412 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY owner. The right of slave-raiding, like that of making war, would seem to have been originally a royal prerogative, and it was apparently maintained as an annual practice, to which no sense whatever of immorality was attached. It was simply, like elephant hunting, one of the means by which the royal coffers were replenished, and those who took part in the raid received their share of spoil. Leo Africanus complains, in relation to Bornu, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, that merchants who took horses there for sale were sometimes delayed a whole year because the horses were paid for in slaves, and the king raided only once a year.

Dr. Barth, who accompanied a slave-raid, made by the forces of Bornu against the pagan natives of Musgu in the winter of 1851-52, has left an account of the operation, which is interesting as applying to districts with which the British Government has now to deal, and may serve to show how such practices must affect the private and public life of peoples amongst whom they are tolerated.

His account is too long to quote in full, but some of the principal points may be briefly given. The ruler of Bornu, finding his treasury and his slave-rooms empty, determined upon a slave-raiding expedition. There was at first some doubt as to the exact direction in which it should be sent. Finally, it was determined to attack the pagans of Musgu in a territory south of Bornu, and not far from the present German frontier in the east. Towards the end of November a host numbering over 20,000 cavalry and a larger number on foot, including many women, and a proportionate amount of tents and baggage, marched southwards. So long as this force was within the limits of friendly territory they were supposed to be under discipline, and to take nothing from the villages but corn and rice. As a matter of fact, discipline was impossible to maintain, and not only were the crops forcibly reaped, but as the army marched towards the frontier the friendly villages which lay upon its road