for all will be alike saccharine to the palate, and the most ridiculous effect is often produced by playing tricks upon those, who are not aware of its peculiar property.  Lander himself was one of the dupes, and he relates, that the first time he partook of one of these berries, he thought himself under the influence of witchcraft—­the fowl of which he partook at dinner seemed to him as if it had been soaked in a solution of sugar—­the lime juice appeared to him as if it were mixed with some saccharine matter—­his biscuit tasted like a bun—­and although he was convinced that he had not put any sugar into his grog, it seemed to him as if it had been sweetened by the first maker of punch in his native country.

The beasts of prey are numerous and dangerous, and often commit great havoc amongst the sheep, and other live stock, notwithstanding every precaution to put them in a place of security at night.  The tigers and leopards are not contented with what they actually carry off, but they leave nothing alive which comes within the reach of their talons.  During the residence of Lander in the country, a good mode of astonishing a tiger was practised with success.  A loaded musket was firmly fixed in a horizontal position, about the height of his head, to a couple of stakes driven into the ground, and the piece being cocked, a string from the trigger, first leading a little towards the butt, and then turning through a small ring forwards, was attached to a shoulder of mutton, stuck on the muzzle of the musket, the act of dragging off which, drew the trigger, and the piece loaded with two balls, discharged itself into the plunderer’s mouth, killing him on the spot.

Elephants are common in Dahomy, but are not tamed and used by the natives, as in India, for the purposes of war or burthen, being merely taken for the sake of their ivory and their flesh, which is, on particular occasions, eaten.

An animal of the hyena tribe, called by the natives tweetwee, is likewise extremely troublesome; herds of these join together, and scrape up the earth of newly-made graves, in order to get at the bodies, which are not buried here in coffins.  These resurrection men, as Lander termed them, make, during the night, a most dismal howling, and often change their note to one very much resembling the shriek of a woman in some situation of danger or distress.

Snakes of the boa species are here found of a most enormous size, many being from thirty to thirty-six feet in length, and of proportional girth.  They attack alike wild and domestic beasts, and often human kind.  They kill their prey by encircling it in their folds, and squeezing it to death, and afterwards swallow it entire; this they are enabled to do by a faculty of very extraordinary expansion in their muscles, without at the same time impairing the muscular action or power.  The bulk of the animals which these serpents are capable of gorging would stagger belief, were the fact not so fully attested as to