The market-place occupies about three-fourths of an acre, or an acre, and is held daily. It is well supplied with every article of native consumption, as well as medicinal plants, and many articles of European manufacture. Among other articles generally exposed for sale are the following:--Pork, beef, mutton; cotton cloth, native and English; thread, beads, gun-flints, tobacco-pipes, iron, pepper, elu (a composition to destroy musquitoes), chuchume, bill-hooks, Badagry pipes, flints and steel, raw native cotton; tancacam, a medical root resembling ginger; goora and kolla nuts; eyo-nuts, used in playing the game of “adjito;” skins of the alligator, deer, bush-pig, and cat; dried rats and mice; raw and dried fish; fish cooked in palm-oil; kootataffue, a root resembling onion, but very bitter; cocoa and dego-nuts, for making oil; boiled and raw Indian corn; country pots and calabashes; lime, made from the oyster-shell; grass bags and baskets; porcupine quills, craw-fish, palm-oil, tomato, shalots, and occro; water-cresses, salt, farina, ground nut; atoo, or quashie-root; sakwadee, a root similar to ginger, having a taste resembling manioc-root; palm-nuts; bodya, a root used as a decoction to expedite labour in child-birth; agwbaja, used for cartridge-boxes; gun-flints, stones for grinding corn, brought from Abomey; dookwa, ball made from beans ground with palm-oil and pepper; kahoma; akaowo (native name), saltpetre in its original state. There are several other markets of minor importance in Whydah, all subject to the same scale of duties, which are collected by the Avoga’s officer. All goods sent out of the country pay a very heavy duty, such as palm-oil or ivory; in fact, the native duty here on ivory is so great, that very little is now bought. It is always levied on the sellers, who, of course, are subjects of the King of Dahomey. Any hesitation in paying would cost the individual his head. All persons who possess any regular income are taxed accordingly. Some idea may be formed of the enormous revenue exacted by the King, when even one of M. de Suza’s slaves pays annually a tax of head-money alone to the amount of two thousand five hundred dollars, and another one thousand five hundred; these two sums are head-money alone, which is always paid according to rank, reputation, and income, independently of duties paid for trade in articles either exposed for sale, or passed from one part of the kingdom to another, or to any other country not under the control of the King of Dahomey. The duty on slaves is very high, and is charged upon the number shipped on board, which is upon the declaration of the Avoga, which is always made by his own head. When more than one party ships slaves, one of the party pays the Avoga generally in rum or tobacco, and then settles with the others, according to the number shipped by each party. All head-money is paid in cowries. Every native of Dahomey is a slave, and pays a duty of so much head-money