SHTLLUK, NUBA, TAKELE, ETC. 179 with a pistol-ball. The invading party, seeing their leader slain, immediately took to flight, and the Bedouins became the possessors of the horse and arms of the defunct general. A slight idea may thus be formed of the state of the army of Takele.

Slaves are also exported from Takele, which these negroes capture in the wars with their neighbours, but they themselves are, in their turn, not spared, and suff*er greatly, partly by the predatory Bakkara, partly by their own countr}nnen, who devise all manner of means to kidnap their children by force or stratagem, and to sell them to the slave merchants. I myself met with a girl, in the house of an European at Cairo, who had been stolen, together with her younger sister, from the paternal roof, in a manner which must cause the utmost astonishment at the subtlety and cunning of these uncivilized children of nature. This story may also serve as a proof of the manner in which these poor blacks are everywhere treated.

A slave, who had been stolen in Takele, bought by a Turk in Khartoom, and liberated on the death of his master, as is frequently the case, returned to his home. The sheikh of the place, a native of Abvssinia, who had come to settle in those parts at an early age, and had adopted the Mahommedan religion from love for a negro girl, received this slave hospitably into his house, and completely provided for him, for his parents were dead, and he had no other relations living.