than import to a strange country: and as for their exportation, they
think it better to manage that themselves than to leave it to foreigners,
for by this means, as they understand the state of the neighbouring
countries better, so they keep up the art of navigation which cannot be
maintained but by much practice.



OF THEIR SLAVES, AND OF THEIR MARRIAGES


"They do not make slaves of prisoners of war, except those that are taken
in battle, nor of the sons of their slaves, nor of those of other
nations: the slaves among them are only such as are condemned to that
state of life for the commission of some crime, or, which is more common,
such as their merchants find condemned to die in those parts to which
they trade, whom they sometimes redeem at low rates, and in other places
have them for nothing. They are kept at perpetual labour, and are always
chained, but with this difference, that their own natives are treated
much worse than others: they are considered as more profligate than the
rest, and since they could not be restrained by the advantages of so
excellent an education, are judged worthy of harder usage. Another sort
of slaves are the poor of the neighbouring countries, who offer of their
own accord to come and serve them: they treat these better, and use them
in all other respects as well as their own countrymen, except their
imposing more labour upon them, which is no hard task to those that have
been accustomed to it; and if any of these have a mind to go back to
their own country, which, indeed, falls out but seldom, as they do not
force them to stay, so they do not send them away empty-handed.