slave he feels himself much degraded in the social scale of
society, and his family ties are all cut off from him--probably
his relations have all been killed in the war in which he was
captured. Still, after the first qualms have worn off, we find
him much attached to his master, who feeds him and finds him in
clothes in return for the menial services which he performs. In
a few years after capture, or when confidence has been gained by
the attachment shown by the slave, if the master is a trader in
ivory, he will intrust him with the charge of his stores, and
send him all over the interior of the continent to purchase for
him both slaves and ivory; but should the master die, according
to the Mohammedan creed the slaves ought to be freed. In Arabia
this would be the case; but at Zanzibar it more generally happens
that the slave is willed to his successor.

The whole system of slaveholding by the Arabs in Africa, or
rather on the coast or at Zanzibar, is exceedingly strange; for
the slaves, both in individual physical strength and in numbers,
are so superior to the Arab foreigners, that if they chose to
rebel, they might send the Arabs flying out of the land. It
happens, however, that they are spell-bound, not knowing their
strength any more than domestic animals, and they even seem to
consider that they would be dishonest if they ran away after
being purchased, and so brought pecuniary loss on their owners.

There are many positions into which the slave may get by the
course of events, and I shall give here, as a specimen, the
ordinary case of one who has been freed by the death of his
master, that master having been a trader in ivory and slaves in
the interior. In such a case, the slave so freed in all