East African Slavery. 
495 
into contracting debts, for which afterwards, at the 
very moment when least able to discharge them, 
they, their children, or their friends, are taken to be 
turned into beasts of burden, for a period which 
terminates with no sabbatic year, or even a year of 
jubilee. The debt incurred by the unfortunate and 
overreached victim of cupidity, avarice and tyranny, 
is beyond liquidation ; he must work to the bare 
bone himself, and breed a family to carry on the toil 
when he is quite used up ! 
With regard to slaves obtained in the far interior, 
the march to the coast is one of the most terrible 
things connected with the traffic. To men performing 
the journey willingly, with substantial rations and no 
burden to carry, it is severe; but for those who are 
being forcibly conveyed from their homes and all 
they hold dear, their necks galling and jolted almost 
to dislocation in the prong of the rough branch by 
which they are secured ; with heavy chains on their 
hands ; backs smarting under frequent blows, loins 
lank with starvation, and tongues withered with thirst ; 
with burdens upon their heads, and still heavier ones 
on their hearts ; for women similarly situated, but 
with the addition of children alternately tugging 
vainly at their breasts and screaming on their hips ; 
for children, unused as they are to such long walks, 
hungry, footsore, and worn ; — for such the journey to 
the coast must be the horror of horrors. Before the 
march has been continued many days a man grows 
sick, and is soon unable to move ; the lash no longer 
starts him ; he sinks helplessly to the earth ; curses fall 
thick upon him ; he is quickly unyoked ; and, leaving 
him there to die, the gang proceeds. A little farther 
