[Dahomey] makes a strange setting for the second book of an author whose In Patagonia enjoyed much critical praise. The story [of The Viceroy of Ouidah] evidently appealed to Chatwin not because of any prurient interest in the scandal of the slave trade, but because it took place in backwaters of Africa and South America. There is almost nothing in this book about the sufferings of the slaves or the mechanics or dimensions of the slave trade. But there are brilliant descriptions of the dusty poverty of the Brazilian interior and of the rot and decay of the humid coast. Almost every page contains marvellously concise observations by someone who has travelled in these remote places and who revels in the outlandish or the exotic. The strength of the book lies in the wealth of detail, the meticulous depiction of everything from the look of a man burnt...