ENGLAND'S LATEST POSSESSION.
GEOGRAPHY is a luxury which has only in very late years taken any real hold on the dwellers in these isles. The generation now in the prime of manhood grew up in profound indifference to that science, thereby keeping unconsciously within them an undeveloped taste, an un- worked mine of enjoyment, which we hope many of them have stumbled upon, and are heartily rejoicing over the fruition of, in these used-up times. How many of our readers are there who cannot remember marvellously comic geographical notions, which, in the shape of answers in examinations of one kind or another, went the round of school or college in their time ? We well remember, our- selves, the stock answers at one great school to every question in ancient geography. "An island in the .2Egean Sea" was the first, and, if that failed, the second barrel was, "A city in Asia-Minor." It was considered almost an ungentle- manly thing in a master to express more than measured disapprobation when an examinee had offered these conse- cutive solutions to any otherwise insoluble geographical problem. Thanks to Sir Roderick Murchison, and the Geo- graphical Society at home, and to Livingstone and his com- peers, the daring travellers and explorers of all the out-of- the-way corners of the earth, matters are altering very fast. In a few years we shall all, it is to be hoped, be pretty well posted up in our e social and physical, and shall be able, most of us, to tell not only where cities are, but why they are where they are, and could not have been anywhere else ; to explain how rivers have come to run at all, and how they and the hills have settled matters between them, and given us the earth as we have it now ; and what chance our children will have of keeping pretty much the same sort of mundane surface to play and fight out their little bit of world- history upon. However, as the good time in the geographical sense has not yet come, our readers who are experts will, we hope, particon us for offering to the general public a few geogra- phickil facts, "not generally known," as we can vouch from personal experience. The first, then, of these to which we desire to call attention is the fact in physicial geography, that there is a little island, by name Lagos, scarcely so big indeed, if we may judge by the maps appended to books of travel in those parts, as the Isle of Wight, lying off the Guinea Coast, in the Bight of Benin, and commanding the mouths of the river Ogun. Secondly, that this island of Lagos, together with certain portions of the neighbouring mainland—limits not accurately known—form part of that empire on which the sun never sets, and of which we are all so proud. Thirdly, that some eighty miles up the aforesaid river is situate a town by name Abeokuta, m which is gathered the largest black population which is known to be living in one com- munity on the face of the globe. And, lastly, that the next- door neighbour on the west and north-west of ourselves and our allies, the Abeokutans, is the King of Dahomey, who, besides his large landed territory, may be said virtually to rule over most of the coast between Lagoa and the Ashanti country, Whidah and Bodagry being, in fact, the seaports of his capital, Abomey. To people who do not read their gazette carefully, the fact that we have for fellow-citizens the islanders of Lagos will probably cause some astonishment. However, there is the fact, and so they will just do well to accept it and say no more about it; as, if they have the faintest msight into the cha- racter of John Bull, they may feel perfectly sure that, having put his hoof on this same island of Lagos and appurtenances (be they what they may), he will be in no hurry at all to lift it again. For ourselves, though we hold that England owns about as much of the earth's surface already as she can cleverly manage, we cannot help rejoicing that Lagoa has been added to us. It came about thus : For many genera- tions, probably from the days of old Hawkins, the kings of Lagos had been vigorous supporters of the slave trade, and, owing to the peculiar convenience of their possessions for its prosecution, very successful ones. At various times in years past we have had difficulties with these monarchs, and, in- deed, have been more than once driven to the taking ratio of shot and shell, before these perverse miniature Bombes of West Africa could be brought to look at matters through our spectacles. Fortunately, the succession in Lagos is not strictly settled, and so it fell out at last that there was one of the old brand of kings in possession named Kosoko, a vigorous slave-trader, as his unhappy fathers had been before him, and a pretender td the throne, one Akitoye, who was a favourite with the missionaries, and who had conscientious objections to the slave trade. Whether or no the conscience of Akitoye was quickened by the prospect of an alliance with the British we have no means of judging ; at any rate, it came about that such an alliance was formed. The speedy consequence was, that Kosoko retired into private life on the mainland, and his whereabouts is not now distinctly known, and Akitoye reigned in his stead. Since this event, the King of Lagos has been 'a faithful ally of the British. The late King, next in descent, we believe, from Akitoye, conceived the desire of retiring into private life, and last year succeeded in carrying his desire into effect. He has ceded his kingdom to the Queen of England, in consideration of a pension equivalent to his revenues, which consisted chiefly of the export duties on palm-oil and other products. The amount is trifling enough, and we do sincerely hope that he may get it punc- tually paid. The treaty, if we may judge by a summary of it which has fallen under our notice, does not seem to be at all carefully worded in the part which provides for the retiring pension. Trifling as this event may seem from other points of view —this cession of a microscopic island near the equator—we believe it to be one of no small importance when looked at in connexion with the slave trade. Notwithstanding the in- dustrious assertions which meet us so frequently in many papers—that our blockading squadron is powerless, that mis- sions are powerless, that the palm-oil trade is powerless, that every possible effort of ours in Africa has been, must, and shall be, powerless, to put down the slave trade, that it is in fact now brisker than it has been for many years—we be- lieve it to be a very certain fact that along the whole coast from Sierra Leone to Fernando Po, in Liberia, the Ashanti country, the Ivory Coast, the whole coast of the Bight of Benin, and the huge swampy delta formed by the great Niger, that accursed trade has been put down, and is in fact all but extinct, except on that small strip of coast lying between the sea and the kingdom proper of Dahomey, and which is, if not a part of the kingdom, at any rate virtually subject to the King of Dahomey. We say the slave trade has ben actually put down along the whole of this coast, by Ahe squadron, by missions, and by trade combined. Neithefr of these could have done the work without the other two, add it is impossible to apportion the credit between them. We do not say that occasionally in some nook of the coast a slaver may not have put in and found a cargo in the last few years, but that the trade as an organized trade, popular with the chiefs, and openly carried on by them whenever the cruisers axe out of sight, is no more, except in the Dahomey country. And now we are settled on the flank of this King of Dahomey, and no one who takes the least. interest in, or knows anything about the recent history of West Africa, can doubt for a. moment that the time is at hand when we and the King of Dahomey shall have to settle accounts, and arrange the terms of our future neighbourhood. How this shall be don.e is a question of no small moment. Shall we set about it in our old style, send. peremptory messages and demands to him, and, should he hesitate or remonstrate, blockade his coast, land troops at Whidah or Bodagry, and march on Abomey? This is the simplest course, and that most agreeable to British notions. There are several objections, however. The coast is a huge marsh, infested by the worst kind of African fevers; there are no roads, no food, scarcely any inhabitants. An expedition would in all likelihood, and judging-by former operationsof this kind, lose at least sixty per cent, of its numbers. If we should reach the capital and dethrone the K.ing„.it by no means follows that we should have succeeded in our real object. But what alternative is there Well, it seems to us that there is one, at least, which deserves a trial. It has been proved now that these African kings and chiefs are men of acuteness, who are able to appreciate argument and -weigh evidence, and have not only a keen eye to their own interests, but in many cases are quite capable, if properly handled, of acting. from higher motives than we have ever given them credit for. There is every reason to believe that the King of Dahomey is by no means such a fiendish savage as Englishmen are wont to consider him. He is probably no worse than his neighbours, and the returns for palm-oil and other benefits arising from lawful commerce and. inter- course with us have convinced the most obdurate of these that there is a good deal to be said for keeping their people in their own country. If this side of the case were fairly put before him by a person used to African habits, some man who can handle him properly, impressing on him the fact that Lagos is now English territory, and that Abeokuta has an English consul, without using these facts as a direct . menace, we have little doubt that a satisfactory treaty may be obtained from him.. At any rate, we do hope that all possible means will be tried before a British force is thrown iota such a pestilent swamp as Dahomey. Mr. Freeman, the first Governor of Lagos, will be doing hia country good service if he can bring this intractable potentate to book without a. war. He will be ably seconded by Mr. Taylor, the first. Consul of Abeokuta, than whom. certainly no. better man could have been found by Govern- ment for his very arduous post. He it was who commanded the Pleiad in the Niger Expedition of 1854, the only really successful one which has ever ascended that river. And he, in conjunction with a missionary and a few captains and supercargoes of English vessels, succeeded, some ten years back, in persuading the chiefs in the. old Calabar river to do away with the custom of human sacrifices, fearfully prevalent ut to that time. On. these gentlemen, in great measure, will depend. the immediate future of this part of the African coast, a country of which it is difficult to over-estimate the importance, even from a commercial point of view. Those of us who are loyal to England's great work of emancipation —of repaying to the n.egro race the debt heaped up through near 300 dreary years—and what Englishman is there who, in. his heart of hearts is not loyal to that work, does not wish to see that debt repaid ?—will rejoice with us that another and important step has been achieved, and that if the end is not yet, there are signs both in the Old and New World that -it is not far off.
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