SLAVES AND SLAVE-HOLDERS. 45 



tribes of this pigmy people. In some respects, however, our 

 Lilliputian slave-owners are wofully behind-hand, as compared 

 with those of larger stature. The slaves live as well as their 

 possessors, and on some occasions, the common rule of such 

 relationship being reversed, would seem to take the chief au- 

 thority into their own hands. With all this indulgence, these 

 little slaves are famous hands at labour. No Jack-of-all-trades, 

 nor maid-of-all-work (for be it here observed that they are all 

 females) can beat them for universal usefulness. The greater 

 number of their owners are of the same sex with themselves, 

 and, what may seem on this account the more remarkable is, 

 that they are all without exception soldiers amazonian soldiers. 

 It follows, consequently, that their slaves have everything to 

 do. In a populous city they are, at once, the builders, the 

 scavengers, the porters, and the nurses of the infant population. 

 Nay, they are even the feeders of the grown-up free community, 

 which consists solely of the above-named lady soldiery, a few 

 idle gentlemen, and some two or three queens or princesses of 

 the blood. The slave population being thus absolutely neces- 

 sary to the comfort, nay, very existence of their owners, it of 

 course follows that the keeping up of its numbers is a most 

 important matter. This object is effected by predatory excur- 

 sions, taken frequently into the territories of those harmless 

 unoffending tribes which furnish the desired supply, and from 

 which the female warriors usually return triumphant, each laden 

 with the trophy of an infant captive. 



On a certain day of a certain year, the Amazonian chieftains 

 of Rufia, one of the slave-making states of Formica, assembled 

 to concert a plan of operation for a new campaign or marauding 

 expedition. 



It was towards the close of a fine summer's day that the 

 army of the Rufians was seen issuing from their capital. Their 

 march soon brought them to an arid sandy plain, strewn with 

 rocky fragments, between which they pursued their way in 

 winding but unbroken files, their polished brown corselets 



