TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
163 
value of a prime slave. In this, he said, he could 
not interfere ; that what he had told me was by 
order of Almamy, and he could not alter it ; 
but should the man to whom the slave belonged 
wish to take the value in merchandize, he was 
certain Almamy could have no objection. Much 
entreaty on my part, added to the promise of a 
present, would no doubt have had the desired 
effect, were it not that the owner of the deceased 
was afraid, in case he should accept of mer- 
chandize, that Almamy would persuade, nay 
force him, to give it to him in purchase of a 
slave, which, most probably, he might never re- 
ceive. 
I was, therefore, reduced to the disagreeable 
necessity of employing a person for the sole 
purpose of going round the country in search of 
a woman slave, and which he, with much diffi- 
culty, procured, not in consequence of the 
scarcity of those poor wretches in the country, 
but of the enormous price demanded, arising no 
doubt from their knowledge of the obligation I 
was under of providing one without delay. 
This transaction I could not bring myself to 
negotiate, as the idea alone of dealing in human 
flesh was more than sufficiently disagreeable to 
allow me to see the poor wretch, who, although 
only changing master, and, from what I could 
learn, getting a good for a bad one, was never- 
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