Women in Africa are everywhere slaves, or the slaves of slaves. The burdens of agricultural labor fall on them. When a chief is announced as having hundreds or thousands of wives, it signifies really that he has so many female slaves. There does not appear to be any tribe in Africa, in which it is not the rule of society, that a man may have as many such wives as he can procure. The number is of course, except in the case of the supreme chief, but few. The female retinue of a sovereign partakes everywhere of the reverence due to its head. The chief and his household are a kind of divinity to the people. His name is the seal of their oath. The possibility of his dying must never be expressed, nor the name of death uttered in his presence. Names of things appearing to interfere with the sacredness of his, must be changed. His women must not be met or looked at. In war, as long as success depends alone on individual prowess, the strong and athletic only can be successful soldiers. Where the weapons, rather than the person are the source of power, docility and endurance are qualities more valuable than strength. In these the weaker sex, in savage life, surpasses the other; hence women have appeared in the world as soldiers. It was probably the introduction of the arrow, killing at a distance, as superior in effect and safety to the rude clubs and spears of earlier conflict, which originated the Amazons of old history. The same fact is resulting in Africa from the introduction of the musket. Females thus armed were found, commonly as royal guards, in the beginning of the last century. The practice still continues in the central regions. In Dahomey a considerable proportion of the national troops consists of armed and disciplined females. They are known as being royal women, strictly and watchfully kept from any communication with men, and seem to have been trained, through discipline and the force of co-operation, to the accomplishment of enterprises, from which the tumultuous warriors of a native army would shrink. A late English author (Duncan) says, “I have seen them, all well armed, and generally fine, strong, healthy women, and doubtless capable of enduring great fatigue. They seem to use the long Danish musket with as much ease as one of our grenadiers does his firelock, but not of course with the same quickness, as they are not trained to any particular exercise; but on receiving the word, make an attack like a pack of hounds, with great swiftness. Of course they would be useless against disciplined troops, if at all approaching to the same numbers. Still their appearance is more martial than the generality of the men, and if undertaking a campaign, I should prefer the female to the male soldiers of this country.”