They cultivated every square foot of ground up to
the threshold of their dwellings; the sides of ditches, hedges, and
inclosures were planted with melons and vegetables, and the roads
between the villages shrank to foot-paths in the effort to save land for
planting. On the day when a crop was harvested, another was sown.
Their little State was divided into twenty-six provinces or counties,
ruled by hereditary lords. The King was simply the most important one
of these. Here were institutions which would have deserved the epithet
_patriarchal_, save for the absence of overseers and the auction-block.
The men worked in the field, the women spun at home. Two markets were
held every four days in two convenient places, which were frequented by
five or six thousand traders. Every article for sale had its appropriate
place, and the traffic was conducted without tumult or fraud. A judge
and four inspectors went up and down to hear and settle grievances.
The women had their stalls, at which they sold articles of their own
manufacture from cotton or wood, plates, wooden cups, red and blue
paper, salt, cardamom-seeds, palm-oil, and calabashes.
How did it happen that such a thrifty little kingdom learned the
shiftlessness of slave-trading? Early navigators discovered that they
had one passion, that of gaming. This was sedulously cultivated by the
French and Portuguese who had colonies at stake.
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