CLIX.
Steamer Athenien, off Lagos, West Coast of Africa, March 23, 1860.
After visiting the Grain, Ivory, and Gold Coasts, and the territory of the king of Dahomy, we now find ourselves off the formidable breakers of Lagos. The mail bags we headed up in a puncheon, in the event of capsizing the native boat. The landing is so unsafe, and being probably the worst on the coast of Africa, none of us are allowed to make the attempt. Two passengers from Acra go on board of vessels lying outside, at anchor, until a more favorable opportunity offers. Sometimes no landing is effected for weeks. The sharks are so abundant that they upset crews of natives, and strangers are often lost.
Acra, our next landing-place after Cape Coast Castle, is one-half occupied by the English fort and native town, and the other half by a Dutch fort and settlement. The resident traders complain of the want of commerce, as the king of the country, whom the English had punished and laid under tribute of ten thousand pounds, payable in palm oil, at fixed prices, would not execute the payment. I there found two merchants from Cape Coast, who had bought the contract, &c., which the king now rejects. It remains to be seen if the British will enforce it.
The Danes were in possession of a large fort at Christianborg, a few miles from Acra, which they have sold to the English for the nominal sum of five thousand pounds. The Commandant of the English fort politely offered me his horse, and a recommendation to the officer in command, which I accepted, and found, in the absence of the Governor, only one officer and the doctor of the station. Five officers had died of the African fever, and the soldiery consisted of one hundred and thirteen negroes. The town looked abandoned, and in part battered down, as the native tribes had attacked the fort, which is well mounted with small brass guns. They were soon put to flight, and the broken walls of the village indicated the result.
The fort is eligibly situated; the sand was scorching hot, but the sea breeze in the shade was cool and refreshing; the surf was rolling in strongly, and hundreds of negroes were in it bathing. The little cemetery, as I passed, showed the new-made graves; the African ants had thrown up, hastily, pyramids of a conical form, ten feet in height.
Notwithstanding the curious scenes to occupy the mind, and the white umbrellas as a protection from heat, I felt the blood boiling in my veins, and if I had given way to my emotions, would have fancied the fever was upon me.
In Acra, I met with a Yankee trader, whose house was situated among and surrounded by the huts of the natives. The walls of the court inclosed his cooperage and his buildings for palm-oil casks, and supplies of rum, tobacco, and notions.
A group of nearly naked boys and girls were counting cowrie shells from Zanzibar, which furnishes small currency, and which are separated in little parcels with great alacrity. They are there worth forty to the cent, or four thousand to the dollar. They are also strung as beads, and worn about the neck and loins by both sexes.
The Yankee looked sallow, as if the African climate was doing its work; but the desire of gain is an incentive sufficient for the white man to try to live in a climate which nature designed only for the black race.
The king of Dahomy, whose capital is about ninety miles from the coast, permits no forts in his dominions. Whydah and Badagry have been famous for the slave trade. When the late king died some six hundred slaves were buried alive with him. They were made drunk and then driven into an excavated grotto or prison house, which was then walled up. I here give you a list of the articles and objects deposited on the occasion of the funeral from an eye-witness:
Ten pieces of silk, five dozen country cloths, twenty guns, eight bags of cowrie shells, two boxes soap, male and female slave, as present from the Yavogah of Whydah, scarfs, table cloths, satin, silk handkerchiefs, velvets, carpets, packages of unbleached shirting, a present from the great slaver Domingo, a cocked hat and plume, gold chains, slippers, ten puncheons of rum, forty kegs of powder, another male and female slave, with letter to the deceased king, in addition to the six or eight hundred already mentioned.
The king of Dahomy is now at war with his neighbors to procure prisoners and slaves for the anniversary custom of sacrifices and consecration to the memory of the late king. All the whites within his territory on the coast are invited and commanded to be present at the sacrifices. All resident traders and vessels are compelled to pay tonnage dues for the privilege of trade, or make presents to the king. A Portuguese whom we landed from the steamer, and who had delivered a cargo of negroes in Havana, for which he obtained one thousand dollars per head, and which had cost from twenty-five to forty dollars, had four trunks of valuable goods, comprising rich crimson velvets, and other articles, as presents for the king.
He is said to have some twenty-five thousand warriors, and a body-guard of eight thousand Amazons, with a vast number of wives in addition. He also possesses extensive buildings and palaces, all of which have been contributed without doubt by the whites in the way of trade, or for the purchase of slaves.
If a vessel is wrecked, or goes ashore, the whole property belongs to the king, and the officers and crew are sent up to his capital. A Hamburg brig just wrecked lost everything, and the captain and crew would have been sent up, had not the king been absent making war for slaves. We found three of the crew on board of an American brig now in the offing.
The captain of the brig Jehosse has just come on board of us from the American trading barque Baron de Castine, whose supercargo we brought down from Acra. The former captain had died and been replaced; the present captain was also sick, but under the care of the doctor of the British steamer Viper. He represents that he came out with lumber and provisions from Charleston, S. C., and was on a legitimate trading voyage, when he was boarded by Captain Fitzroy, of the British steamer Falcon, who demanded his register and list of crew, which were given up, who declared him to be a slaver, and ordered him to haul down his flag, which he refused; he was then ordered to open his box of private papers, which he also refused. A prize crew was ordered on board, and himself and crew sent as prisoners on board the steamer. The men were stripped and examined, the captain’s box broken open and papers examined. The clearances, &c., were all found legal, and the captain and crew released. He protested against a release, but was put on his vessel, where he found his liquors all drunk, cigars smoked, prize crew drunk, and the vessel in danger of beaching in the kingdom of Dahomy. The officer in command of the prize crew begged of him to come to his relief, and gave a certificate to that effect. The brig has waited fifty or sixty days for an American cruiser, but not finding one to take up the case, the captain sends his vessel to the United States as abandoned, and takes our steamer to catch an American man-of-war before which to bring his case.
It will be a serious matter for Captain Fitzroy, who is represented as a dissipated commander, of aristocratic family, but will now probably lose his commission, and the British government will pay heavy damages.
A singular custom prevails among the natives of the coast. I asked particularly the details of a black missionary. Every man has a lien upon his nephews and nieces, and can pawn them for debt, or sell them into slavery, but this right he cannot exercise over his own children. In the event of the death of a person, his property goes to his sister, as next of kin. She or her husband takes care of the children, and if occasion demand, they are made slaves, or pawned.