oil, which got eaten
by the turkey-buzzard or vulture. This loathsome fowl, perched upon
the topmost stick of a blasted calabash tree, struck Burton as the most
appropriate emblem of rotten and hopeless Dahomey.

48. The Amazons.

Gelele's permit having arrived, the mission lost no time in proceeding
northward. Burton was accompanied by Dr. Cruikshank of the "Antelope,"
a coloured Wesleyan minister of Whydah, named Bernisco, and a hundred
servants. At every halting place the natives capered before them and
tabored a welcome, while at Kama, where Gelele was staying, they not
only played, but burst out with an extemporaneous couplet in Burton's
honour:

"Batunu [205]he hath seen the world with its kings and caboceers,
He now cometh to Dahomey, and he shall see everything here."

Burton presently caught sight of Gelele's body-guard of 1,000 women--the
famous Amazons, who were armed with muskets, and habited in tunics and
white calottes. With great protruding lips, and no chin to speak of,
they were surely the ugliest women in the world. Of their strength,
however, there was no question, and Burton says that all the women
of Dahomey are physically superior to the men, which accounts for the
employment of so many of them as soldiers. The Amazons were bound
to celibacy, and they adhered to it so scrupulously that when Burton
arrived, there were only 150 under confinement for breaking their vow.
Gelele who was 45 years of age, and six feet high, sat under the shade
of a shed-gate, smoking a pipe, with a throng of his wives squatted in
a semi-circle round him. All were ugly to a wonder, but they atoned for
their deplorable looks by their extreme devotion to, or rather adulation
of their master. When perspiration appeared upon the royal brow, one
of them at once removed it with the softest cloth, if his dress was
disarranged it was instantly adjusted, when he drank every lip uttered
an exclamation of blessing. Gelele, drowsy with incense, received Burton
kindly, and treated him during the whole of his stay with hospitality.
He also made some display of pageantry, though it was but a tawdry
show. At the capital, Abomey, "Batunu" was housed with a salacious old
"Afa-diviner" [206] called Buko-no, who was perpetually begging for
aphrodisiacs.

49. "The Customs."

Upon Gelele's arrival at Abomey the presents from the Queen were
delivered; and on December 28th what was called "The Customs" began,
that is the s