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 biting their foes, and were consequently hacked to pieces.

Since this repulse the king of Dahomey has been satisfied with making mere demonstrations of force in the neighbourhood of Abbeokuta, burning the outlying villages and destroying the plantations of plantains and yams, and the fields of corn, without venturing to make any serious attack upon the town itself. The Egbas had several wall-pieces and heavy guns engaged during the assault, and these had done so much execution, badly served as they were, that they at once, through the medium of the missionaries, had a fresh supply of ordnance sent out from England. The missionaries also, who were not at all desirous of seeing their comfortable mission-houses burned and their vocation destroyed, implored the Government to send discharged gunners from West India regiments to Abbeokuta; and there was soon a small body of trained artillerists in readiness for the next assault.

The natural features of Dahomey offer a remarkable contrast to those of the Gold Coast. In place of the succession of ridges covered with dense bush and forest, the monotony of which wearies the eye in the latter country, one finds an open park-like country, nearly flat, and with a sandy soil bearing clumps of trees, tall grass, and but very little bush. The banks