This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
SLAVERY IN AFRICA.
43

pointing to a spot at no great distance. The slave with his hoe began to dig a pit in the earth; and the dooty, who appeared to be a man of a very fretful disposition, kept muttering and talking to himself until the pit was almost finished; when he repeatedly pronounced the words daulcatoo (good for nothing), jankm lemen (a real plague), — which expressions I thought could be applied to nobody but myself; and as the pit had very much the appearance of a grave, I thought it prudent to mount my horse, and was about to decamp, when the slave, who had before gone into the village, to my surprise returned with the corpse of a boy about nine or ten years of age, quite naked. The negro carried the body by a leg and an arm, and threw it into the pit with a savage indifference which I had never before seen. As he covered the body with the earth, the dooty often expressed himself naphula attiniata (money lost), — whence I concluded that the boy had been one of his slaves."[1]

Here is a brief description of the. pursuit and recovery of a fugitive slave:

"In the afternoon one of his slaves eloped; and a general alarm being given, every person who had a horse rode into the woods, in the hopes of apprehending him; and Demba Sego begged the use of my horse for the same purpose. I readily consented; and in about an hour, they all returned with the slave, who was severely flogged, and afterwards put in irons"[2]

Here, again, is a specimen of the internal slave trade:

  1. Chap. XVIII.
  2. Chap. VI.