AI2 ZERIBAS IN THE PROVINCE OF ROL.

This gives 151 masters to 1500 slaves; and this does not include seventy-three basingers (armed Negro slaves), with their slaves, and a large number of Nyam-Nyam, Monbuttu, Bongo, Mittu, &c., of whom nobody was able to tell where they came from, nor what they were; but, at any rate, they all have slaves.

That my estimate of the number of slaves here is a very moderate one is proved by the fact that, in reply to my reprimand, the officials said there were formerly three to four thousand slaves in the district, and no one had ever troubled about it. Why, then,shouldI? The dismissal of the governor of the station and his immediate banishment, as well as the arrival of fifty-four regular soldiers from Shambe to garrison the station, soon taught the people that at last even here the rights of the Negroes will have to be respected.

In addition to the six or seven hundred ardebs of corn which had been taken from the natives each year “for the Government,” a very large quantity had also been obtained by the officials for their own private uses, and for the distillation of brandy; and no one took the trouble to deny that large quantities of sesame, sesame-oil, Butyrospermum fat, honey, wax, and ground-nuts had been requisitioned from the people under the name of taxes. Plunder has indeed been carried on to such an extent that it is a wonder that anything at all remains for the people; and that so many natives still exist in the neighbourhood must certainly not be attributed to the care of the Government, but to the fact that these Dinka tribes, with their long lances, have been able to protect themselves.

Murder appears to be so very common here that scarcely any inquiry is made about it—they were only abvid, that is, slaves !

A certain Abd-es-Sadik (i.¢., a servant of the Just !—what irony !), himself a slave of the Defa’allah mentioned above, lately put four persons to death, and when his master was questioned about it, he replied that he had long ago given the fellow his liberty (to murder, presumably!) and assigned a village to him. I ascertained, however, that on the day of my arrival he was still living in Defa’allah’s house. When