relish. Other high dignitaries often stand by, and, as the heads fly off, they catch some of the warm blood, and pour it down their delighted throats.

Uncle Tom at home is not without a dash of cannibalism. In some kingdoms, it is true, the habit only appears on rare and solemn occasions; in others, however, intense national enmity finds vent in such customs. Thus we learn that the negroes of Bonny invariably eat the childern of Andonny, whenever they make them prisoners, and the compliment is faithfully returned by the opposite party. Even in 1849 Forbes saw men solemnly sacrificed to the gods, such as they are, of Dahomy: prisoners of distinction were exhibited in public, forced to dance in various halting places, and at last, with great ceremony, slain before a rude altar.

Bonny has perhaps more of these sad customs than any other kingdom of Africa. There young maidens even devote themselves from early childhood to a fetish, and thus obtain control over all they desire and rule over all men in the land, the king only excepted. But every year one of their number is chosen; she is bound upon a chair, clothed in costly garments, and thus thrown into the water to feed shark or alligator. Thus the favor of the god of the waters is secured: he sends vessels, protects trade and brings slaves!

English accounts, dating mainly from the time of their long war against the Ashantees, give us frequent details as to the incredible number of victims, murdered in order to accompany a defunct king into the world to come. Without slaves the negro knows no happiness even in paradise. These atrocities are so terrible in their nature, and so gigantic in their proportions, that the recitals literally sicken the heart. Not hundreds, but thousands are thus butchered to curry favor with a dead monarch. Aceldama, or field of blood, is the name of a place in Cumassee, the capital of the Ashantees, in which the blood of man must never be dry if the kingdom is to prosper. And if, for a longer time than usual, no such occasion for wholesale murder has offered, the reigning king often has important messages to send to his father in Hades; trifling notices are sent by a single messenger, graver matters by several. The words are whispered into their ears, and then they are dispatched."

Need we add, that the negro knows no god, but only a fetisli? All travelers have so far agreed-but we learn, with much pleasure, that Dr. Barth has a more hopeful view-that the negro has but the vaguest possible conceptions of a Supreme Being. His worship, also, has but a very faint perfume of the spiritual mixed up with incredibly crude and barbarous notions. A block or a stock, a lake, a bundle of rags or a serpent-they worship anything, if they are once led to believe it a fetish. "They see not, nor know," and it is the object itself that is adored, and not the image merely of a higher

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sam, who rules over whole families and cities. The affairs of common life are governed by the former, but, in cases of emergency, the Sofu, the priest of Bussam, is appealed to for aid and ad

vice.

The latter is, of course, not granted, except in return for ample presents, and we need only read the grossest impositions that were ever practiced by lying miracles and vain imaginations, to see there the types of the sad superstitions of the negro. Strangely enough, however, there can be no doubt that he almost universally believes in the immortality of the soul. The Almighty has not left him, also, without a testimony in his conscience. The spirits of the departed, he believes, hover around the survivors, and never leave the place of interment. Hence, presents are carried there and sacrifices offered, for they never leave this body so entirely as to be quite free from the wants of human existence.

The oracles of the Druids and the madness of the Maenades of Bacchus, the mummeries of Siberian priests and the juggleries of Australian conjurors, are all here brought to their highest state of perfection. Their priests are true worshipers of the father of lies, and the poor benighted nations__are genuine children of perdition. Even in exile they cannot entirely free themselves from the faith of their forefathers. What planter of the south does not ruefully remember the trouble and sorrow that "conjured" servants have caused him from time to time, and the days of king Obi are by no means forgotten by Uncle Tom in America. Hayti sees fetishes thrive and prosper as they did in Congo and Guinea; the great Soulouque himself has, in his throne, it is said, a box with a holy snake from Congo, and, at the solemn meetings of the secret society, called the Wodoo, a fetish serpent displays, in the light of the full moon, her glittering beauty and her lying miracles.

Mahommedanism is gradually making its way from the Mediterranean southward. Dr. Barth, like many of his fellow-travelers, was much struck by the success of Islam in the kingdoms of the interior. Still, African barbarism can, at best, but assume a new form under the false, illusory light of the Crescent. Superstition still nestles in the mantle of the prophet; the Koran itself is little known, and amulets are

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