THE SLAVE TRADE. 389 The traffic in slaves has decreased very much of late.

The wealthy Egyptians still purchase slaves, and will continue to do so, till the "institution" is wholly abolished, but the despotic rule exercised by the Pasha in Nubia has had the effect of greatly lessening the demand. Yast numbers of Nubians go into Egypt, where they are engaged as domestic servants, and their paid labor, cheap as it is, is found more profitable than the unpaid service of negro slaves. Besides, the tax on the latter has been greatly increased, so that merchants find the commodity less profitable than gum or ivory.

Ten years ago, the duty paid at Assouan was thirty piastres for a negro and fifty for an Abyssinian : at present it is three hundred and fifty for the former and five hundred and fifty for the latter, while the tax can be wholly avoided by making the slave free. Prices have risen in consequence, and the traffic is proportionately diminished. The Government probably derives as large a revenue as ever from it, on account of the increased tax, so that it has seemed to satisfy the demands of some of the European powers by restricting the trade, while it actually loses nothing thereby. The Government slave-hunts in the interior, however, are no longer carried on. The greater part of the slaves brought to Khartoum, are purchased from the Galla and Shangalla tribes on the borders of Abyssinia, or from the Shillooks and Dinkas, on the White Nile. The captives taken in the wars between the various tribes are invariably sold. The Abyssinian girls, who are in great demand among the Egyptians, for wives, are frequently sold by their own parents. They are treated with great respect, and their lot is probably no worse than that of any Arab or Turkish female. The more beautiful of them often bring from two