THE YORUBA-SPEAKING PEOPLES.

which they accordingly did This custom remained in force until quite recent times, if it is not still in existence.. In 1774, the sitting king declined to take the hint and returned the parrot's eggs. The chiefs tried to support the custom by force, and Ochemi, the prime minister, headed a rebellion. This was, however, crushed, and Ochemi and all his numerous family were put to death.

The reason we have such meager information regarding this great West African kingdom is that the Yorubas did not inhabit the territories on the sea coast. The Ewe tribes occupied the coastline as far east as Badagry, and the Benin tribes occupied the portion from Badagry to Benin. The Ewe tribes had, in fact, spread along the seashore from west to east, and the Benin tribes from east to west, until they met and covered all the sea frontage of the inland territory occupied by the Yorubas. This neglect on the part of the Yorubas to push down to the sea may have been partly due to superstition, for Dalzel says that “the fetiche fetiche: a charm or object believed to have magical power, often used here to refer to a deity or religious prohibition of the Eyeos was the sea,” and that they and their king were threatened with death by their priests if they ever dared to look upon it. Slave traders and others who frequented the Slave Coast during the last century were thus not brought into contact with the Yorubas, and consequently we hear but little of them. Conversely, the literature concerning Ashanti and Dahomey—which, like Yoruba, were originally inland powers, but whose invasions of the coast kingdoms brought them into contact with Europeans—is ample.

As far as can be ascertained, the chief strength of Yoruba lay in its cavalry, which was said to number