292 TRAVELS IN AFRICA.

after eleven, when we reached Maghem-Yaghere, a small and miserably poor walled town, inhabited by a few Gidumaghs, who prefer leading a most precarious and slave-like life under the Moorish and Kaartan despots, to abandoning their native soil. We halted at a short distance east of the town, in order to await the arrival of the army, and to adjust some loads which from the asses' lying down under them had been disarranged.

I had an opportunity of witnessing during this short march the new-made slaves, and the sufferings to which they are subjected in their first state of bondage. They were hurried along (tied as I before stated) at a pace little short ofrunning, to enable them to keep up with the horsemen, who drove them on as Smithfield drovers do fatigued bullocks. Many of the women were old, and by no means able to endure such treatment. One in particular would not have failed to excite the tenderest feelings of compassion in the breast of any, save a savage African she was at least sixty years old, in the most miserable state of emaciation and debility, nearly doubled together, and with difficulty dragging her tottering limbs along ; to crown the heart-rending picture, she was naked, save from her waist to about half way to the knees. All this did not prevent her inhuman