f North and South
America and Cuba, and the prosperity of the once happy people of Yoruba
was brought to an end. The savage rulers of Dahomey and Lagos now
became notorious for the barbarities they inflicted on the unoffending
tribes in their neighbourhood. The Yoruba country was the chief scene
of their hunting expeditions. Towns and villages were attacked and
burned; the able-bodied men and young women and children were carried
off into slavery; the aged were ruthlessly murdered, fields and
plantations were laid waste, and a howling wilderness was left behind.
At length the scattered remnants of the population who had escaped from
slavery and death assembled together in a spot among rocks, especially
strong by nature, where they hoped to be able to make a stand against
their persecutors. Here they built a town, to which they gave the name
of Abbeokuta, or the place among the rocks. It increased rapidly in
population and extent, for numerous were the unfortunates in search of a
home, and rest, and peace.

Lagos, one of the chief strongholds of the slave-dealers, which the
Yorubans most had to fear, has since been taken possession of by the
British, and has been declared an English colony or settlement; but
Dahomey, governed by its bloodthirsty monarch, with his army of six
thousand Amazons and five thousand male warriors, still exists as a
terrible scourge to the surrounding territories.

On the confines of the Yoruba country existed a beautiful village which
had hitherto escaped the ravages of the relentless slave-hunting foe.
It was situated on the banks of a rapid stream, which gave freshness to
the air, and fertility to the neighbouring plantations. Palms, dates,
and other trees of tropical growth, overshadowed the leaf-thatched
cottages, in which truly peace and plenty might be said to reign.
Although true happiness cannot exist where Christianity is not, and
where the fear of the fetish and the malign influence of the spirit of
evil rules supreme over the mind, the people were contented, and
probably as happy as are any of the countless numbers of the still
benighted children of Africa. Rumours of wars and slave-hunts reached
them, but they had so long escaped the inflictions others had suffered,
that they flattered themselves they should escape altogether. So little
accustomed are the negro race to look to the future, contented with the
pleasures of the passing moment, that as they did not actually see