The last attack was fatal to Dahoman ambition. The Egbas, expecting their foe, had arranged for their reception, and had driven tunnels through their walls, so that they could make unexpected sallies on the enemy. When the Dahoman army appeared, all the Egban soldiers were at their posts, the women being told off to carry food and drink to the soldiers, while some of them seized swords, and insisted on doing duty at the walls. A [sketch] of this last fight is given on the next page.
As soon as the invaders approached, a strong sally was made, but, as the Dahomans marched on without returning the fire, the Egbas dashed back again and joined their comrades on the walls. Presently, a Dahoman cannon was fired, dismounting itself by the force of its recoil, so as to be of no further use, and its report was followed by an impetuous rush at the walls. Had the Dahomans only thought of making a breach, or even of filling up the tiny moat, they might have had a chance of success, but as it was they had none. The soldiers, especially the Amazons, struggled gallantly for some time; and, if individual valor could have taken the town, they would have done so. But they were badly commanded, the officers lost heart, and even though the soldiers were scaling the walls, creeping through the tunnels, and fighting bravely at the very muzzles of the enemy’s guns, they gave the order for retreat.
Just at that time, a large body of Egbas, which had made unseen a wide circuit, fell upon them in the rear, and completed the rout. All fled without order, except the division which Gelele himself was commanding, and which retired with some show of discipline, turning and firing on their adversaries, when pressed too closely, and indeed showing what they could have done if their officers had known their business.
The Dahomans lost everything that they had taken with them, their brass guns, a great number of new muskets, and other weapons falling into the hands of the enemy. Besides these, the king himself was obliged to abandon a number of his wives and daughters, his horse, his precious sandals with their golden crosses, his wardrobe, his carriages of which he was so proud, his provisions, and his treasures of coral and velvet. It was calculated that some four or five thousand Dahomans were killed in this disastrous battle, while some fifteen hundred prisoners were captured; the Egbas only losing forty killed, and about one hundred wounded. True to their savage nature, the Egbas cut the corpses of the dead to pieces, and even the women who passed by the body of a Dahoman soldier slashed it with a knife, or pelted it with stones.
It has been thought that the Abeokutas are comparatively guiltless in blood-shedding, but it is now known that in this respect there is really very little difference between the three great nations of Western Africa, except that the destruction of human life is less at Abeokuta than at Agbome, and perhaps that the Egbas are more reticent on the subject than the Ashantis or Dahomans. Even in Abeokuta itself, which has been supposed to be under the influence of Christianity, an annual human sacrifice takes place, and the same ceremony is performed in other parts of the kingdom. As in Agbome, when a human sacrifice is offered, it is with the intention of offering to the dead that which is most valuable to the living. The victim is enriched with cowries, and plied with rum until he is quite intoxicated, and then, after being charged with all sorts of messages to the spirits of the dead, he is solemnly decapitated. Victims are sacrificed when great men die, and are supposed to be sent to the dead man as his attendants in the spirit world.
As to the religion and superstitions of the Egbas, they are so exactly like those of other Western Africans that there is little need to mention them. It only remains to describe the remarkable system called “Ogboni.” The Ogboni are a society of enormous power, which has been compared, but erroneously, to freemasonry. Any one who is acquainted with the leading principles of freemasonry, and has studied the mental condition of the Egbas, or indeed any other West African tribe, must see that such a parallel is ludicrously wrong. In freemasonry there are two leading principles, the one being the unity of the Creator, and the second the fellowship of man. Now, as the Egbas believe in numberless gods, and have the strongest interest in slavery, it is evident that they cannot have invented a system which is diametrically opposed to both these tenets.
(1.) HEAD WORSHIP.
(See [page 587].)
