The Dream City, Paul V. Galvin 
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  FROM FAR AWAY DAHOMEY - If we look at the ordinary maps of Africa we may have trouble in finding Dahomey at all, and even on the enormous globe which revolved in the Government Building at Jackson Park, the space allotted to Dahomey of the Gulf of Guinea was surprisingly small. Yet for twenty years the Amazons and sacrifices of Dahomey have caught the Caucasian fancy, and enlarged the Dahoman state. An eccentric Frenchman named Pene brought the Dahomans to chicago, and their arrival of the 3rd of May created genuine interest in the entire world of Midway. The picture shows two of these people heavilty clother, whereas it was difficult, in warm weather, to keep any clothing whatever on them. There were sixty-seven in the party, but these two men, with two others were oftenest seen on the Plaisance, carrying on their heads the palanquin in which the white-hatted Pene traveled to the Administration Building. These men could balance a truck on their heads, and the women carried the heavist loads, with babies strapped to their waists and crying lustily meanwhile. The men swam in the lagoon races of the summer, and if the visitor entered their settlement at the west end of the Plaisance, he was almost sure to pay the fee; for Pene, having entered heartily into the usual quarrel of the concessioner with the Exposition Directors, fought it out on that line through the whole summer of 1893, thereby gaining much extra advertising in Chicago, and glory at the dusky court of King Behanzin.
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Page created: August 26, 1998