110 SLAVES AND SLAVE-HOLDERS. 



seem to take the chief authority into their own hands. With 

 all this indulgence, strange as it may appear, 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. As 

 was once said by a certain corps of our own gentlemen mili- 

 taires, or said for them, these lady warriors are a class, who 

 (fighting of course excepted) never do anything. 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 useful, if not glorious, trophy of an infant captive. 

 Arrived at the city of its captors, each little slave in embryo 



