In his memoirs, Captain Frederick E. Forbes spends much of his time writing in lurid detail about the supposed bloodthirstiness of the Dahomans, typified by his descriptions of the extremity of human sacrifice during the “Annual Customs of Dahomey.” The illustrations in his book depict a ritual in which boats are set afloat on a river of blood. The illustrations show the British flag flying over the fortified Dahoman settlement. The presence of maritime imagery—and its proximity to Black death and European heraldry—suggests connections between these rituals and the European slave trade, the basis of Dahoman wealth at the time.