Page 5 - Works of Art from Benin-Nigeria- West Africa

WORKS OF ART FROM BENIN,

WEST AFRICA.

OBTAINED BY THE PUNITIVE EXPEDITION IN 1897, AND NOW
IN GENERAL PITT RIVERS'S MUSEUM AT FARNHAM, DORSET.

BENIN is situated on the Guinea Coast, near the mouth of the Niger, in latitude 6 '12
north, and longitude 5 to 6 east.
It was discovered by the Portuguese at the end of the fourteenth or commence-
ment of the fifteenth centuries. The Portuguese were followed by the Dutch and
Swedes, and in 1553 the first English expedition arrived on the coast, and established
a trade with the king, who received them willingly.
Benin at that time appears by a Dutch narrative to have been quite a large city,
surrounded by a high wall, and having a broad street through the centre. The
were civilized. The a number of horses which
people comparatively king possessed
have long since disappeared and become unknown. Faulkner, in 1825, saw three
horses to the which he no one was bold to ride.
solitary belonging king, says enough
In 1702 a Dutchman, named Nyendaeel, describes the city, and speaks of the
human sacrifices there. He that the were makers of ornamental
says people great
brass work in his day, which they seem to have learnt from the Portuguese. It
was visited by Sir Richard Burton, who went there to try to put a stop to human
sacrifices, at the time he was consul at Fernando Po. In 1892 it was visited by
Captain H. L. Galloway, who speaks of the city as possessing only the ruins of its
former ; the abolition of the slave trade had a to the
greatness put stop prosperity
of the and the had intercourse with The town
place, king prohibited any Europeans.
had been reduced to a collection of huts, and its trade had dwindled down to almost
nil. The houses have a sort of impluvium in the centre of the rooms, which has led
some to suppose that their style of architecture may have been derived from the
Roman colonies of North Africa.
In 1896 an expedition, consisting of some 250 men, with presents and merchan-
left the British settlements on the coast, and endeavoured to advance towards
dise,
Benin city. The expedition was conducted with courage and perseverance, but with