TREATMENT OF SLAVES 
355 
on long marches and in times of famine in different parts of 
South Africa. The slave also is entitled to choose a wife from 
amongst his fellows, and keeps a household of his own. There 
is a good deal of method in this consideration for their subor¬ 
dinates—for slaves one cannot rightly call them—as it is desirable 
to wean them from thoughts of their native country, for with 
the freedom natural to the life they lead, there is very little 
in the way to hinder them from deserting at will and leisure. 
The males, mostly captured in childhood during the wars, when 
all adults are killed as dangerous, learn to love their captors, 
who treat them as their own children, instructing them in 
all the arts necessary to their simple life in companionship 
with their own offspring. There is hardly any difference made 
between these and their own flesh and blood until the age 
of manhood. At that time the difference becomes apparent 
by the one being allowed to leave his home and strike out 
a course for himself within the limits of his tribe, while the 
slave has to remain with his master. Before this stage is 
reached, however, I have seen a slave and the son of a man 
carrying equal loads on the march, and sharing their meals 
out of the same pot which the father and master had impartially 
passed on to his followers. There may be individual differences 
in the way natives treat their slaves, just as there may be 
individual differences in the treatment of their own offspring 
according to the more or less amiable disposition of the indi¬ 
vidual, but the general rule, laid down by custom, is carried 
out as described. 
In Zanzibar, in 1885, I observed with a good deal of surprise 
that the Sultan’s slaves were allowed freedom to work half 
the day for themselves in their own gardens, or, by preference, 
to assume the occupation of porters, to help in the off-loading 
or lading of ships in the harbours, when they engaged them¬ 
selves for wages, which they retained for their own uses. 
Actual sale of slaves amongst the Baros or other South 
African tribes is unknown. 
Stremboom was rapidly disposing of his newly arrived goods 
