Percy Amaury Talbot

"The impression which the members of the expedition carried away from Benin town, as the City of Blood, was no doubt largely due to the number of corpses seen by them in the Arho Ogiuwu...which they thought were the bodies of slaughtered victims, whereas they were really those of executed criminals and of persons who had died from infectious disease, etc., to whom decent burial was denied. If also, as stated, all the human sacrifices consisted of criminals, these would probably have preferred death as an offering to the gods or ancestors than in any other form....The most abhorrent to modern ideas were the sun and rain sacrifices in which the victims were tied to trees, but it must be remembered that these were always wizards and witches, and so guilty, in native eyes, of the worst possible crime. The idea of Benin rule, therefore, as one of blood-stained despotism appears at variance with the truth."