he sea coast must be very considerable; for I had never heard of
white men or Europeans, nor of the sea: and our subjection to the king
of Benin was little more than nominal; for every transaction of the
government, as far as my slender observation extended, was conducted
by the chiefs or elders of the place. The manners and government of a
people who have little commerce with other countries are generally
very simple; and the history of what passes in one family or village
may serve as a specimen of a nation. My father was one of those elders
or chiefs I have spoken of, and was styled Embrenche; a term, as I
remember, importing the highest distinction, and signifying in our
language a _mark_ of grandeur. This mark is conferred on the person
entitled to it, by cutting the skin across at the top of the forehead,
and drawing it down to the eye-brows; and while it is in this
situation applying a warm hand, and rubbing it until it shrinks up
into a thick _weal_ across the lower part of the forehead. Most of the
judges and senators were thus marked; my father had long born it: I
had seen it conferred on one of my brothers, and I was also
_destined_ to receive it by my parents. Those Embrence, or chief men,
decided disputes and punished crimes; for which purpose they always
assembled together. The proceedings were generally short; and in most
cases the law of retaliation prevailed. I remember a man was brought
before my father, and the other judges, for kidnapping a boy; and,
although he was the son of a chief or senator, he was condemned to
make recompense by a man or woman slave. Adultery, however, was
sometimes punished with slavery or death; a punishment which I believe
is inflicted on it throughout most of the nations of Africa[A]: so
sacred among them is the honour of the marriage bed, and so jealous
are they of the fidelity of their wives. Of this I recollect an
instance:--a woman was convicted before the judges of adultery, and
delivered over, as the custom was, to her husband to be punished.
Accordingly he determined to put her to death: but it being found,
just before her execution, that she had an infant at her breast; and
no woman being prevailed on to perform the part of a nurse, she was
spared on account of the child. The men, however, do not preserve the
same constancy to their wives, which they expect from them; for they
indulge in a plurality, though seldom in more than two. Their mode of
marriage is thus:--bo