A MISSION TO GELELE, KING OF DAHOME. With Notices of the So-called "Amazons," the Grand Customs, the Human Sacrifices, the Present State of the Slave Trade, and the Negro's Place in Nature.
(London: Tinsley Brothers, 1864).
FIRST EDITION. One of West Africa s more brutal dictators, Gelele was widely infamous for his female "Amazon" army and such florid atrocities as cannibalism, impaling, and mass human sacrifice. His attacks on neighboring states, persecution of native Christians, and encouragement of the slave trade alarmed France and Great Britain; the latter annexed Lagos in an effort to curtail Gelele s activities.
In 1861 while in West Africa, Burton asked the Foreign Office to send him to Dohome, but his request was denied. He made a secret unofficial journey there and lingered at the capital for 5 days and met with the King briefly. His first impressions were that Gelele was not as savage or as bloody as purported by other European travelers. He described the king, He looks a king of black men, without tenderness of heart or weakness of head. His person is athletic, upwards of six feet high, lithe, thin flanked and broad shouldered. His eyes are red, bleared and inflamed and his tatoo has three short parallel and perpendicular lancet cuts, situated nearer the scalp than the eyebrows.
Later, the Foreign Office formally sent Burton back to Dahome to protest the human sacrifices, slave trade, and other inhumane practices. These volumes chronicle the barbarian practices that he witnessed, and his many attempts to convince the King to abandon his bloody rituals and customs. Unfortunately, Burton was unable to dissuade Gelele. He returned home despondent, frustrated, and disappointed. This was his last major expedition to West Africa. Item #31329
2 volumes. First Edition, First Issue with p. 181 in Vol. II misnumbered and with the half-titles as called for. With a frontispiece engraving in each volume. 8vo, bound in modern brown cloth, the spines lettered and numbered in gilt. xx, 386; vi, 412 pp. A good and solid copy of the true first edition, the later cloth bindings are strong and without chipping or damage, the text-block generally very clean and tight and well preserved with only very occasional evidence of spotting, prelims with some mellowing as is typical, small old unobtrusive stamp to the title-pages and verso of the plates.