Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1872-11-29
NUMBER y.

ries off the younger natives and sells
them, retaining the older ones to work as
his slaves. These people are subject to
the Abyssinian King, when he finds 1t
necessary to chastise them for misdeeds;
but, of course, when his troops leave,
they are their own masters again. These
things occur in a part of Abyssinia
which the King claims, but not among
his Christian subjects.
When asked if he believed that all the
SO, 900 or 10000 annual captives were in
the war and sold by the Chiefs who cap
tured them to the traders, General Kirk
ham, in substance, answered "You
must understand that after Mr.. Stanley
returned from the discovery of Living
stone he brought much to light concern
ing the slave trade of East Africa. Dr.
Livingstone had also informed the For
eign Office as to the slave trade going on
in the interior. Her Majesty's gunboats
kept so close awatch that it was impos.
sible to get slaves down to the coast di-
rect; so they took them through to Bogos.
At the interview between the Sultan and
Ismail Pasha, when the latter was made
Khedive, an understanding was, be-
lieve, come to respecting the slave trade.
The Mussulmans of Turkey and Egypt
must have supply of slaves to do their
work-for the real Turks will not do any
menial service. These $4,000 or 700
slaves are imported and brought up to
the Mohammedan faith, and employed
IN doing the dirty work. The slaves that
are not taken in war are bartered for with
peasants, who will steal and sell them.
Suppose you are slave merchant, and
know where there are three or four good
looking girls-I steal them and sell them
to you. One man, who may have chill
dren of his own, will go and steal the
children of another person, as many as
he may get. The trader has attendants
with him, and mules and camels, and he
knows how to get slaves and carry
them off. The law is so strict that any
man, whether Christian or Mohamme-
dan, found in Abyssinia selling slave is
hanged on the first tree, without judge or
Jury. Whoever catches him hangs him
up, and there is no more about it; and
there he hangs until he falls away, piece
by piece. So long as Bogcs was in the
power of the King of Abyssinia they
could not go that way. If they were
stopped there they would have to take
another and dangerous road across the
wilderness. They are checked, On the
one hand, by the British gunboats Oft
Zanzibar, and would be checked, on the
other, in Bogos." '@'''
IF sIave-driver takes slaves from one
village and carries them through another,
the inhabitants of the second village have
generally no chance to rescue them, be-
cause the leaders, attendants are numer-
Gus and well-armed. A single leader will
buy, according to his means, from fifty
to sixty slaves, and bring them through
the country in that way. They do not
bring down many at once for fear white
man should see them and give informa-
ton against them, and then they would
be stopped-because Ismail Pasha has or
dered ostensibly that the slave trade shall
be put down. General Kirkham is unre-
servedly of the opinion that the Khedive
secretly favors the slave trade, while out
wardly disavowing it. The slaves are
brought down to the coast from the Woo
lah Gallas country and the White Nile
about forty eight or fifty days journey
from the coast. The better portion are
treated very well on the way by the slave
dealers, because they will fetch better
price. If the slave is of the Nubian race,
he has to dc all the dirty work for the
others; he is considered of an inferior
class, and does not fetch so much as the
copper-colored The Nubians are q fiat
nosed, thick-lipped, and curly haired peo-
pie. Strong Nubian girls, for servants,
bring more than the boys. The Galas
are of a reddish, copper color,
some of them remarkable for beauty
of form; and they fetch very high
price, when taken to Turkey, for the ha-
rem. These girls arc taken so young that
they hardly know their original country,
and adopt the Mussulman faith. AS TO
language, says General Kirkham, the
trader speaks a kind of gibberisb which
the people understand. "Of course, he
knows the country well. Notrader from
England could go through there. There
are, | suppose, about ten languages in
these countries, all mixed up together.
The King of Abyssinia speaks five. Girls
and boys, when they are taken away, do
not offer to make any resistance; they do
no traditions in their villages as to chill
,dren being taken off by slave dealers, or
as to the inducements held out to them
that they will be taken to fine country
where they can live at ease. Suppose 1
am one of their own countrymen; proba-
bly, have an enemy who has two or three
children. / go quietly and take these
children and sell them to the slave dealer,
and he sends them away; the children are
lost, and there is no more about it. There
is great jealousy and suspicion between
household and household; and it is thus
that these feuds and thefts arise" Gen
eral Kirkham expresses hope that the 6
publication : of these facts, confirming
those made by Livingstone, Baker, and
Stanley. may more urgently than ever di'
rect public attention to the iniquitous Nile
slave trade. %, ha~. ..r. lac =