THE DEFEAT OF THE KING OF DAHOMEY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 825, 12 August 1864, Page 6

THE DEFEAT OF THE KING OF DAHOMEY.

A passenger, by the Athenian, gives the following account of this event:—You re- j collect, no doubt, that the King dwelt yery stoutly on the necessity of the expedition at the time when Commodore Wilmot paid his last memorable visit to Abomey ; and that no arguments of the gallant Commodore could dissuage the Royal savage from his determination to pour forth the vials of his wrath on Abbeokuta. It would appear that on Monday, the 15th of March, the Dahomian army, with the King at its head, encamped at Owiwi,. which is about twelve miles from vAbbeokuta. Before) six o'clock on Tuesday morning the frequent reports of a gun fired at Aro, one of the five gates of Abbeokuta, gave warning to the Egbas that the Dahomians were in sight. The Abashorun had made every preparation for the defence of the town. "Abashorun" signifies the principal chief, and as this word is curious in composition, I may as well explain that its literal meaning is "A King of Heaven opening out everything." The enemy approached boldly enough. He had three brass field six-pounder pieces, bearing the inscription upon the breech of " Mexico, 1815." He advanced in a column of 3,000 strong till within fifty yards of the wall of Abbeokuta, then suddenly displayed his 1 fiVs, extended his lines, and marched rapidly towards the wall. The Egbas im- j mediately opened a tremendous fire on the serried lines, and arrested them at once. In the advancing column were Amazons, who fought bravely 'and desperately. Many of these furies climbed the wall, which is more than fifteen feet high; but, as soon as they had reached the top,' the Egbas dragged them over and slew them. One Amazon, who had one of her hands cut off in her efforts to clamber over the wall, discharged 'her musket with the other hand and shot an Egba. She received a severe blow irom a sabre, and fell backwards into the trench. The Dahomians were utterly defeated. In fact, they have never met with such a signal defeat—not_ even in 1851 They lost upwards of 1000 in killed; and the number of prisoners is said to exceed 2000. The whole strength ot the King is stated to have been 10,000 men and women. The Dahomians fled m two divisions. In front of the division which took first to flight was the doughty King himself. The Egbas pursued both divisions and slaughtered the fugitives without mercy and without a j pause. Seeing the discomfiture of the King, the inhabitants of the neighboring crqoms turned out and joined heartily in the general massacre. Out of Ms three field-

pieces, the King had the misfortune to leave two in the good keeping of the Egbas. I may now, perhaps, be allowed to tell you that the wall of Abbeokuta is fifteen miles in circumference, and that the population is scarcely less than 200,000 souls. Abbeokuta means " understone."^ The name was given to the place partlyin reference to some twenty hills of primitive formation upon which it is built, and partly in memory of a huge porphyritic rock called " Olurao" standing in the heart of the town, where bands of robbers used of yore to conceal themselves. In 1825 "Oluma" or "the hid ing-place" was deserted by the robbers, and it became in that year the refuge of a few poor wretches who had stolen thither from the clutches of the slave hunters. From such a forlorn knot of wanderers it is that the present large native city of Abbeokuta has sprung. Other wanderers arrived in terror from all quarters of the country to seek and to find an asylum there. They settled upon the hills in small but separate townships. Each township had its own laws ; each its own chief, judge, war-captain, and council-house; and each fondly assumed the name of the village whence its people had been originally driven. The hills mark the site T of the townships. The townships still exist in complete distinctness from one another, but neither natural nor artificial boundary seems to separate them, and the entire community is surrounded by the common wall to which I have already alluded.