592 VARIETIES OF SLAVING. Chap. XXIX, 



We have been careful to mention in the text the different 

 ways in which the slave-trade is carried on, because we believe 

 that, though this odious traffic baffled many of our efforts to 

 ameliorate the condition of the natives, our Expedition is the 

 first that ever saw slavery at its fountain-head, and in all its 

 phases. The assertion has been risked, because no one was- 

 in a condition to deny it, that the slave-trade was like any 

 other branch of commerce, subject to the law of supply and 

 demand, and that therefore it ought to be free. From what 

 we have seen, it involves so much of murder in it, as an 

 essential element, that it can scarcely be allowed to remain 

 in the catalogue of commerce, any more than garotting, 

 thuggee, or piracy. 



We have the system nearest to that of justice, indeed the 

 only one that approaches it, when the criminal is sold for his 

 crimes. Then, on the plea of witchcraft, the child taken from 

 the poorer classes of parents as a fine, or to pay a debt, and sold 

 to a travelling native slave-trader. Then children kidnapped by 

 a single robber, or by a gang going from their own village to 

 neighbouring hamlets, to steal the children who are out drawing 

 water or gathering wood. We have seen places where every 

 house was a stockade, and yet the people were not safe. Next 

 comes the system of retaliation of one hamlet against another 

 to make reprisals, and the same thing on a larger scale 

 between tribes ; the portion of the tribe which flees be- 

 comes vagrant, and eventually armed with muskets, the 

 produce of previous slaving, attacks peaceful tribes, and 

 depopulates the country for the supply of the ocean slave- 

 trade. Again, we have the slave-traders from the Coast, 

 who may be either Arabs or half-caste Portuguese. For 

 them slaves are collected, by the natives who possess most 

 of a commercial turn, along the most frequented routes. 

 In this branch the Ajawa and Babisa are conspicuous. 

 The lowering effects of this trade in man are quite appa- 

 rent even in the natives. The Ajawa and Babisa, though 



