This part of the review having at last concluded, the Amazons march on to an open space where sham entrenchments have been constructed. These mock fortifications usually consist of two or three great piles of green briar, armed with the most dangerous kind of prickly thorns. This thorny briar is much used in Africa, and formerly was employed in Asia, to entrench villages or towns. The clumps are about seventy feet wide and eight feet high, standing perhaps three hundred yards in advance of several pens, or yards, the latter surrounded by a strong wall about seven feet high, defended by dense masses of thorns, thickly matted with reeds. To defend this mock entrenchment, a few dozen royal slaves are placed within the enclosure. Each corps, as it marches on to the ground, headed by the officer appointed to lead the attack--who wears a sword of a different shape, from the others--halts about two hundred yards from the nearest pile, and shoulders arms. Directly the signal is given, they charge over the thorns, regardless of their bare feet, and in less than a minute the mimic fortress is captured. At intervals of twenty minutes, the other corps have captured the remaining piles, and they all return in triumph, each leading a slave by a rope. On reaching the royal canopy, each Amazon presents a scalp supposed to have been taken during the sham fight. Sometimes the Amazons are rehearsed in volley-firing and target-practice. They load and fire quickly, singing all the time. Their target-practice is moderately good. Several thousand goats are tied to stakes in a large field surrounded by a mud wall about ten feet high. Most of the goats are killed before the day is over; which, when we take into account the indifferent quality of their powder, and the careless manner in which they load, speaks very well for the Amazons as markswomen. The King of Dahomey is almost always engaged in some war, whether foreign or domestic; therefore a few hundred Amazons are constantly on active service. Like the Old Guard, the services of these female warriors are never brought into use save in cases of dire necessity, or when considerable opposition is expected. As the Amazons always strive not only to behead, but to scalp their enemies, they are pretty sure of having one or more of these ghastly trophies to show the King on their return from a campaign. Scalps, however, do not accumulate so fast as one might suppose; six or seven in a year is considered rather a large number, for the Amazons are frequently obliged, after slaying a foe, to pass on without securing his topknot.