ALL AHE AGREED. 287 



thanks to the j dials, or slave-merchants, they have 

 probably preserved to the present clay. A propos of 

 this is one of the scenes related by the traveller v,-e 

 are going to quote. It was in Upper Nubia. Mr. 

 Combes, coming from Khartoum and descending the 

 Nile, had taken his place on board a boat chartered 

 by some jellabs, the cargo being chiefly composed of 

 slaves. Let the witness relate these horrors : 



" A great misfortune had just fallen upon the slaves, 

 already wretched enough ; small-pox had broken out on 

 board, and each day made some victims. We were 

 always crowded one upon another, and in this cruel 

 position the malady spread with fearful rapidity. The 

 jellabs, powerless to arrest the progress of the plague, 

 were compelled to appear resigned, and every time that 

 death snatched from them a slave, they threw him into 

 the Nile, repeating sententiously the words ' Miss 

 Allah ! ' It is the will of God. The sick expired and 

 became cold in the midst of their terrified companions ; 

 their masters, under the rule of the most senseless 

 fatalism, made no effort to overcome the terrible effects 

 of the contagion. They stopped less frequently than 

 usual; the dying rested their heads on the knees of those 

 who were yet in good health, and these unfortunates, 

 who were being suffocated by the fever, and who required 

 to breathe free and pure air, passed the great part of the 

 day, and even of the night, in the midst of deleterious 



