1811. 
SLAVES. 
33 
The value of a Malay slave varies according to his known 
character and qualifications ; the price is sometimes as high as 
5000 rix dollars, and appeared to me (in 1815), to be still on the 
increase ; a circumstance which may be attributed both to the 
abolition of that disgusting trade, and to the increasing demand for 
servants. For a valet, whom I wished to have hired during my 
stay in Cape Town, I was to have paid to his owner thirty rix 
dollars per month ; and to have clothed and fed him. And this was 
considered so reasonable a sum, that another person quickly ac- 
cepted the bargain before me. Speaking generally, it may be said 
that no white man is hired as a menial servant ; he would consider 
it a degradation to do, as they term it, the work of a slave : 
and I believe that whites, in all slave-countries, entertain similar 
sentiments. 
The number of free Malays, the descendants of those who have 
received manumission, is considerable ; and by keeping petty shops, 
and applying their industry in various ways, either as mechanics or as 
dealers, they often accumulate property ; a thing which the impro- 
vident Hottentot, though born free, is scarcely ever known to do. 
The Mozambique and Madagascar slaves are at once distin- 
guished from the Malays by their black colour, woolly hair, and 
negro countenance. These are faithful, patient, and good servants : 
they are put to various employments ; but principally to those 
which are the most laborious. Slaves of this race are still occa- 
sionally brought into the colony, by means of those captured ships 
which are too often found trading contrary to the Abolition Act, 
and are condemned here as legal prizes. These vessels have con- 
tained each, on an average, about 250 slaves : these are assigned by 
Government to different masters, for the term of fourteen years, as 
apprentice-slaves ; but it is to be hoped that this source of import- 
ation will soon cease altoo;ether. Nothino; that the most able and 
ingenious advocates for slavery have advanced, can stand against that 
pov/erful objection, that it is a practice morally wrong, and directly 
contrary to the best and dearest feelings of human nature. 
The ceremony of marriage is seldom or never used among the 
F 
