perfect safety. I was informed that slavers used always to enter the bay: they could, of course, afford to wait for a favorable wind with which to get out.
Emigrants going to Abbeokuta, according to the second article of our treaty, will be permitted the privilege of self-government, but this can only be municipal, and affecting too only themselves. There is no doubt, however, that in time it will assume all the functions of a national government, for the people are fast progressing in civilization, and the existing laws, which from their nature apply only to heathens, would be found inadequate for them. Even now, as soon as any one of the people assumes the garb or other characteristics of civilization, they cease to exercise jurisdiction over him. He is thenceforward deemed an "oyibo," or white man.[1] The rulers, of course, will not be unaffected by those influences which can bring about such changes in their people, and thus they too will find it expedient to modify the laws to meet the emergency. But
- ↑ This term, which literally signifies stripped off, was applied to white men, from the belief that their skin was stripped off. It is now applied indiscriminately to civilized men. To distinguish, however, between black civilized and white civilized men, the terms dudu for the former, and fufu for the latter, are respectively affixed.
