THE CITY OF BLOOD.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 249, 19 February 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE CITY OF BLOOD.

Mb Bdwaeu Arnold has just published " Benin: the City of Blood," by Commander R. H. Bacon, R.N., from which we make the following extraots :

The horror* of which Admiral Rawson, the commander of the Benin expedition, and his comrades hare made sn end aro known as Ju-ju, which so far as Benin was concerned, really meant human sacrifices. As soon as the Imperial force came upon Ju-ju victims, they knew Benin was close at hand. The first "was a young woman horribly mutilated, a rough wooden gag tied in her mouth was clenehad tightly by her teetb, which, with the expressions of her face, told of the agony of her murder. At her feet lay n goat with its knees broken. I asked the guide what it meant, and he said it was to prevent the white man coming farther. ... A few yards farther brought us to another ; this time a man, with his arms tied behind him, lying on his face in the path." The altar in the King's Jo-ju P<irfc " was deluged in blood, the smell of which was too overpowering for many of us. This same awful smell seemed to pervade the whole compound m if the grass had been watered with bloc**, la the centre of several of these Ju-ju placet was an iron erection like a huge cindelabra, with sharp hooks. . . .it is probable that it was some instrument of torture, or for hanging portions of the victims on. . . . Every person who was able, I should f&j, indulged in a human sacrifice, and those who co aid not sacrificed some animal and left the remains in front of his house. . And these pits (into which the victims were thrown)—who could describe tbem ? Out of one a Jakri boy was pulled with drag ropes from under several corpses ; he said he had been in fire days. Blood was everywhere : smeared over bronzes, ivory, and even the walls, and spoke the history of that awful city in a clearer war than writing ertr could. And this had been going on for centuries. Not the lust of one king, not the climnz of a bloody reign, but the religion of the race."

It was not an uncommon form in some parts for a chief at times to kill a slave to take a message to bis father or come reverenced person in the land of shades. On these occasions a clave is sent for and givea the message, and told when he gets. to the next world to give it to the chief'■ father. The slave repeat* the mewape, absolutely believes that when he dies he will find the old chief, give him the message, and then enter his service in the far-off world. He is then killed quito willingly and peaceably, for the confidence of the black slave in his chief is unbounded.