ESTIMATED ANNUAL TRAFFIC. 795 



solely for purposes of profit. In order to demonstrate how im- 

 portant at the present time is the part taken by the district of 

 the Gazelle in the entire African slave-trade, I will take a brief 

 survey of the sources which all the year round supply the end- 

 less succession of the dealers with fresh stores of living wares, 

 and which, branching off into three great highways to the north, 

 yield up their very life-blood to gratify the insatiable and 

 luxurious demands of Egypt, Arabia, Persia, and Asiatic 

 Turkey. Previous travellers have estimated the total of the 

 annual traffic in this immense region to be twenty-five thousand, 

 but I shall show by a very summary reckoning that this is far 

 too low a computation. 



The three currents for the slave-trade m northeast Africa (a 

 region corresponding to what may be geographically termed 

 the "Nile district") are the natural highways of the Nile and 

 the Red Sea, and the much frequented caravan roads that, 

 traversing the deserts at no great distance to the west of the 

 Nile, find their outlet either in Siout or near Cairo. As a 

 proof of how little these roads even now are known, I may 

 mention that when, in the summer of 1871, a caravan with two 

 thousand slaves arrived direct from Wadai, it caused quite a 

 sensation in the neighborhood of the pyramids of Gizeh ; it was 

 supposed to have traversed a geographical terra incognita, and 

 it divided and dispersed itself as mysteriously as it came. It is 

 far more difficult to place the deserts under inspection than the 

 ocean, and this is especially the case in the vicinity of a river, 

 where a caravan can easily supply itself with water for many 

 days. The borders of a desert are like the coasts of an unnavi- 

 gable ocean. The plan, however, of establishing a system of 

 control along the borders of the Nile valley, corresponding to 

 the coast-guard cruisers on our seas, has never yet been tried. 

 Numerous sources are thus free still to pour their flood of 

 human life across these unguarded borders. According to Dr. 

 Schweinfurth, who writes with a perspicuity which indicates 

 accuracy of information on this subject, the regions in which 

 Baker put down the trade were really one of its most unim- 

 portant sources. The Galla countries still supply the markets 

 of Aiatamma and Zeyla, and Sennear, with many thousand an- 

 nually. The Berta and Dinka countries, the Agow of Abys- 



