CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE. 113 escape, as I had myself once the opportunity of observing:.

A slave merchant at Lobeid kept eight girls, destined for Grand Cairo, together in one house, and locked them up carefully in a room without windows ; to be yet more secure, he placed his angareb at night before the door and slept there. How great was his astonishment, however, in the morning, to find that all the girls had disappeared out of the room ! He ran about, as if mad, to all his neighbours, begging them to assist him in his search ; but all endeavours to find the fugitives were in vain, and the man firmly believed the Shitan* had spirited them away. In making a closer investigation of the wall of the room, however, a light was soon thrown upon the subject, for an immense hole was found through which the girls had crept and covered it carefully with a straw mat. It appeared that they had thro\vn water against the wall of clay, a few days before they had effected their escape, and were thus enabled to make the breach with facility, for these houses melt like sugar when water is poured upon them. Not one of these girls ever again made her appearance.

The natives of Kordofan treat their slaves with much humanity ; the Turks, on the other hand, (and I am sorry to say, within the last few years, two Europeans also,) are guilty of the greatest cruelty, and are not deterred by qualms of conscience from • Evil Spirit Tr.