After the building of this palace, the King of Dahomey declared himself capable of holding Ashantee in vassalage. The palace is considered memorable on this account. In this as well in several other palaces we visited on this day, we were entertained with every variety of luxuries used at the King’s table. Upon my return to his Majesty, I found a number of people busily employed in carrying out of the stores a number of human skulls, taken in various countries during the wars. Previous to my journey into the mountains, I had made a request to the King for leave to inspect a few skulls of natives of the different countries he had conquered, with the view of comparing them, and also to make drawings of some of them. When between two and three thousand skulls had been carried out and placed in the parade-ground in front of the palace, I begged the King not to send for any more. His state chair was placed in the centre of a circle, formed by arranging the large calabashes or gourds containing the skulls, in that form. The heads of the kings were placed in large brass pans, about two feet in diameter. The heads of caboceers and head-men were in calabashes about the same size as the former; and to my great astonishment, when curiosity prompted me to make inquiry respecting any one of these skulls, a long detail was immediately given me of all the circumstances connected with the parties when alive. Though these people do not write, with the exception of the Mohammedan portion of them, yet they possess very retentive memories. The death-drums were also brought out on this occasion. They were four in number, and of different sizes, but much larger than the large drums in use in the British army. The largest measured nine feet four inches in length, and the whole were ornamented with human skulls, several of which I observed were deficient of any suture across the upper part. This appeared in the proportion of one in twelve, and the skulls without any longitudinal division were as one in twenty-seven. I found the skulls of the Mahees generally to recede from the nasal bone or lower part of the forehead to the top in a greater angle than those of any other country. The Fellattahs are very different in their cranium and general development from the others, having high, square foreheads, and a quick and bright eye. They are slighter in person than either the Dahomans or Mahees; but are generally well formed, sinewy in their limbs, and capable of enduring great fatigue. The Dahomans are a very fine and generally tall race of people, both male and female, and the most honest of any people I ever met with.