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 1" 



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 Avith 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- 

 tral regions of Soudan, which in fact, since the nominal 

 abolition, has very considerably encreased in those 

 quarters. 



