or DAUMA, a powerful kingdom of Africa, on the coast of Guinea. Abomey, the modern capital, lies in N. Lat. 7. 59. This kingdom occurs in its true position, in the maps of Sanuto, Plancius, and Mercator, where Dawhce, the ancient capital, is denominated Dauma. In 1700, it was erased from the maps of Africa, and the existence of the ancient nation of Dauma denied, till 1727, when it emerged from obscurity, and became known by the conquests of the maritime states of Whidah and Ardra. Between Daoma and Gago the lake Sigesmes, or Guarda, (which extends about 100 leagues from east to west, and 50 from north to south, which lies about 370 miles N. N. E. of Arada, and is represented as the source of various large rivers, which descend into the gulf of Guinea) is placed by Barbot and Snelgrave, who derived their authority from the native traders. It neither occurs in Edrisi nor Leo, though it is found in the maps to Rufcelli's edition of Ptolemy, in 1561. Dahomy is a fertile cultivated country; the soil is a deep rich reddish clay, intermixed with sand, scarcely containing a stone of the size of an egg in the whole country. It is extremely productive of maize, millet, beans, yams, potatoes, cassava, plantain, and the banana; indigo, cotton, tobacco, palm-oil, and sugar, are raised, as well as a species of black pepper. Bread, and a species of liquor, or rather diluted gruel, are formed of the lotus-berry. Animals, both wild and tame, are numerous, and the lakes abound in fish. The maritime districts of Whidah and Ardra, before they were ruined by the Dahomans, were highly cultivated and beautiful.

The character of the Daumanese, or Dahomans, is original and strongly marked; they have retained peculiar manners, and have had little intercourse with either Europeans or Moors. They exhibit the germ of peculiar institutions and modifications of manners, that have appeared incredible to modern nations, when they perused the ancient records of the Egyptians, Hindus, and Lacedæmonians. Like the Lacedæmonians, they display a singular mixture of ferocity and politeness, of generosity and cruelty. Their conduct towards strangers is hospitable, without any mixture of rudeness or insult. Their appearance is manly, and their persons strong and active; and though they are less addicted to the practice of tattooing than their neighbours, their countenance rather displays ferocity than courage. Their government is the purest despotism; every subject is a slave; and every slave implicitly admits the right of the sovereign to dispose of his property and of his person. "I think of my king," said a Dahoman to Mr Norris, "and then I dare engage five of the enemy myself. My head belongs to the king, not to myself: if he please to send for it, I am ready to resign it; or if it be shot through in battle, I am satisfied—if it be in his service." This attachment continues unshaken, even when their nearest relations become the victims of the avarice or caprice of the king, and his enormities are always attributed to their own indiscretions. With this devoted spirit, the Dahoman rushes fearless into battle, and fights as long as he can wield his sabre.

The modern history of the Dahomans realizes all that history has recorded of ancient Lacedemon, and of those Lacedæmonians of the north, the inhabitants of Jomsburgh, who were forbidden to mention the name of Fear, even in the most imminent dangers, and who proudly declared that they would fight their enemies, though they were stronger than the gods. Saxo relates, that when Frotho king of Denmark, was taken prisoner in battle, he obstinately refused to accept of life, declaring, that the restoration of his kingdom and treasures could never restore his honour, but that future ages would always say, Frotho has been taken by his enemy.

The palace of the king of Dahomy is an extensive building of bamboo and mud-walled huts, surrounded by a mud-wall about 20 feet high, inclosing a quadrangular space of about a mile square. The entrance to the king's apartment is paved with human skulls, the lateral walls adorned with human jaw-bones, with a few bloody heads intermixed at intervals. The whole building resembles a number of farm-yards, with long thatched barns and sheds for cattle, intersected with low mud-walls. On the thatched roofs, numerous human skulls are ranged at intervals, on small wooden stakes. In allusion to these, when the king issues orders for war, he only announces to his general, that his house wants thatch. In this palace, or large house, as it is termed by the Dahomans, above 3000 females are commonly immured, and about 500 are appropriated by each of the principal officers. From this injurious and detestable practice, originate many flagrant abuses; the population is diminished, the sources of private happiness destroyed, and the best feelings of human nature being outraged, the energies of passion are converted into bitterness and ferocity.

The religion of Dahomy is vague and uncertain in its principles, and rather consists in the performance of some traditional ceremonies, than in any fixed system of belief, or of moral conduct. They believe more firmly in their amulets and fetiches, than in the deity; their national fetich is the Tiger; and their habitations are decorated with ugly images, tinged with blood, fluck with feathers, bejewelled with palm-oil, and bedaubed with eggs. As their ideas of deity do not coincide with those of Europeans, they imagine that their tutelary gods are different. "Perhaps," said a Dahoman chief to Snelgrave, "that god may be yours, who has communicated so many extraordinary things to white men; but as that god has not been pleased to make himself known to us, we must be satisfied with this we worship." The Dahomans manufacture and dye cotton-cloth, and form a species of cloth of palm-leaves. They are tolerably skilful in working in metals. The bards, who celebrate the exploits of the king and his generals, are likewise the hi-florians of the country.