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Savage Africa, 33 
slaves and goods for ivory, and pocketed the profits. The 
price fixed by this potentate for a healthy young girl, was 
a first-class elephant's tusk, or a new shirt, or thirteen 
English needles. It may be imagined how keen the slave- 
traders were to take advantage of this cheapness of human 
flesh, and what immense profits were made out of a single 
drove of slaves. After Sir Samuel had advanced into the 
country, and got friendly with some of the chiefs, he found 
that the institution of slavery was a recognised one — that it 
was the custom to take revenge on the enemies of a tribe, 
by making a raid upon them, capturing their women and 
children, and selling them into slavery. Indeed, he found 
that, in some circumstances, parents would offer their own 
children for sale. It will be seen from these facts that the 
custom of kidnapping, and seUing into slavery, all defence- 
less and conquered natives, had been made part and parcel 
of savage African life. Among the White Nile tribes, at 
one time, any number of boys could have been purchased 
for slaves, of their parents, while a large family of girls 
actually yielded revenues to the father, seeing that he 
always sold his daughters for wives, and exacted from twelve 
to fifteen cows for each one. 
Of the horrors of the inland slave-trade, Livingstone 
and other travellers tell us dreadful tales. Around Lake 
, Nyassa, the Victoria Nyanza, and some other districts in 
the plateau of Central Africa, are to be found the favourite 
hunting-grounds of the slave- stealing fraternity. In some 
of these districts, the country has been turned into a 
wilderness. Droves of prisoners are chained together, 
driven down to the coast, treated with utmost brutality on 
the march, and in very many instances, slowly killed by tor- 
tures indescribable. The horrors of the middle passage," 
across the ocean, from Africa to America, have furnished 
D 
