FROM SLAVE TO BIMBASHI 119 country against famine and tempest, and in many places has hard enough work to pull through.

Of the destruction of individuality and selfresponsibility not so much can be said from the practical as from the ethical point of view. As the slave of some Arab he feels no personal responsibility ; as a rule he is well treated, and his food is found for him, whether during the period when he puts in his work—no harder than, in any case, he would have done for himself—or during the days when field - work is not needed. This suits his temperament, but fails to stimulate what intellect he has.

I once came across a Dinka Bimbashi of the Sudanese army, whose early days were passed as a slave near Esneh in Egypt. He told me he worked in the fields with the fellahin and was perfectly happy at this time of his youth ; he was well fed and comfortable ; but, still, said this six-foot-four piece of black energy, " I prefer my life now." With the dignity of rank, the satisfaction of pay, and the chance of a good rough-and-tumble in a small native war, he had reason to do so. He was at Haifa when Gordon was killed at Khartoum.

Another of Zobeir's slaves whom I saw and questioned, a silent, withered old man, said that now he had freedom he could not appreciate it.

All sense of self-responsibility had probably been destroyed in him, and he therefore felt lost and bewildered.

When amongst the wilder negroid tribes, it is