PRICE OF SLAVES. 311 



had offered to me for sale, girls from ten to fourteen 

 years old, at the price of about four or five dollars 

 each. In merchandise, the value of a really hand- 

 some slave girl, appears much more trifling than 

 when paid for in hard dollars, as six or seven cubits 

 of blue sood, worth about two shillings in England, 

 is a more than sufficient temptation to induce even 

 a mother to part with her child. These bargains, I 

 observed, were always transacted with the female 

 relatives, but the returns, I was told, were generally 

 handed over # to the fathers or brothers. The girls 

 were frightened to death at the idea of being sold 

 to me, but seemed happy enough to leave their 

 desert homes in search of fortunes elsewhere, with 

 masters of their own colour ; and both parents and 

 children, in these business transactions, supported 

 themselves most stoically, although on the eve of 

 being separated for ever. 



With respect to the old man's daughters, Ohmed 

 Mahomed, who acted as interpreter between us, 

 practised a somewhat similar trick upon me as he 

 did at Sagagahdah, when he passed Mahomed 

 Murkee upon me for Mahomed Allee. Whilst I 

 was in Tajourah, I was frequently called in to 

 people who were sick, and, among others, to a 

 number of young slave girls belonging to Abu 

 Bukeree, one of the chief men of the town. These 

 children were suffering from an epidemic that took 

 off a great number, and Ohmed Mahomed asserted 

 that two of them were the children of the old man ; 



