The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1890-02-06

70 death because they cannot march any
further on their tottering limbs.
Delicate girls who have been subjected
to every abuse that hellish malice, lust
and race prejudice can coniure up against
them, are dragged along by stout fellow
slaves, who have orders not 70 let them
fall out Of the caravan under penalty Of
losing their own lives.
These girls court death in any form,
but 1t IL denied them.
They are too valuable to kill. How
they endure is q mystery.
The master Of the caravan is never told
Of these dreadful things. He purposely
travels little distance ahead, riding on q
richly caparisOned donkey, with pipe
bearers and drummers and players on
pan-pipes and horns, and with armed
men around him.
In his white robes, with their gold en-
brOideries, and with his damascened dag
gers and his silver-sheathed sword, he
looks like q bene6eent prince; but he Is
in reality black hearted scoundrel.
He knows full well that behind the
euphemestic languagein which bis guards
tell him that a great many slaves have
died Of illness lies q long catalogue oi
abominable murders. Stanley, Cameron,
Wissmann-all the explorers Of recent
years-say that they have never met one
Of these shaving parties without feeling
an almost irresistible desire to seize the
chief Of It by the neck and put him in
one Of his own yokes.
The mortality Of the slaves In these
slave caravans Is sometimes as high as
sixty per cent. 1t never goes below fifty.
Think Of this, and then remember that
rs many as Al, 900 slaves are torn from
their homes in a single month. Twenty
two thousand five hundred Of these poor
creatures must inevitably perish before
reaching the sea! Millions Of human
beings have certainly been murdered by
the Arabs during the last quarter Of .
century. They think no more Of killing
q negro than Of brushing away . fly.
The fact that Il is q fellow creature does
not seem to enter their heads a. they
smite poor wretch down. ~
Captain Wissmann, now ct Bagamoyo,
has often told US that slave caravans
tracks are marked by the stencil Of de-
caying bodies Of murdered slaves, 20 that
it Is almost impossible to camp in regions
through which they have just passed.
The trail Of murder extends from the
scene Of the capture straight down to the
sea.
Wissman says that it Is quite common
to find tract in Central Africa one year
inhabited by q peaceful and industrious
population, the next year desolate and
Overgrown with the jungle, the cabins
torn down, the fields barren. The Arab
slaye-trader has carried everybody OF. a
There is.no spectacle in the world mors
awful than that Of one Of those slave car
avans nearing the coast. The long lines
Of wild looking men, spectral from hum
ger, fear and fatigue, and chained in
rows, with heavy iron collars eating into
their flesh; the women bruised from head
to foot, the girls painting, with swollen
tongues, with bent and wasted naked
limbs, and with that terrible anguish oi
the captured slave in their eyes; and the
children that have managed to survive,
make up . horrible procession.
When far from the coast Il Is customary
for the conductors Of some caravans 10
thin out the ranks every night when the
halt for supper IL made. An executioner,
armed with long wooden bar, examines
the shrinking files Of slaves, and Il his
practised eye tells him that three, four or
FIVE Of them are too weak to endure the
next days march, he kills them BY Civ
ing them tremendous blows on the nap Of
the neck.
Then be leaves the others to enjoy
their supper Of unoooked or only partly
cooked food, while they watch their com
paniOns in the cOnvulsiOns Of death. The
hyenas and iackals sometimes rush In
and devour the newly made dead, In
spite Of the shouts Of the living slaves
near them. a53
The Arabs are yearly putting more
capital into this hellish business. II is at
once the most profitable and diabolical
that a human being can enRaQe In. -,s-s.