made in the country, or in later times earthenware imported from Europe. Kneeling before her husband, she removed the covers of the vessels containing the food, and with her right hand took a portion from each and ate it in his presence, to show that she had not put poison into it. The right hand only, having been first washed, was used in conveying the food to the mouth, which was done with the thumb and fore and long fingers. Spoons, knives, and forks are now becoming known and are coming into use.

Lagosians do not care much for clothing as a covering, but they are very fond of it for purposes of display, and on great occasions exhibit it in great quantities, and in all colours and shades of colour. The ordinary clothing of the men consists of a short pair of trousers reaching to above or below the knees as the case may be, and tied about the loins. Sometimes a kind of undervest is worn, and a cloth about three yards long and two wide is thrown about the upper part of the body. The tobe in different colours is worn by many Mohammedans and some others. The head is covered with a cap, of which there is a great variety as to shape and material of which they are made; beside this, in rainy weather and when the sun is hot, a broad-brimmed hat, made of coarse grass or species of rush, woven, is used by persons going out of the house, and serves the purpose of an umbrella. Many Mohammedans, and some who are not Mohammedans, wear the fez with turban, or the turban with an ordinary native cap. The women use a cloth about two and a half or three yards long, and about five feet wide, which they wrap about the body, fastening it by tucking the outer end of it tightly about the body, and with it covering or not the bosom, as they are disposed; over this is worn a second cloth of the same dimensions, which is fastened over the first in a similar way. In addition to this they usually have a thin cloth, about the same size as the others, which is worn thrown lightly about the shoulders. For these cloths the colour most preferred is an indigo blue, but other colours are common. For the head a piece of cloth formed into a turban and long enough to go three or four times round the head is used. On ordinary occasions many people content themselves with less clothing than decency requires. The young of both sexes are very often allowed to go without clothing, and this even when it might be expected that their own sense of propriety would lead them to seek the use of it. But in this respect they are not worse than 'people in the interior; perhaps they are not so bad.

Some women had their ears pierced, in order to be able to wear ornaments in them; and some had one nostril perforated, in order to insert in the opening a piece of coral, or something of the kind, to enhance their personal appearance. They wore rings on their fingers, and bracelets on the wrists; indeed, sometimes the arm was loaded with these. As might be expected, the men cared less for additions to their personal appearance than women, but they indulged in them to a degree, especially the young men, who commonly wore armlets of glass or earthenware, not made in Lagos, but brought from the far interior. The women commonly, but not always, wore the hair long; that is, long for them, and had it dressed in a variety of ways, but their coiffures do not admit of being very briefly described. The men usually wore their hair short; indeed they often had the head shaved. Some would have all the hair shaved from their heads save one patch about the size of half-a-crown; or it might be that two or three, or even more, of such patches were left; or again, a strip about an inch, or an inch and a half, broad, stretching from the crown to the forehead, was left, when all other parts of the head were submitted to the razor; and the hair

on these favoured spots was allowed to grow as long as it would, and was disposed of in braids, giving the idea that the individual had a greater or smaller number of tails attached to his head, till closer inspection showed how the effect was produced. The women were accustomed further to enhance their attractions, by giving a bluish colour to their eyelids. This was done by the use of powdered plumbago mixed with cloves also pulverized, and applied to the eyelids with a bit of chip or something of the kind. They also use a red colouring substance, which was rubbed on the whole body in small quantities, and more plentifully on the feet. It was obtained by pounding the leaves of the lali-tree, and mixing with them lime-juice. To European eyes the effect of colouring the eyelids blue, and giving a slightly red tinge to the parts of the limbs and body not covered, was pleasing, as it was also to Natives of the country. Many women still make this a part of their toilet.

Formerly the use of certain things was restricted to the king. He alone could have tiles on his house, be carried in a hammock, or be drawn in a wheeled-carriage, then drawn by men. It is no uncommon thing when sumptuary laws have unduly interfered with the liberty of a people, and afterwards have been abrogated, for those relieved to think more of their own newly-acquired rights, than of the feelings of those at whose expense they have been acquired. It needs no lively imagination to conceive how troubled a royal personage might be in Lagos who witnessed the inroads. made by the commonalty in these days on the royal and sacred privilege of former times.

In bygone times animal food was much less used than it is now: perhaps this was because it was not so easily obtainable as it now is. The lagoon about Lagos supplied an ample amount of fish. Then as now, palm-oil was used in considerable quantities as an article of diet. Beef, mutton, goats'meat, pork, and poultry, are, as compared with many other places, very plentiful, and more largely consumed than might be expected. Of vegetable productions used as food, the most common are Indian corn, yams, and cassava; a variety of greens are used in making the different kinds of "palaver sauce." Rice is grown in the country in very limited quantities, and is better liked, and therefore higher in price than the imported article. Milk is seldom or never used except by immigrants. Water, if anything, is drunk at meals. Large quantities of palm wine are drunk, and a smaller quantity of spirits. Great numbers, young as well as old, take snuff, of which they are very fond. By much the greater part it is taken on the tongue, about half a dram at a time; others take it in the more usual way. This snuff is made as well as sold in the markets, from roll-tobacco, ground by hand between two stones to as near a powder as the viscidness of the molasses with which the tobacco is mixed will allow. During the rolling process a quantity of kanun, or natron, is added, to give it pungency. This kanun is brought from the interior, and is an article of trade.

Next to colds, the most common diseases, and the most fatal ones, are fever, diarrhoea, dysentery, and small-pox; and of these the one, and with reason, most dreaded is the last.

Under native rule, murder, treason, arson, and theft, were punished with death; adultery, except with a king's wife, was counted a minor offence, and was, with others of the same class, punished with fine, whipping, and imprisonment.

The real Lagosian loves above everything to be a trader: when circumstances prevent his engaging in it, he prefers working as a fisherman or

canoe-man. He does not appear ever to have taken much to farming or plantation work. It is worthy of notice that neither Lagosians nor people belonging to other tribes nearest Lagos, whether on the coast or in the interior, who are settled in Lagos, have ever taken to working in boats used in conveying cargo to and from the shipping in Lagos roadstead. In slavetrading times, men were obtained for this work from Cape Coast or Accra. It is now, and has been for years past, done almost exclusively by Kroomen; a very limited number of Accra and Cape Coast men being still engaged in it. But a boat's crew of a dozen Lagos men would not be got to take a boat over the bar for any reasonable inducement. A large number of the inhabitants of Lagos are dependent on trade for a livelihood. Some are engaged as middle-men; others as petty traders; many are employed by the various mercantile houses as clerks and in other ways. There are ordained ministers of religion, schoolmasters, and other teachers. There are various handicraftsmen, as blacksmiths, carpenters, joiners, woodcutters, brickmoulders, bricklayers, farmers, and others employed in various other ways. The work done by these artisans is not of the best quality.

In former years Lagos was very largely dependent upon other places for its food supply. The greater security for person and property since the introduction of British rule has induced many people belonging to other places to settle within British jurisdiction, and many of these have continued to do what they best knew how to do-make farms. Besides these, many immigrants from Sierra Leone, Cuba, and Brazil have settled in Lagos; a good proportion of whom have taken to farming. The result has been that within the last ten or twelve years extensive tracts of land, probably never before cleared, have been brought under cultivation, and Lagos has been rendered less dependent than it was formerly, notwithstanding its greatly increased population, on other places for the supply of its provisions.

When new land is to be brought into cultivation, the first step is to clear away the underwood, then the large trees are felled, and allowed to lie as they fall. Indian corn is then planted wherever the fallen timber will admit of it, so the planters are usually content with this as the first crop. Before another season the timber has been burnt and the land thus cleared of it; then it is planted with whatever the planter thinks best. It is usual to plant several things at the same time, which, as might be expected, soon exhausts the land, and then if circumstances allow of it, it is left to lie fallow. The articles of farm produce grown in the largest quantities, are Indian corn, cassava, yams, sweet potatoes, guinea-corn, and greens for making "palaver sauce." Manuring and rotation of crops are very little understood.

The ordinary native houses were of a very inferior kind. The walls were from three to eight feet high. They were sometimes of mud, sometimes walled and filled in with mud, and at other times bamboos were placed and tied together in a row in an upright position, and made to serve as walls. The roofs were of the lightest kind, consisting of slender timbers-usually poles-the covering being palm-leaves. When fires broke out, as they often did, the conflagrations were such as might be expected where so much combustible material was ready for ignition. The form of the houses hardly admits of brief description, since it varied with the different circumstances and position of the builder. The best houses were in the form of compounds, either square or oblong; that is they were meant to have these figures, but they hardly adhered to them in a way that would satisfy a mathematical mind. They were of various sizes; one side being from ten to thirty or

forty yards long. Parallel with the outer wall, and distant from it from six to eight feet, ran an inner wall. Between these two walls were run up partitions, usually six or seven feet distant from each other, thus forming rooms of about seven feet by seven or eight, of an average. These rooms were ceiled, and in them the occupants kept their goods and valuables. The ceilings were of roughly-prepared timber or of bamboos, over which was a thick layer of mud, taken from the lagoon, or of clay from Iddo Island or from the mainland. This mud or clay was laid on the ceiling, so that if the house took fire the contents of the rooms might escape destruction, which they often did; but it not seldom happened that everything was burnt, and that the precaution used was in vain. The roof was made to overlap the inner wall from three to six feet. This overlap was a piazza, in which most of the work at home was done, and in which the occupants of the house slept for the greater part of the year. But in the colder parts of the year and in times of sickness, the rooms were occupied. As the only ventilation these rooms had was by the door, for there was nothing like a window in the walls, and the ceiling was air-proof, and as a fire was kindled in the room in times of illness and the door might happen to close, many a one died from want of oxygen: but as this, the true cause of death, was not understood, it was no uncommon thing to charge it upon some supposed witch or wizard. The principal rooms, which usually faced the entrance, were occupied by the owner, and were of a kind superior to most of the others. To each wife with her children was allotted a room. Others were disposed of according to the wish of the owner-to slaves, retainers, or relatives. But the greater number of houses were of a kind inferior to the one just described. There was but little furniture in these houses. Some cooking utensils-very simple ones—some baskets and mats, and perhaps two or three of a rude kind of stool.

The houses were built with little or no reference to public convenience, and were so placed as to make the streets narrow, crooked, and often mere ruts, in which the water ran off when rain fell. Regarded as streets they seemed to begin nowhere, and to end nowhere. The houses were often placed very close to one another, and as no sanitary precautions whatever were used, a sickening, fever-laden atmosphere, ever seemed to hang about them. It must remain a marvel that the inhabitants were not again and again swept away by epidemics. But in times when the place was under native rule it was perilous to manifest a desire to improve matters, as a movement in that direction might lay a person open to the charge of aspiring to the use of things restricted to royalty. One man had the temerity to make in his house one tolerably decent room, the walls of which he covered with lime-wash. In doing this, however, not only were his goods all confiscated, but he was also put to death with great cruelty, on the ground that he attempted to make his house like the king's house.

Many good houses have been built within the last few years, and some of them by Native chiefs, who would never have ventured to do such a thing under the former régime. The number of superior houses increases every Much as the aspect of the town has been changed within the last dozen years, it will probably experience a greater change in the next ten or a dozen years.

year.

In addition to the Lagosians proper and the settlers in Lagos from the coast and interior tribes, a considerable and important element in the population of the colony is made up of immigrants from Sierra Leone, Brazil, Cuba, and other West Indian islands. They form an important

Y y

element, on account of their wider experience, what they have seen, the influences they have been under, and their higher average intelligence, as compared with those who have not been out of the country. Whilst their characters have been much modified by their varied experience, and whilst those from Sierra Leone differ from those from Brazil and the West Indian islands, yet the idiosyncrasies of the race are only modified, not destroyed. Very many of them are of the various Yoruba-speaking tribes, and were sold away into slavery in Transatlantic countries; whence, having acquired their freedom, they return to Lagos, bringing their children with them. Immigrants from Brazil suffer much from the climate for a time after their arrival, as much so, some think, as Europeans. Those from Cuba are said not to suffer so much by the change as those from Brazil, whilst those from the other West Indian islands find acclimatizing a severe process. Immigrants from Sierra Leone are often afflicted with dysentery some time after their arrival in Lagos. Within a few months after the arrival of a batch of immigrants from St. Helena, there was great mortality amongst them, and most of those that lived had to pass through much suffering.

POPULATION AND PURSUITS.

The annexed table shows the number of the population in 1872 (when the census was last taken), their occupations, and the religions to which they professed adherence.

Lagos and its Vicinity. 77 5 16,893 19,030 16,970 19,035 | 36,005

The language spoken by the Natives of Lagos is the same as that spoken by tribes living on the coast from Porto Novo on the west to Benin on the east, and by tribes in the interior from Dahomey on the one side to those bordering on the River Niger on the other. Anything approaching to an exact estimate of the numbers of people by whom it is spoken cannot be made; but it would be safe to say that it is the Native language of two millions, and, probably, of two and a half millions of people.

It is generally called the Yoruba language; Yoruba is the generic name,