588 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1880- 



and the question of slavery as an element in the constitu 

 tion of Arabian society. Of slavery in the East, if it 

 could be separated from the evils connected with the 

 importation of negroes and Abyssinians, one might say 

 a good deal that is favourable. From a material point 

 of view, the slave in an Arab s house has seldom much 

 to complain of. A domestic slave is not overworked, 

 and in general he is well fed, and stands on wonderfully 

 easy terms with the family. If his master has no children, 

 he is often regarded almost as a son of the house ; and 

 the people say that even a father will let his son hunger 

 rather than his slave. Certainly, I have observed that 

 an Arab father is quite as exacting towards his own 

 children as towards his mamlooks. Moreover, the habits 

 of the country do not attach to slavery any brand of 

 humiliating inferiority. No one despises the slave because 

 he is not free, and he does not feel his own position to 

 be degrading. At Taif, the slave boy used to sit down 

 in the ante-room every evening and play dominoes on 

 terms of perfect equality with Aly and my guards. A 

 slave in a good family is generally liberated after no very 

 prolonged bondage, or, at any rate, upon his master s 

 death. When freed, he expects some little help to 

 establish himself in life, for an unskilled labourer hardly 

 is a gainer by becoming his own master. Freedmen 

 generally continue on terms of affectionate dependence 

 on the family they have served, and I have mentioned 

 in a former letter how the Mawaleed, or descendants of 

 freedmen, form a sort of clientele round the houses of 

 the great. Freedman and Mawaleed are often able to 

 establish a good position. Many wealthy merchants in 

 Jeddah are of such descent, and the favourite freedman 

 of a great man is always a person of consideration. Al 

 Mas, for example, who was a slave, with many of the 

 faults of a servile origin, received much more respect 

 wherever he went than Mohsin, the pure Arab of good 

 stock. I observed, too, that the Mawaleed who were 



