The Arizona sentinel., 1897-01-30

The massacre of the English Consular expedition to Benin ii going to draw attention to a par of the Dark Continent which wal better known in the seventeenth century than it is now. Three hundred years ago the kingdom O Benin was so populous that iti monarch could put 100000 troops in the field. It was the chic source of supply for the slaves which the Portuguese, tke DutcE and the English exported to regions which were in want of labor.
 The King did not affect to con- ceal from Bosnian, Bruce, Clapper- ton, the brothers I.anders and other early travellers the source of his revenues. He said that his neigh bors were quarrc1some. When they offered him war he accepted the Invitation and captured all the prisoners he could, to sell them to white men as slaves. The pris- oners were collected at the town of Benin, on the Benin river, ship ped down the river to the sea coast Fswamps, and thence conveyed to barracoons at Lagos and Whydah, where they were disposed of to the slave traders. This trade was kept up till the abolition of slavery in Cuba and Brazil deprived the trapers of their market.
 Benin was at one time town of 10000 people; when Burton saw it the population had fallen off to 2OOO or 5000. It stands on the border of the Benin river, which is really one of the many mouths ot the Niger, one of the twenty or twenty-five embouchures of that mighty stream on the heights of Biafra and Benin. In 1S48 a British Embassy visited Benin and obtained from the King or Sultan a promise that he would abolish the slave trade, and put a stop to human sacrifices; but 1t was soon evident that hls object was merely to get possession of the presents the Queen sent him, and that he had no notion of sacrificing either his pleasures or his revenues. Human life being abundant in his do- minions, it was his practice to sacrifice man or woman three times day, as grace before meat this was besides the wholesale slaughter which took place al religious festivals.
 Benln is separated from the ocean by the once powerful empires ot Dahomey and Ashantee. Lord Wolseley's expedition against the Ilatter made the world acquainted with some of it's peculiar features and paved the way for it's disap pearance from the map. Dahomey is still to some extent an unknowl country. When WinWood Readt wrote it was governed by women and the army consisted of amazons who are often beautiful, according to the African standard of beauty coquettes in the arrangement c their halr, and tasty in the dis tribution of chalk and rouge, whicE take the place of dry goods or their rich, velvety persons. They are cannibals, and declare, with { simper, that mans flesh is good almost as good as monkeys th' palms of the hands being the chic delieacy. The Queen and thu
 
 ,commander-in- chief of the army have their harems, in which fifty ol sixty young men are kept. Fol the least indiscretion the inhab itants of the harems are taken ou into the woods, their heads chop ped of after frightful tortures, ant their corpses prepared for consump ton with the usual sauce.
 All through Western Africa the story of Tembandumba, the great amazon warrior, is told over tht campfire. She was a general 0 the type of Hannibal and Caesar She was invincible, even before she had reached the age of 20. 4 lion In war, she was tigress in pas sion. She took crowd of lover: to her arms, and killed them with her cruelest tortures. Among her subjects she inspired abject fear Could she have her gay, said she