148 Of the Checks to Population in Bk. i. 



numbers from incessant war, and the checks to 

 increase from vice and other causes, it appears 

 that the population is continually pressing against 

 the limits of the means of subsistence. Accord- 

 ing to Park, scarce years and famines are fre- 

 quent. Among the four principal causes of slavery 

 in Africa, he mentions famine next to war;* and 

 the express permission given to masters to sell 

 their domestic slaves for the support of their fa- 

 mily, which they are not allowed to do on any 

 less urgent occasion, f seems to imply the not 

 unfrequent recurrence of severe want. During 

 a great scarcity which lasted for three years in 

 the countries of the Gambia, great numbers of 

 people became slaves. Park was assured by Dr. 

 Laidley that at that time many free men came, and 

 begged with great earnestness to be put upon his 

 slave chain to save them from perishing with 

 hunger. J While Park was in Manding, a scarcity 

 of provisions was severely felt by the poor, as the 

 following circumstance painfully convinced him. 

 Every evening during his stay, he observed five 

 or six women come to the Mansa's house and re- 

 ceive each of them a certain quantity of corn. 

 " Observe that boy," said Mansa to him, pointing 

 to a fine child about five years of age — " his mo- 

 " ther has sold him to me for forty days' provision 

 " for herself and the rest of her family. I have 



* Park's Africa, c. xxii. p. 295. 

 t Id. p. 288, note. 

 % Id. p. 295. 



