“In Africa different places, like Mobile, Montgomery, New Orleans--each have a different tribe speaking a different language. Suppose the tribe at New Orleans comes to the one at Mobile and says, ‘You have fruit and corn and cattle--you must give me half.’ You at Mobile say, ‘No, go back and raise your own cattle and corn.’ And they say, ‘If you do not give us cattle and corn, we will make war on you.’ They go back to their own country and talk among themselves. ‘You know that tribe at Mobile. We demanded half their crops and cattle--they refused; we will make war upon them. But they have strong soldiers. We will go through the country, surround the village at the break of day.’”[20] Thus did the Dahomeyans plan their attack upon the Tarkars. One morning just at the break of day, the fiends of Dahomey--and the female warriors were the most cruel--broke upon the unsuspecting Tarkars. Some of the men were already astir and had gone into the fields to work while the day was yet cool. These were all killed; had one escaped he would have aroused the sleeping village, and the women and small children might have made their escape. They were aroused from slumber and in a few minutes death or captivity was upon them; even the infants were torn from their mothers’ breasts and carried away. Those who were not killed were overpowered. Dahomey’s Amazons vanquished the most stalwart men and bound them as captives. The Tarkars relate that in their paint and war clothes Dahomey’s women soldiers could not be distinguished from the men. The Dahomeyans cut off the heads of their dead victims, leaving the bodies where they had fallen. The heads were to be taken home as evidence of individual valor and as trophies to be hung on the Dahomey huts. Human faces could express no more anguish than those of the old Tarkars when they speak of this awful experience. One of the trials and tragedies of their march to the coast was the dangling heads of their relatives and friends. When these grew offensive the Dahomeyans stopped the march that they might smoke the heads. As they passed near one of Dahomey’s villages, at a curve in the big road, they caught sight of fresh heads raised on poles above the huts and of skulls, grinning white. With the captives there were some people of other tribes--friends who had been visiting in the Tarkar village--Tarkbar, Goombardi, Filanee, and Ejasha. (These tribal names are spelled as pronounced by the surviving Tarkars.) Kazoola has drawn a map of the route taken by Dahomey and of the march to the sea, which he claims any of his tribe would recognize. The towns they passed through on their march to the sea were Eko, Budigree (Badragy?), Adaché, and Whydah. This last the Tarkars sometimes call Gréfé. There they remember a white house on the river-bank; behind this was a stockade wherein they were held prisoners about three weeks, at the end of which time Captain Foster came. CHAPTER VI THE VOYAGE