THE SLA YE STICK. 497 



nothing that distinguishes the untcontaminated Africans from other degraded 

 peoples more than their entire reasonableness and good sense. It is different 

 after they have had wives, children, and relations kidnapped; but that is 

 more than human nature, civilised or savage, can bear. In the case in 

 question, indiscriminate slaughter, capture and plunder took place. A very- 

 large number of very fine young men were captured, and secured in chains 

 and wooden yokes. I came near the party of Said-bin-Habib, close to the 

 point where a huge rent in the mountains of Rua allows the escape of the 

 River Lualaba out of lake Moero ; and here I had for the first time an oppor- 

 tunity of observing the differences between slaves and freemen made captives. 

 When fairly across Lualaba, Said thought his captives safe, and got rid of 

 the trouble of attending to and watching the chained gang by taking off 

 both chains and yokes. All declared their joy and perfect willingness to 

 follow Said to the end of the world or elsewhere ; but next morning twenty- 

 two made clear off to the mountains. Many more, on seeing the broad Lua- 

 laba roll between them and the homes of their infancy, lost all heart, and in 

 three days eight of them died. They had no complaint but pain in the heart, 

 and they pointed out its seat correctly, though many believe that the heart 

 is situated underneath the top of the sternum or breast-bone. This to me 

 was the most startling death I ever saw. They evidently died of broken- 

 heartedness, and the Arabs wondered, seeing they had plenty to eat. I saw 

 others perish, particularly a very fine boy of ten or twelve years of age. 

 When asked where he felt ill, he put his hand correctly and exactly over the 

 heart. He was kindly carried, and as he breathed out his soul, was laid 

 gently on the side of the path. The captors were not usually cruel ; they 

 were callous — slavery had hardened their hearts. 



" When Said, who was an old friend of mine, crossed the Lualaba, he 

 heard that 1 was in a village where a company of slave-traders had been pre- 

 viously assaulted for three days by justly-incensed Babemba. I would not 

 fight, nor allow my people to fire, if I saw them, because the Babemba had 

 been especially kind to me. Said sent a party of his own people to invite me 

 to leave the village by night and come to him. He showed himself the oppo- 

 site of hard-hearted ; but slavery ' hardens all within, and petrifies the feel- 

 ings.' It is bad for the victims, and bad for the victimisers. 



" I once saw a party of twelve who had been slaves in their own country — 

 Lunda or Londa — of which Cazembe is chief in general. They were loaded 

 with large heavy wooden yokes, which are forked trees about three inches 

 in diameter and seven or eight feet long. The neck is inserted in the fork, 

 and an iron bar driven in across from one end of the fork to the other, and 

 riveted ; the other end is tied at night to a tree, or to the ceiling of a hut, 

 and the neck being firm in the fork, the slave is held off from unloosing it. 

 It is excessively troublesome to the wearer ; and when marching, two yokes 

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