334 DESCRIPTION OF A SLAVE-HUNT saw the futility of this movement; and when, on the eighth day, hundreds had fallen in the most fearful torments of unsatisfied thirst, and many of the negroes, in the horrors of despair, had put an end to their miseries by ripping open their abdomina wiLh their double-edged knives, the small body of survivors delivered itself up to the enemy. Of more than two thousand souls, one thousand and forty-nine were only found living, the rest had all perished by thirst, or had committed suicide. On entering the village, the huts were seen filled with the dead, and the few unfortunate survivors were so exhausted by fatigue, and overpowered by thirst, that they could scarcely stand upon their feet ; yet with blows with the butt-end of the musket, or with the whip, these poor wretches were driven from the huts, dragged into camp, with every description of cruelty, and thence despatched for Lobeid, on which march more than one hundred and fifty souls perished from ill-usage. On the fourth day of the march of this transport, after the caravan had halted, and whilst the prisoners were forming detachments to take up their quarters for the night, it so happened that an aged woman, worn out with the fatigues of the long march, or overcome by the mental sufferings she had endured, was incapable of reaching the spot assigned to her with sufficient alacrity, and a barbarous Turk dealt her a blow with the butt end of his musket, which laid her nearly lifeless on the sand. Her