The Government Is An Hereditary Despotism, Every Subject Being The Slave Of The King; But Its Administration Appears To Have Been For A Long Period Mild And Humane.

When the king was asked, whether the customs of Youriba involved the same human sacrifices as those of Dahomy, his majesty shook his head, shrugged up his shoulders, and exclaimed, "No, no!

No king of Youriba could sacrifice human beings." He added, but probably without sufficient grounds for the vaunt, that, if he so commanded, the king of Dahomy must also desist from the practice; that he must obey him. It is, however, stated, on the authority of Lander, that when a king of Youriba dies, the caboceer of Jannah, three other head caboceers, four women, and a great many favourite slaves and women, are obliged to swallow poison, given by fetish men in a parrot's egg; should this not take effect, the person is provided with a rope to hang himself in his own house. No public sacrifices are used, at least no human sacrifices, and no one was allowed to die at the death of the last king, as he did not die a natural death, having been murdered by one of his own sons, though the religion of the people of Youriba, as far as it could be comprehended by the travellers, consisted in the worship of one God, to whom they also sacrifice horses, cows, goats, sheep, and fowls. At the yearly feast, all these animals are sacrificed at the fetish-house, in which a little of the blood is spilled on the ground. The whole of them are then cooked, and the king and all the people, men and women attending, partake of the meat, drinking copiously of pitto (the country ale). It is stated, moreover, that it depends on the will of the fetish-man, or priest, whether a human being or a cow or other animal is to be sacrificed. If a human being, it is always a criminal, and only one. The usual spot where the feast takes place is a large open field before the king's houses, under wide-spreading trees, where there are two or three fetish houses.

The usual mode of burying the dead in this country is, to dig a deep narrow hole, in which the corpse is deposited in a sitting posture, the elbows between the knees. A poor person is interred without any ceremony; in honour of a rich man, guns are fired, and rum is drunk over his grave, and afterwards in the house by his friends and retainers. At the celebration of a marriage, pitto is circulated freely amongst the guests. Wives are bought, and according to the circumstances of the bridegroom, so is the price. The first question asked by every caboceer and great man was, how many wives the king of England, had, being prepared, it should seem, to measure his greatness by that standard; but when they were told that he had only one, (and, if they had felt disposed, they might have extended their information, by telling the inquirers that she was too much for him,) they gave themselves up to a long and ungovernable fit of laughter, followed by expressions of pity and wonder how he could possibly exist in that destitute condition.

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