PRICE IN THE MARKET. 121 



day to other employers, and the proceeds are kept 

 by themselves. The price of a slave in Sarawak is 

 from thirty to sixty dollars, but as the trade is being 

 as gradually and quickly suppressed as possible, 

 without too much shocking the prejudices of the 

 inhabitants, they have of late become very scarce 

 and difficult to be bought. The slave boys purchased 

 by Europeans, who bring them up as servants, are 

 necessarily free as soon as they enter the settlement, 

 but are not often anxious to go away, as, being without 

 friends, they might be again captured and sold to some 

 other place, whereas with the Europeans they get, in 

 addition to their freedom, their clothes, food, and two 

 or three Spanish dollars per month pocket money. 



Slave girls are frequently more harshly treated than 

 their husbands and brothers, the Malayan ladies whom 

 they serve being more commonly difficult to please than 

 their lords. Should a girl be so unfortunate as to be 

 possessed of personal attractions, so as to excite the 

 jealousy of her mistress, her case is, indeed, pitiable ; 

 but, under the circumstances, the girl has generally 

 redress by causing herself to be purchased by another 

 person, if her proofs of bad treatment are sufficiently 

 clear. Any slave girl having been used as a concubine 

 is free by the law, and she can, if she likes, accordingly 

 depart ; but as virtue amongst the lower classes is but 

 little regarded, they find it better to live at the expense 

 of their master, though they receive the constant 

 attentions of a lover equally favoured. The price 

 of a girl varies according to her age and other quali- 



