PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1892, 15 May 1890, Page 39

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Dahomey has been referred to lately in connection with the French, but what the quarrel is about I do not exactly know. In outlining Lord Wolseley's life some months ago I gave a Bhort account of Ashantee and its king. Dahomey is the native kingdom next to Asnantee, and is ruled by a despotic king just as savage and cruel. A book I have by me Btates that on great occasions the King of Dahomey has been known to slaughter so many of his innocent aubjectathat he could sit in a boat floating in their blood. In countries where life is held so cheaply, the natives are celebrated for their blind bravery when fighting. The natives of Dahomey are do exception to this rule,

Writing of African potentates killing their subjects to celebrate great events brings to my mind the Queen Regent of Swaziland, a native kingdom in South Africa referred to some timo ago. Some Englishmen ?. few months ago askod her not to kill any of her subjects without fair trial. It is the general custom to kill n, number of Swazi subjects when a sovereign dies, and the English Oommissionera asked her to abolish the custom. She replied that she could not very well abolish the custom, because many of the people never see their sovereign, and it would not do to pr-ttnd to mourn bis loss, so a few from each village are killed to make the mourning real 1 And to make matters fair on such an occasion all the village has to turn out and to sit in a circle, round which the witch doctor goes and picks out those who ought to die. After explaining the why and wherefore she pleaded to be allowed to carry out the custom once more because she had a few ready to be killed who would never be missed. Tho Graphic of March 1 contains a picture of this enormously stout lady clad in dirty bucku' skins, and gives an interesting account of her and also of her executioner, who, with hie knob stick, sends his victims _to the " kingdom come " by a single well-directed blow on the head — the doomed man always receiving the blow standing, and seldom or never shrinking from his fate.

European Intercourse with Africa

The space devoted weekly to telegrams about Africa shows that this continent is fast losing its right to be called the Dark Continent, unlesß it retains its name on account of the bloodshed and slavery which have been the result of European intercourse. What lam about to write is the substance of an article which has just appeared in one of the Home reviews, It is written by Mr Joseph Thompson, a forbearing and humane traveller of the Livingstone type, for, line that missionary traveller, he never found it necessary to take an African's life, though he travelled through Masailand, a region poopled with the fiercest wariors of Africa. With a false tooth, which made the natives think he was a great medicine man, and a photographer's camera, which they no sooner b&w directed at them than they fell to the ground vanquished, he succeeded in going where he pleased. No doubt he always had a rifle, but his presence of mind and prudence made it an ornament aa much as a protection. Well, this gentleman, who was a traveller when in his teens, has just written an unpleasantly true and startling picture of what Europeans have done for Africa and its people. In effect he asks the question, "What has caused Europeans to take such an interest in Africa ? " and gives first aa his answer, what is the general answer : — "To wipe out frightful wrongs ; to explore new countries ;to advance science ; to abolish slavery and introduce Christianity ; to elevate the negro ; to settle regions with Europeans ; to encourage trade — in a word, to introduce Christianity, civilisation, and commerce. This, says Mr Thompson, forms the general answer, but what are the facts past and present? That is the ideal picture ? What is the real ? In the name of progress, civilisation, and commerce in the past the natives were treated as wild beasts intended for the use of the higher races— the Europeans. The whole land was transformed into an area of murder and bloodshed that European slave markets might be filled and our plantations tilled. Chiefs were tempted to sell their subjects, mothers their children, and men their wives ; tribe was set against tribe, and village against village. The past has been one of the slave path, stick, lash, chain, and mart ; of killing loads and starvation fare ; of forced marches in which the weakest had their brains blown out ; and of terrible sea voyages where the least valuable were thrown over as food for sharks.

What is it now? Slavery continues. The Germans have levelled every town on the east coast and bespattered ruins and jungles with the lite blood of the inhabitants. In exohange for the ivory, &c., brought from the interior, we mostly give gin, guns, gunpowder, and tobacco — the gin to ruin the buyers and the guns and gunpowder for them to slaughter their neighbours. The warehouses along the west coast (and the east coast will soon be the same now that it is taken by the Germans from the Sultan of Zanzibar) are filled with gin, and the air reeks with it, and the huts are filled with its fumes. In some villages the wealth of the community is measured by the pyramids they build of empty gin bottles. Over large areas the yearly wages of the negroes in the factories are paid in gin, which they take home and live upon for a few dayß in fiendish delight. Not long since, when a conference of the European nations was held in Berlin in connection with African affairs, it was suggested that no Bpirits should be supplied to the natives; but the Germans strongly opposed the stopping of the liquor traffic, beoausethey did, and do, a roaring trade in the vile stuff. It is a pity that the Englishmen at the conference did not insist that " the devil's flood of drink" should be kept out, and one wonders why Christian nations do not combine to effectually blot out the plague Bpots of drink and slavery, Mr Thompson admits that the missionaries are doing good work, but he adds :— " What is a missionary «vith his Bible and bale of goods in comparison with the numerous traders and their numberless gin bottles and thousands of guns?" He mentions three places, however, that are not given up to gin and gunpowder— the Shire Highlands, about which I have written, where the Scotch missionary and trade work together, and Sierra Leone and Lagos on the west coast.

Mr Thompson seems to think it nothing Bhort of blasphemy that Stanley should pretend to have had Divine aid and protection when he pierced his way with a smoking Remington rifle, and had every assistance that modern civilisation could give, Mr Burns, the London labourers' champion, calls Stanley the "Bucoaneer of the Congo." Buccaneer or not, he slaughtered more than he saved. When the expedition for the relief of Emm Bey waa being fitted out it was thought by many that Mr Thompson would have been placed in charge of it, but Stanley was selected. Mr Thompson said, as soon as Stanley had decided to go the Congo route, that a mistake had been made in not starting from the east coast ; and we know now that he was right. Had he been in charge I don't think we should have heard of so many conflicts with the natives, nor would he have had to carry from three to five tons of ammunition with him. Merv. Last week's Witness states that the Khan of Merv was to be removed and a Russian Governor put in his place. If I mistake not, the Russians annexed Merv in 1884, and many politicians at Home looked on the annexation with alarm. Oharleß Marvin, an authority on Central Asian affairs, says that it is surrounded by a fortified wall 80ft high and five miles in oiroumference, and in addition it is the commercial centre of Central Asia. Why its beiug in possession of the Russians is not liked by the English may be judged from the following :— "It means the possession of 100,000 of the finest irregular cavalry in the world. It means an addition to the Russian Empire of a State aa large as France, and the complete conquest of Central Asia, It means the possession of a

fortress, and an exceedingly fertile oasis within a week's march of Herat, and Herat is the key of India." Perhaps you do not know that the Turkomans of Central Asia subsist largely on melons and fruit. Such is the case ; and their wealth consists almoat solely of sheep, camels, horses, donkeys, and cattle. If you read up the back numbers of the Witness — providing you have kept them— you will find Merv, Bokhara, and Central Asia pretty fully described in my articles on Vambery and the Central Asian railway.

LITTLE FOLKS' RIDDLES.

388. B y Laura Dangers, Awatea, Hawke's Bay: — When Bre sheep like ink ? 389. By W. V. : -Why doei a man wear blue braces ?

ANSWERS TO LAST WBEK'3 KIDDLKS.

387 By Laura Dauvera, Awatea, Hastings i— A clock.

388. By Ivy, Okarlto : —The answer ia six eggs. It is a little catch, and means two eggs.halfpenny eaoh how many for 3d ?