SLAVE HUNTERS AGAIN. 17

THe ANTI-SLAVERY Socrery.

‘*Oomchanga, June 21.—The immense difficulty there is in causing this Slave-traffic to cease, has now come home to me. I wish one of the Anti- Slavery Society, capable of understanding the question, would come here and give me the solution of it. I have complete power—civil and military. No one would say a word if I put one or ten men to death; and, therefore, I must be considered entirely responsible if the Slave-trade goes on. But here is my position: Darfour and Kordofan are peopled by huge Bedouin tribes under their own sheikhs, who are rather more than semi-independent. The country for the most part is a vast desert, with wells few and far between, some of which are only known to these tribes. Some of these tribes can put from 2,000 to 6,000 horse—or camel—men into the field; and a revolt, as I know to my cost, is no small thing in such a country. Now these tribes raid on the Negro tribes to the south, or else exchange cloth for slaves with the Bedouin tribes beyond even the pretended boundary of Egypt.”

THE SLAVE QUESTION.

“°T wish you would send me the Anti-Slavery Society’s publication. I do not know the name or where it is published.*

‘People think you have only to say the word and Slavery will cease. Now here the Gallabat merchants I have told you of have taken thirty of this tribe. I am trying to search them out, but I dare not do anything against these Galla- bats on account of my present position with respect to Shaka. I fear to raise these men against me ; they are well-disposed at present.

‘‘One thing troubles me. What am I to do with the three or four thousand slaves, women and children, that are now at Shaka, if we take it? I cannot take them back to their own country ; I cannot feed them. Solve this problem for me; I must let them be taken by my auxiliaries, or by my soldiers, or by the merchants. There is no help for it. If I let them loose, they will be picked up in every direction, for an escaped Slave is like an escaped sheep— the property of him who finds him or her. One must consider what is best for the individual himself, not what may seem best to the judgment of Europe; it is the Slave who suffers, not Europe.

‘¢ People have little idea how little glorious war is ; it is organized murder, pillage, and cruelty, and it is seldom that the weight falls on the fighting men— it is on the women, children, and old people. The Crimea was the exception.”

Tue SLAVE-HuNTERS AGAIN.

‘¢ August 31, 1877.—In the midst of my actions against the insurgent tribes, while everything is tending to the end of the revolt, I have received intelli- gence that the Slave-traders, with their troops of armed slaves, numbering some 6,000, have camped near Dara. I am obliged to go there at once.

st ales . Started for Dara. Met en route the Lieutenant-Colonel who was bribed, coming to meet me. I would not see him. He has allowed his men to rob right and left, and the people came running to me all along the road, These irregulars steal a boy or a girl with as little compunction as a fowl. It is really terrible.

ies ° * e o r «©

* The Anti-Slavery Reporter, 55 New Broad Street, E.C,