influence of the slave trade, kindness has given place to a deadly revenge, the spirit of hospitality has yielded to the spirit of war and bloodshed, peaceful neighborhoods have been converted into hostile armies, and there has grown up a fearful indifference to human sufferings and human life.
It is heart-sickening to read of hundreds of human beings offered in the sacrifices of idolatrous worship, and other hundreds put to death, in various ways, for the amusement of a chief or a king.
In 1836, Mr. Girard says that he was at the king's fete at Dahomey, when about five or six hundred of his subjects were sacrificed for his recreation. Some were decapitated, others were precipitated from a lofty fortress, and transfixed on bayonets prepared to receive them; — and all this merely for amusement."[1]
At the death of a king, immense numbers were sacrificed, and in the most frightful and barbarous manner. "On such an occasion," says Mr. Buxton, "the brothers, sons, and nephews of the king, affecting temporary insanity, burst forth with their muskets, and fire promiscuously among the crowd; even a man of rank, if they meet him, is their victim; nor is their murder of him, or any other, on such an occasion, visited or prevented; the scene can hardly be imagined. I was assured by several, that the custom for Sai Quammie was repeated weekly for three months, and that two hundred
- ↑ Colonization Herald, July, 1837.
