Just below the king is seen the band, the most prominent instrument of which is the great drum carried on a man’s head, and beaten by the drummer who stands behind him, and one of the king’s banners is displayed behind the band, and guarded by a body of armed Amazons. In front are several of the fetishmen, their heads adorned with the conical cap, their bodies fantastically painted, and the inevitable skull in their hands. The house which is supposed to contain the spirit of the deceased king is seen on the left.
The last day of the Customs is celebrated after a rather peculiar manner.
A line of soldiers armed with guns is stationed all the way from Agbome to Whydah. These soldiers are placed at some little distance from each other, and their duty is to transmit a rolling fire all the way from the capital to the port and back again. This is a later invention, the former plan being to transmit a small present from hand to hand, starting from Whydah and having its destination in the palace. Another line of musketeers extended from the Komasi house to a suburb about a mile distant.
The method of arranging them is very curious. At intervals of three hundred yards or so are built little huts of grass, each being the lodging-place of two soldiers. Though slightly built, there is some attempt at ornament about them, as each hut has a pent roof, a veranda supported by light poles, and the side walls decorated with a diamond pattern of bamboo and a fetish shrub, which is supposed to repel lightning. A tuft of grass ornaments each end of the gables, and those huts that are situated nearest the palace are always the most decorated.
In front of each hut the muskets belonging to the soldiers are fixed horizontally on forked sticks. They are ready loaded, and the two are employed lest one of them should miss fire. There are nearly nine hundred of these huts upon the line to Whydah, and it is calculated that the time occupied in the fire ought to be about half an hour.
THE BASKET SACRIFICE.
(See [page 582].)
When Captain Burton attended this ceremony in 1863, Gelele had not been confirmed at Allada, and in consequence was not, by royal etiquette, allowed to live in a house built of anything better than stakes and matting. Consequently, his officers were obliged to follow his example, as it would have been equivalent to treason had a subject presumed to live in a “swish” house when his monarch only dwelt in matting.
However, on this occasion at all events the king tried to atone by barbarous finery for the wretched material of his “palace.” The Agwajai gate led into an oblong court of matting, sprinkled with thick-leaved little fig trees of vivid green, and divided into two by the usual line of bamboos. At the bottom of the southern half was the royal pavilion, somewhat like a Shakmiyana in Bengal, with an open wing on each side.