70 
V. JANUARY TO JUNE. 1914 
past, in spite of the war that both Government and 
missions carry on against it. I often notice among 
the attendants of a sick man some whose features are 
not those of any tribe that is settled here or in the 
neighbourhood. But if I ask whether they are slaves, 
I am assured with a rather peculiar smile that they 
are only “ servants.” The lot of these unacknowledged 
slaves is by no means a hard one. They never have 
to fear ill-treatment, and they never think of escaping 
and putting themselves under the protection of the 
Government. If an inquiry is held, they usually deny 
obstinately that they are slaves, and it often happens 
that after a number of years of slavery they are admitted 
as members of the tribe, thereby becoming free and 
obtaining a right of domicile in a definite place. The 
latter is what they regard as most valuable. 
The reason for the continued secret existence of 
domestic slavery in the district of the lower Ogowe, 
is to be looked for in the food conditions of the interior. 
It is the disastrous lot of Equatorial Africa never to have 
had at any time either fruit-bearing plants or fruit- 
bearing trees. The banana stocks, the manioc, the yam, 
the potato, and the oil palm were introduced from their 
West Indian islands by the Portuguese, who were the 
great benefactors of Equatorial Africa. In the districts 
where these useful products have not been introduced, 
or where they are not well established, permanent 
famine prevails. Then parents -sell their children to 
districts lower down stream, in order that these, at any 
rate, may have something to eat. In the upper course 
of the N’Gounje, a tributary of the Ogowe, there must 
be such a famine district ; it is from there that the 
majority of the domestic slaves on the Ogowe come. 
