Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1880-07-07
EGYPTIAN SLAVERY.
Ftoursshsng Condition of the Traffic.
Hdrem Life IN the Land of the Pha-
rdOhs.
lCairo Letter to New York Herald

The slave trade in Egypt has lately been
booming" Within the last three weeks
| no less than five conveys of slaves have
arrived from Kordofan, Senaar, and Oar
| four. On April 30 caravan openly en-.
| tered Asiout,-a town of 10000 innabi.
tants, situated on the lett bank Of the
Nile, some $50 miles south of Cairo.
Asiout is the metropolis Of Upper Egypt
the Thebiad-and is the southern ter.
minus OF the railway connecting that re
g1on with Alexandria. This caravan was
| the property OF about fifty different slave
dealers, and w8s composed OF 500 camels
and upward of 900 slaves. BY far the
greater number OF these slaves were boys
and girls between the ages of and Is
years. The more youthful and promising
CT the boys narrowly escaped being mutt
| lated by the COptic priests and BARRIERS of
Aslout, whom long experience in former
years has rendered expert in the perform
ance of the surgical operation necessary
TO create eunuchs,--thht neutral sex who
are at once the guardians and indispensa-
BILE parasites of the Oriental harem The
| arrival OF conveys OF slaves has recently
| become a matter Of common nOtOriety
here. There are five bureaus established
IN Egypt tor the suppression of slavery,
but it should be remembered that slav.
cry is regarded by the entire pOpula-
ton as an institution sanctioned by i'm
memorial custom aud by the Koran. In
some quarters of Cairo no one can hire
house who does not possess at least one
female slave; this fact at once gives
color of responsibility" to the proposed
| lessee. Some strong motive power is re-
quired to cause the Egyptian officers to
! interfere with gu institution so inWrought
| In the domestic and social life of the coun-
| try. The consular agents Of the foreign
| powers south OF Cairo are, moreover, with
| but one or two EXCEPTIONS Copts, who
often have family ties with the slave deal
ers or priests, who formerly enjoyed the
| monopoly OF creating eunuchs. These
consular agents are, cousc quently, Of
, most passive nature, and III this matter
would never have fallen under Prince
Talleyrand's reprOach OF having trop de
zele. To put in motion the slave-suppress.
Ing machinery of Egypt some eager en-.
| thuslast is required, some one whose
| steam ana energy have not yet been
quenched by the fascinating placid, and
above all, ldissez alter life on the banks of
the Nile. Such a man has come to the
front in the person of Mr. Roth, a Swiss
subject and teacher ia the American mis-
sion school establishment at Asiout
When the slave caravan arrived at Ash
out on April 20, MIR. Roth not only re.
ported the fact to the Egyptian autnorl-
ties but managed to get possession OF two
OF the slaves, and was about to conceal
them in his house, when the French
Consular Agent Asiout at once declared
that the two slaves were his own private
property, and claimed from Mr.. Roth
their release forthwith. The French
Consular Agent is Copt named Mekor-
domain. Mr.. Roth gave back the slaves
under protest, and reported the facts to
tie ConsulGeneral of France, who or
dered Mekordemain to Cairo, where he Is
now under inquiry On April %, Mr.
Roth came to Cairo, and acting under the
advice OF DR.. Lansing, the chief of the
American mission III Egypt, laid the
whole matter before the Consul General
of Great Britain. The result was that on
April % the Egyptian Government sent
Ahmed Pasha Der emelly and Hussein
Pasha Slrri to Asiout, for the purpose of
investigating the matter and bringing the
slave-dealers to punishment. Tn Sc
Pashas were accompanied by the First
| Dragoman of the British Consulate and a
company of infantry. Late at night, at.
ter the arrival Of the troops, the camp of
the slave-dealers was surrounded. Only
sixty-eight slaves were tound-thirty-n nine
! girls and twenty nine boys. The dealers
had made the most of their time, for the
rest of the 900 slaves had already been dis.
posed of in Cairo and elsewhere. Only
| f1iiy-seven of the slaves could be proved
to have been sold. In one of the tents
OF dealer two slaves were found buried
In the ground with only the mouth and
nostrlls exposed to the air to enable them
to support lite. Thirty six slave dealers
were captured and are now in Cairo un-
dergolng trial. | have seen some of IL
slaves who were with this caravan, but as
| could f1rd only one who could speak
broken Arabic, the conversation was not
very brisk. The slave whom I "inter-
viewed" was young woman about II
years old. She told me in reply to my
! questions that she and her husband had
both been captured by the slave hunters
Her husband bad been sent off with a
different caravan. She belonged to the
Zayadeeya tribe and came from Ell flasher.
Ell flasher is the Capital of Dartour, and
about 500 miles from Asiout by the car
avan route. Mr.. Roth told me that many
! Of the slaves had been concealed in the
ancient Egyptian tombs in the mountains
near Asiout. Many other caravans of
slaves have been seen by travellers in the
desert lately. Capt. Burton and Prof.
Smith met two caravans near the Natrou
! Lakes, to the southwest Of Alexandria.
In considering thia question of slavery,
care should be taken not to confound the
| system OF Oriental slavery with the brut-
| alizing bondage which formerly existed
| in the British colonies and the Southern
States. Slaves in the Esst-and especial
| ly in Egypt-merely live under the slight
restraint of domestic servitude. They
enjoy rights and privileges accorded
them by civil laws and by the Koran,
which embodied the Mosaic slave laws
of the Jewish Scripture. They are never
employed in rough or field labor. Their
work is often merely nominal. They are
sometimes the companions and friends of
their masters. The word "slave" bears
with it no stigma in Egypt, where but a
few years since slaves, under the name of
Mamelukes, welded the sovereign power
OF the land. At the present time the
highest offices are open to men who have
al nd Froy