466 



THE WILD SLAVE. 



of walking into any open dwelling and carrying 

 off whatever is handy, that no questions are 

 asked about a negro shot or cut down in the act 

 of simple trespass. At night they employ them- 

 selves in robbing or smuggling, and at times in 

 firing a house, when they join the crowd and 

 spread the flames for the purpose of plunder. 

 They are armed burglars, and not a few murders 

 are laid at their door. In the plantation they 

 gratify their savage, quarrelsome, and ungo- 

 vernable tempers, by waging desultory servile 

 wars with neighbouring gangs ; hundreds will 

 turn out with knobsticks, stones, and a few 

 muskets, and blaze wildly in the direction of one 

 another : at the first casualty all will run. Some 

 proprietors have had as many as 2000 blacks — 

 not half the number often owned in the Southern 

 United States, and in the Brazil — but at those 

 times the negro was worth only from $3 to $10. 

 They were allowed two days out of the week to 

 fish for themselves, and to work at their own 

 patches of ground. 



Of late years the Zanzibar serviles have 

 attempted to compete with the honest and hard- 

 working porters of Hazramaut ; but they cannot 

 keep their hands from picking and stealing, and 

 thus they have ruined several of their ' Akidahs,' 



