390 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL 'AFRICA.

hundred to five hundred dollars. Ordinary household servants may he had from one to two thousand piastres. My dragoman, Achmet, purchased a small girl for twelve hundred piastres, as a present for his wife. He intended making her free, which he declared to be a good thing, according to his religion; but the true reason, I suspect, was the tax at Assouan. ■ The Egyptians rarely maltreat their slaves, and instances of cruelty are much less frequent among them than among the Europeans settled here. The latter became so notorious for their violence that the Government was obliged to establish a law forbidding any Frank to strike his slave ; but in case of disobedience to send him before the Cadi, or Judge, who could decide on the proper punishment. Slavery prevails throughout all the native kingdoms of Central Africa, in more or less aggravated forms. • The Egyptian merchants who are located in Khartoum as agents for houses in Cairo, consider themselves as worse than exiles, and indemnify themselves by sensual indulgence for being obliged to remain in a country which they detest.

They live in large houses, keep their harems of inky slaves, eat, drink and smoke away their languid and wearisome days.

All the material which they need for such a life is so cheap that their love of gain does not suffer thereby. One of the richest merchants in the place gave me an account of his housekeeping. He had a large mud palace, a garden, and twenty servants and slaves, to maintain which cost him eight thousand piastres (four hundred dollars) a year. He paid his servants twenty piastres a month, and his slaves also — at least so he told me, but I did not believe it.

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