“The king insisted on our viewing the place of sacrifice. Immediately under the royal stand within the break of acacia bushes stood seven or eight fell ruffians, some armed with clubs, others with scimetars, grinning horribly. As we approached the mob yelled fearfully and called upon the king “to feed them--they were hungry.” It was at a similar exhibition that Achardee (President of Jena) while looking into the pit with the king was seized, thrown down, and murdered on the spot. Disgusted beyond the power of description we retired to our seats, where also the cha-cha had retreated; not so his brothers, for I regret to say they remained delighted spectators of the agonies of the death of these innocent victims. As we reached our seats a fearful yell rent the air. The victims were held high above the heads of their bearers, and the naked ruffians thus acknowledged the munificence of their prince. Silence again ruled, and the king made a speech, stating that of his prisoners he gave a portion to his soldiers, as his father and grandfather had done before. Having called their names, the one nearest was divested of his clothes, the foot of the basket placed on the parapet, when the king gave the upper part an impetus and the victim fell at once into the pit beneath. A fall of upwards of twelve feet might have stunned him, and before sense could return the head was cut off and the body thrown to the mob, who, now armed with clubs and branches, brutally mutilated and dragged it to a distant pit, where it was left as food for the beasts and birds of prey. After the third victim had thus been sacrificed the king retired and the chiefs and slave dealers completed the deed which the monarch blushed to finish.” Again I would remind the reader that this horrible business is not a thing of the past but of the present. True it was in the years 1849–50 that Mr. Forbes witnessed the horrors he describes, but had he been in Dahomey in 1859–60 he would have witnessed as bad, or worse. Here indeed, and taken from the _Times_ newspaper, is an account of the very last Dahoman “Grand Custom.” “The following information from Dahomey has been received at the Church Missionary House, from the commander of Her Majesty’s ship Griffin, at Little Popo, August 6th, 1862:-- “Sir,--I think it my duty to lay before you, with as little delay as possible, the following information concerning Dahomey: