' Copper has been
tried, but was made to fail by a clever District-commissioner, who refused
to take the metal in payment of Government dues. The old cowrie-currency,
of which the _tapo_, or score, represented two farthings, is all but
extinct. Its name will be preserved in the proverb, 'There is no market
wherein the dove with the pouting breast (the _cypraea_) has not traded.'
The same is the case with the oldest money, round and perforated
quartz-stones, which suggest the ring-coinage of ancient Egypt. From
Inyenapoli, preceded by King Blay, who so managed that a fair path had
been hastily cut through the bush, we struck inland, the course being
northwards, bending to the north-east and east. The first hour, covering
some three miles, lay partly over a flat plain of grass used for thatch,
pimpled with red anthills and broken by lines and patches of dense jungle.
These savannahs are common near the sea; we had already remarked one
behind Bein. They denote the 'false coast,' and they become during the wet
season almost impassable swamps and mud-fields.
Then we struck the valley of 'Ebumesu, winding water,' whose approach,
rank with mire and corded with roots, is the Great Dismal Swamp of Dahome
in miniature.
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