Note 64 — Chapter III

It is a dire insult to refuse the invitation of an African king to visit his capital. Captain John Adams (p. 63, &c.) tells how seven English seamen, cast ashore four or five miles from ‘Grewhe,’ were sent up ninety miles to the king at Agbome. One man, affecting lameness to escape the journey, ‘had his hands and feet tied together, and a pole introduced between them, and in this way they were going to Abomey; when, to avoid so painful an alternative, he found the use of his limbs, and marched along with his unfortunate companions.’ They seem all to have been well treated at the capital. The king tried, by promises and threats, to persuade the man who had affected lameness to stay with him. But when the fellow answered that, ‘“if his shipmates went away without him he would destroy himself,” the king seemed to feel uneasy at this, and consulted one of his principal men, who advised him to permit the man to return with his companions, which was granted.’