The king readily granted permission to Irving, to view the palace, excepting, of [[73]]course, the apartments of the women. Conducted by his friend the grandee, and some other officers of the palace, he found it more extensive than he had supposed, having entered by a private passage. It consisted of several large squares, surrounded with galleries, each of which had a portico or gate, guarded by soldiers. The first gallery on entering the palace is very long, supported on each side by lofty pillars. At the termination of this gallery was a wall with three gates, the centre one ornamented with a turret seventy feet in height; terminated with a figure of a large snake, cast in copper, and very ingeniously carved. These gates opened into an immense area, enclosed also with a wall; then another gallery like the former, into another spacious court; and so on to a fourth, beyond which were the apartments of the king. In this spacious palace the king is sometimes immured for years, until he is crowned; and here, also, many wealthy courtiers spend the whole of their time, leaving trade and agriculture to be executed by their wives and slaves. ([Note K].) These [[74]]go to the circumjacent villages, either to trade in merchandise, or serve for daily wages; but they are obliged to bring the greatest part of what they obtain to their masters, otherwise they make no scruple to sell them for slaves.
Irving and his new royal acquaintance had passed their time so convivially, that the negociation for slaves was deferred till the morrow, when he again attended his majesty to a depôt, containing about two hundred; and as they were going to this place, they met nearly as many proceeding to the coast, the king’s agents having sold them on the preceding day. Amongst this wretched group, Irving remarked some remarkably handsome men; and found, on enquiry, they were from Molembo, from whence the finest negroes are obtained.
The number he was invited to examine, consisted of men, women, and children; and, to any but a slave-dealer, the sight was heart-rending. Fathers overwhelmed in silent sorrow; mothers expressing their anguish in affecting lamentations, audible sighs, or [[75]]deep groans, expecting every moment to be separated from their tender offspring, whom they clasped to their bosoms, or endeavoured to hide under the folds of their pacans; youthful females shrinking from the brutal gaze of the trader, and dreading nameless indignities; the fiery eye of many a youth, indignant at the bonds which confined him from levelling to the ground the wretches who bought and sold him as a beast of the field, and tore him from the object of his love, whom he was powerless to save from death and bondage. But such a scene was of too frequent occurrence, the cry of the innocent was too familiar, to make any impression upon those who were bargaining. Irving purchased many of them; and having seen them marked as his property, ([Note L].) left his people to conduct them to Whidáh; whither, after having taken a cordial leave of the king, and so far conciliated him and the grandee as to ensure future advantages, he himself, with his attendants and the female slave, returned that evening. [[76]]
Canst thou, and honoured with a Christian name,
Buy what is woman-born and feel no shame?
Trade in the blood of innocence, and plead
Expedience as a warrant for the deed?
Perish the thought!