INTERIOR OF AFRICA. 297 
equivalent to the injury he has sustained. By witchcraft, is 
meant pretended magic, by which the Hves or heahhs of per- 
sons are affected : in other words, it is the administering of 
poison. No trial for this offence, however, came under my 
observation while I was in Africa; and I therefore suppose that 
the crime, and its punishment, occur but very seldom. 
When a free man has become a slave by any one of the causes 
before mentioned,' he generally continues so for life, and his 
children (if they are born of an enslaved mother) are brought 
up in the same state of servitude. There are however a few 
instances of slaves obtaining their freedom, and sometimes even 
with the consent of their masters ; as by performing some singu- 
lar piece of service, or by going to battle, and bringing home 
two slaves as a ransome ; but the common way of regaining 
freedom is by escape, and when slaves have once set their minds 
on running away, they often succeed. Some of them will wait 
for years before an opportunity presents itself, and during that 
period shew no signs of discontent. In general, it may be re- 
marked, that slaves who come from a hilly country, and have 
been much accustomed to hunting and travel, are more apt to 
attempt their escape, than such as are born in a flat country, 
and have been employed in cultivating the land. 
Such are the general outlines of that system of slavery which 
prevails in Africa ; and it is evident, from its nature and extent, 
that it is a system of no modern date. It probably had its ori- 
gin in the remote ages of antiquity, before the Mahomedans 
explored a path across the Desert. How far it is maintained and 
supported by the slave traffic, which, for two hundred years, the 
