Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes Co., O. [Ohio]) 1870-1895, 1872-11-14
THE SLAVE TRADE.
How Dealing in Human Flesh
is Conducted on the Nile

|
How Dealing in Human Flesh
is Conducted on the Nile.
Gen. Kirkham, the English director
of the army of the King of Abyssinia,
, has supplied to the London Daily Tele-
graph some valuable information re-
specting the traffic in slaves still carried
OH between the interior of Africa and
the Turkish Empire. He says.
The Abyssinian Envoy estimates the
number of slaves annually carried off
from Africa to the Arab and Turkish
markets at $4,000 to 10000. These un-
happy beings are taken away at ages
ranging from seven or eight to sixteen
years, older men and women being
found more troublesome than valuable
to the dealer. They are brought down
from the centre of the continent and
the region of the White Nile to Kassala,
and are hurried on to the slave market
at Metemmeh, to be resold for shipment
to Jedda. Foreign Consuls at Khart-'
Oum check, so far as they possibly can,
the passage of slaves down the Nile,
while Sir Samuel Bakers expedition
has done much also to increase the diff
ficulties which beset the transit of
slaves across that route. The Shankel-
10 country and that of WOolah Gallas
are favOrite grounds for the nefariOus
and infamous practice Of the trafiickers
in human beings, these provinces being
close to BogOs, through which, since
the annexation by the Khedive, slaves
can be safely passed to MassOwah;
thence to be shipped for the Arabian
coast. Shankelto is district border
ing on Abyssinia proper, and is inhabi-
ted by a wandering tribe resembling
Gypsies, who are regarded as the Be-
douins of Abyssinia. Shankelto, ac-
cording to Gen. Kirkham, belongs of
right to Abyssinia; and about eighteen
months ago Prince Kassai had occasion
to send down thither one o. his Gener-
ais with a large force, completely to de-
vastate the country for the murders
that were frequently done there OH his
merchants and priests-there being
churches there for the baptism of tile
people. e.. .. 4riil- at. a4:.,,
The following is the fasllion-in which
the slave-dealers capture their vie Tins:
They go into village, take with them
silks, or beads, or bits of tin and orria-
ments. They exchange these thingsil
for slaves or whatever they can get.
The merchants send the slaves quietly
1away without much trouble, and event.
ually they are trained rs Mussulmans.4
They are taken through Bogos to Mas
sOwah, and they are sent thence to Jed
da, whence they are sent to Turkey, by
land. As for price, if a female, be of
copper-color and good features, she
will bring as much as as $40, or about
| f2S-that is, ut the market in Metem-
retail price is according to the State of
the market in the place to which they
are first taken. When sold in the sec
ond market, they vary in price. If
man took fancy to a female slave, he
would perhaps give hundred dollars
more than another man. The Shank
eltos and Gallas are much sought after
for their beauty and for their superiOri-
| ty to the other tribes. A strong boy |
will sell for 500 to 800. The girls
fetch more, because they are wanted for
the harem. Traders will take away
girls when they can get them. When
chief makes war on another he makes |
it an object to carry off as many girls
as he can. He plumbers the villages
and kidnaps 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 it 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 whether he believed that
all the $4,000 or 10000 annual captives
were in the war and sold by the chiefs
who captured them to the traders, Gen.
Kirkham, in substance, answered: "No.
You must understand that after Mr..
Stanley returned from the discovery of
Livingstone he brought much to light
concerning the slave trade of East Af-
rica. DIR. Livingstone had also in
formed the Foreign Office as to the
slave trade going on in the interior.
Her Majesty's gunbOats kept so close a
watch that it was impossible to get
slaves down to the coast direct; so they
take them through Bogos. At the in
terview between the Sultan and Ismail
Pasha, when the latter was made Khe-
dive, an understanding was, l believe,
come to respecting the slave trade. The
Mussulmans of Turkey and Egypt must
have supply of slaves to do their
work-tOr the real Turks will not do
any menial service. These $4,000 or
10000 slaves are imported and brought
up to the MOhammedan faith, and are
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 n
slave merchant, and | know where
there are three or four good-looklng
girls-I steal them and sell them to
you. One man, who may have children
of his own, will go and steal the chill
dren of another person, as he many get.
The trader has attendants with him,
and mules and camels, and he knows
how 10 get slaves and carry them oil.
The law Is SO strict, that any man,
whether II Christian or Mohammedan,
found in Abyssinia selling II slave is
hanged on tile first tree, without Judge
, or jury. Whoever catches him hangs