352 



THE SLAVE MARKET. 



horridly thin, with ribs protruding like the 

 circles of a cask, and not a few squatted sick on 

 the ground. The most interesting were the 

 small boys, who grinned as if somewhat pleased 

 by the degrading and hardly decent inspection to 

 which both sexes and all ages were subjected. 

 The woman-show appeared poor and miserable ; 

 there was only one decent-looking girl, with 

 carefully blacked eye-brows. She seemed modest, 

 and had probably been exposed for sale in con- 

 sequence of some inexcusable offence against 

 decorum. As a rule, no one buys adult domestic 

 slaves, male or female, for the sufficient reason 

 that the masters never part with them till they 

 are found incorrigible. These, however, are 

 mostly Eozals, or wild serviles newly driven from 

 the interior, and they are not numerous, the 

 transactions of the year being now concluded. 

 The dealers smiled at us, and were in good 

 humour. 



It would be easy to adorn this subject with 

 many a flower of description ; the atrocities of 

 the capture, the brutalities of the purchase, the 

 terrors of the middle-passage, and the horrors to 

 which the wretches are exposed when entering 

 half-civilized lands. It was usual to throw the 

 slaves overboard when the fatal symptom, copro- 



