III.] THE AFRICAN NEGRO : I. SUDANESE. 67 



It was also the policy of the Muhammadans, whose system is 

 based on slavery, not to push their religious zeal too 

 far, for, if all the natives were converted, where could . The Abon - 



gines. 



they procure a constant supply of slaves, those who 



accept the teachings of the Prophet being ipso facto entitled to 



their freedom ? Hence the pagan districts were, and still are, 



regarded as convenient preserves, happy hunting-grounds to be 



raided from time to time, but not utterly wasted; to be visited by 



organised razzias just often enough to keep up the supply in the 



home and foreign markets. This system, controlled by the local 



governments themselves, has long prevailed about 



the borderlands between Islam and heathendom, as 



we know from Barth, Nachtigal, and one or two 



other travellers, who have had reluctantly to accompany the 



periodical slave-hunting expeditions from Bornu and Baghirmi to 



the territories of the pagan Mosgu people with their numerous 



branches (Margi, Mandara, Makari, Logon^ Gamergu, Keribina] 



and the other aborigines (Bede, ATgisem, So, Kerrikerri, Babir] on 



the northern slopes of the Congo-Chad water-parting. As usual 



on such occasions, there is a great waste of life, 



many perishing in defence of their homes or even in || ave 



through sheer wantonness, besides those carried 



away captives. "A large number of slaves had been caught this 



day," writes Barth, " and in the evening a great many more were 



brought in ; altogether they were said to have taken one thousand, 



and there were certainly not less than five hundred. To our 



utmost horror, not less than 170 full-grown men were mercilessly 



slaughtered in cold blood, the greater part of them being allowed 



to bleed to death, a leg having been severed from the body 1 ." 



There was probably just then a glut in the market. 



A curious result of these relations is that in the wooded 

 districts some of the natives have reverted to ar- 

 boreal habits, taking refuge during the raids in the strongholds. 

 branches of huge bombax trees converted into tem- 

 porary strongholds. Round the vertical stem of these forest 

 giants is erected a breast-high look-out, while the higher horizontal 



1 in. p. 194. 



52 



