266 
ENTRY OF THE SARKEE. 
wards the castle-gates to show the people their 
equestrian skill ; then came a mass of cavalry, 
about fifty, with a drum beating, and in the midst 
of these was the sultan. There was nothing very 
striking in this cavalcade : a few cavaliers had on a 
curious sort of helmet, made of brass, with a kind 
of horn standing out from the crown ; others wore a 
wadding of woollen stuff, a sort of thin mattrass, in 
imitation of a coat of mail. Its object is to turn 
the points of the poisoned arrows. The cavaliers 
thus dressed form the body-guard of the Sarkee. 
Amongst these troops were some Bornou horsemen, 
who rode with more skill than the Zinder people. 
The best cavaliers resembled as much as possible the 
Arab cavaliers of the north. There were no captives 
with these horsemen; the slaves had only come in to 
the number, it was said, of some two or three thousand 
during the day. Although I wished to see them, I was, 
nevertheless, spared a repetition of the misery and 
indignation which the sight in the morning pro- 
duced in my mind. I have been told positively that 
the poor old creatures brought in with the other 
captives will not fetch a shilling a-head in the slave- 
market. It is, therefore, a refinement of cruelty 
not to let them die in their native homes, — to tear 
them away to a foreign soil, and subject them to 
the fatigues of the journey, and the insults of a rude 
populace, and ruder and crueller slave -dealers. 
Many die on the road during the two or three days' 
march. 
