PRICES OP SLAVES. 



375 



hammed bin Sayf, a Zanzibar Arab, remarkable for 

 household discipline, was brought to grief by Kombo, 

 his slave, who stole a basket of nutmegs from the 

 Prince, and, hiding them in his master's house, de- 

 nounced him of theft. Fahl bin Nasr, a travelling 

 merchant, when passing through Ugogo, nearly lost 

 his life in consequence of a slave having privily in- 

 formed the people that his patroon had been killing 

 crocodiles and preserving their fat for poison. In both 

 these cases the slaves were not punished ; they had 

 acted, it was believed, according to the true instincts of 

 servile nature, and chastisement would have caused 

 desertion, not improvement. 



As regards the female slaves, the less said about 

 them, from regard to the sex, the better : they are as 

 deficient in honour as in honesty, in modesty and 

 decorum as in grace and beauty. No man, even an 

 Arab, deems the mother of his children chaste, or 

 believes in the legitimacy of his progeny till proved. 



Extensive inquiries into the subject lead to a con- 

 viction that it is impossible to offer any average of the 

 price of slaves. Yet the question is of importance, as 

 only the immense profit causes men thus to overlook 

 all considerations of humanity. A few general rules 

 may be safely given. There is no article, even horse- 

 flesh, that varies so much in market-value as the human 

 commodity : the absolute worth is small compared with 

 the wants of the seller and the requirements and the 

 means of the purchaser. The extremes range from six 

 feet of unbleached domestics or a few pounds of grain 

 in time of famine, to seventy dollars, equal to 151. 

 The slaves are cheapest in the interior, on account of 

 the frequency of desertion : about Unyamwezi they are 

 dearer, and most expensive in the island of Zanzibar. 



B B 4 



