A Yankee Trader in Dahomey.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 236, 7 January 1888, Page 7

A Yankee Trader in Dahomey.

Mb J. W. \VATSO>vn the " North America Review," gives an entertaining account of "his friend, "the King of Dahomey, whom ho visited for purposes of trade. Dohomey seems to be a cheap place to live in. A man with an income of £2 a year is independent and can live on the best the market affords. We could have bought a whole deer for half a crown— they did not take American money - and a nylghau, which is larger, for the same. Ten pounds, about, of not bad beef or mutton for two cents, our money, and a pair of chickens for less. Eggs, one cent a stone, of about thirty — the stone being a weight of possibly four pounds — game, and monkey in proportion, and fruit and vegetables so ridiculously cheap as tomake one ashamed of them. A yam of thirty or forty pounds} one cent ; beets, carrots, etc., in proportion. Grapes, pines, sour-sap, sweet-sap, alligator pears, bananas, and almost every kind of fruit known to tropical cHmes at two cents a calipash of ' two bushels, calipash and all, the calipash being ( the half or three-quarter part .of a ! dried gourd-shell, which sometimes holds as much as six bushels, though two is the standard measure. A hearty men cannot devour more than one cent's worth of average food per day. Of this abundance very little finds its way to the coast, tho cost of transportation being , tenfold its price j and the 'time consumed— ten or twelve days— precluding, the possibility of anything fresh being carried. The farmers of Dahomey are very skilful, and the soil ! prolific, arid I fear I should,. be accused of exaggeration if I should tell what I have, seen; but Ijtfill tell of a turnip, or yam, that could not be got into an ordinary barrel, and a melon, of the orange species, over the top of which two men of nearly six feeb-in height could nob clasp hands. Mr Watson, on the way toCDanomey, met an English missionary— an Oxford student and a thorough gentleman — who- had been there nearly twenty , years, '.sent out^on-an.' original salary 0f,4100' perj annum^afterwards increased to £15,0,, which, was really, a fortune., He was running ,a fine' fariri with', one hundred labourers, makfng sugar which he' sold on the coast, and was- getting riqh,but showed not the slightest disposition to go home. If Mr Watson could have stayed the "missionary" would have shown him a troop of ' chimpanzees' I ' which he had trained as servants— hot ohtyfor tricks,but I as useful laborers. ' Tfrer'e are evidently some odd sighjbs'to be 1 seen' jh'Dahomey. • ' Among the' things that' struck me as queer- was;' a sentinel walking tip and down before one of' the 1 "gate*, shouldering' an' ancient Yankee* muskeg >vibli nothing on, but'a native-made sKirb or 'muslin.;!; He Walked • s'oleninly b'ack J and - forth, hbt' stopping even when the' 'interpreter spoke " ifo hhn,^?ut picking, np^, rqundjetone^upon'one si^e.Atthe.rgate. apd<, depositing it.cr* a i sirqjjar , ftfc tfce^ othe.ij, rf Thataw^tbe t Dahomian c^ty(ibim,§,;%s^b^tituJbe^^c)ip()ks, ttlnoVaccepteci 'as official. The ,nex£ ,t,hijig, ? >among°niany, • \Vtfs fbhe* faW th'atF'virne'reSfer .qabinstKe clbbkb t *w^r^a%'u&l^/^nlqh''6i^* not prevenb-.them frpnv e'aHiirig/ 'but. A did King, who did np,t like a 'cdck'crow'^ol Being/ pihaps^'aM earVrW; Ibd ieing 1 cifeurbed wj& his-370 witeW'Jfti^ ]^.

I Mariana c^ lf pjaye^ j^J^m^n Mvl simonseirs Opera; Company p^gvecr^inpst successful iri'Melboume.