368 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 
the object was neither the one nor the other, he asked, 
‘what then come for; only to take walk and make 
book ?” 
As it would appear, that the state of slavery is a condi- 
tion inherent in the principles on which the society of every 
negro tribe is founded, the gradation from domestic to 
foreign slavery is so easy, that as long as a single door re- 
mains open for disposing of human beings, it is to be feared, 
that very little progress has actually been made towards the 
abolition of this disgraceful and inhuman traffic. It is of 
little use to dam up the mouths of the Senegal and the Gam- 
bia, and turn the current into the channels of Lagos, For- 
mosa, Calabar and Camaroons ; or to stop up these vents, 
while the Zaire, the Coanza, and the Guberoro remain 
open. ‘The prolonged march of the kafilas over land may 
somewhat increase the prices to the purchaser, and prolong 
the misery of the slave, but the trade itself will not be much 
diminished on that account; while there is but too much 
reason to fear, that the passage across the Atlantic will be 
attended with circumstances of aggravated cruelty and in- 
humanity. Indeed nothing short of a total and unqualified 
prohibition of the traffic by every power in Europe and 
America, can afford the least hope for a total abolition of 
the foreign trade; and even then, there is but too much 
reason to believe, that the Mahomedan powers of Egypt 
and northern Africa will extend their traffic to the cen- 
ival regions of Soudan, which in fact, since the nominal 
abolition, has very considerably encreased in those 
quarters. 
