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wooden dishes, and other articles of their own manufacture, &c. About a dozen shoemakers, or rather sandalmakers, from the country, work for these two days in the market, and will make a pair of sandals at an hour's notice. The works in leather are very prettily done. The leather is tanned with the garadh, or pulse of the acacia; the Bedou ins about Sennaar are said to be the most skilful in its preparation. Leather sacks are likewise sold here; they serve for the transport of every kind of baggage and merchandize, excepting dhourra, gumarabic, and salt, which are carried in baskets. Many blacksmiths repair to Shendy from the country; they make and sell the small knives generally worn among these people."

Shendy carries on an extensive commerce with Egypt to the north, with Kordofan to the south-west, with Sennaar to the south, and with Souakin, situated on the western shore of the Red Sea. The articles imported from Egypt, are the sembil and mehleb, both of which are in great request in Abyssinia; in the countries to the north of it, and also in those to the south of Sennaar, the former as a perfume and medicine, the latter as a condiment; soap, which is manufactured at Gazé, Jaffa, Hebron, and Jerusalem; sugar, which is in universal demand; takas, a coarse sort of Egyptian cambric, dyed blue, with which the women line their best cloaks; white cotton stuffs, with red borders, which are worn by the great people, especially at Sennaar; linen for shirts; Egyptian sheep-skins; beads in great varieties, which are universally worn; paper, which is chiefly carried west by the Darfour caravans, pewter, old copper, principally large boilers, pots, &c. yellow brass wire, for ornamenting the lances, hardware, such as razors, files, thimbles, scissars, needles of the coarsest kind, nails, swordblades, looking-glasses of Trieste and Venetian manufacture, and articles for the Mamelouks since they have established themselves in Dongola. The articles imported into Shendy from Sennaar, and the countries to the south, and exported to Egypt, are slaves, ivory, rhinoceros' horns, which are worked into ornaments for the handles of swords, &c.; musk, ebony, supposed to grow to the south of Sennaar, as it is very dear; coffee-beans, the growth of Abyssinia and the Galla country; leather, which is manufactured at Sennaar into camel saddles, sacks, small water flasks, and sandals, which last are sown with a precision and nicety not to be expected from rude Arabs, shields made of the skins of the rhinoceros and giraffa. The dhourra grain is also a great article of import from Sennaar, four or five hundred camels frequently coming at one time to Shendy loaded with this article. Gold and camels are also imported; the former article generally finds its way to Souakin,

on the Red Sea. From Kordofan, which is to the south-west of Shendy, slaves are chiefly imported; also leather sacks, made of very thick ox leather, for the transport of dhourra meal through the desert; large water-skins, made of ox-hides, and smaller ones of sheep-skins, made with singular art, the animal being killed by cutting off the head, and the skin being separated from the carcase without any other aperture, except where the legs are cut off. Ostrich feathers, also brought by the Kordofan merchants, are in great request. From Souakin, India goods are principally imported; different sorts of cambric from Madras and Surat, and coarse muslins from Bengal, also spices, India sugar, Mokha beads, and hardware; in which latter article, however, the Egyptians can afford to undersell them.

From the resort of all these different traders to Shendy, it has become the first commercial town in the Black countries, and is the great mart of the Egyptian and Arabian slave-trade. The farthest limit of its commerce appears to be Dar Saley, or perhaps Bagermé, about 1000 miles to the west. Although both Egyptian and Arabian merchandize penetrate beyond this, it is not by any known commercial routes, and no merchants, with goods of any value, would attempt to pass through the savage and hostile tribes of Arabs and Bedouins, or the idolatrous African nations of the interior.

The trade from Egypt northward, into the interior of Africa, is carried on with small capitals, which however return enormous profits. The family of Allowein, forming a company of about twelve persons, with whom Burckhardt travelled from Daraou, had about 1000 dollars embarked in the adventure. The common class of merchants carry with them goods to the amount of from 2 to 300 dollars. Every article of Egyptian or of European manufacture may be sold at Shendy for double or triple its value, and a like profit is gained on all articles imported into Egypt; so that, notwithstanding the heavy contributions levied on the caravans by the different chiefs through whose territories they pass, the expenses of subsisting the slaves, the money paid to the Arab guides, and the duties imposed by the pasha of Egypt, on all imports from the south, Burckhardt estimates that a well chosen assortment of goods, from Daraou to Shendy, will yield, after the sale of the return cargo at Daraou, a clear gain of 150 per cent.; on some occasions the profits have been even known to amount to 500 per cent. These great profits are invariably spent in drinking and debauchery; and the trade is generally carried on with money

borrowed at an interest of 50 per cent., and for which the traders pledge their houses or landed property as security. The children of the Daraou merchants are trained at an early age to this traffic. Several boys, hardly ten years of age, made their first journey along with their fathers, in the caravan with which Burckhardt travelled; and he has seen at Daraou, people who boasted that their great great-grandfathers were Sennaar merchants.

Slaves unhappily constitute every where the great staple of the African trade, and Mr. Burckhardt, in explaining the nature and origin of this traffic, has satisfactorily demonstrated, that the radical cure of this great evil must begin in Africa itself. The European powers may, no doubt, hinder their own subjects from carrying off slaves, and one branch of the trade may thus be abolished. But the slave trade carried on in the interior still remains, and will flourish so long as human beings can be carried off from the unprotected and idolatrous countries of central Africa. These are all surrounded by Mahometan nations, by whose hostile incursions into their territories, it is that slaves are procured for the supply of all the other countries, where their services are universally required. These are, Turkey -Arabia and Egypt-all the northern countries of AfricaDarfour, Sennaar, as well as all western Africa, and, to supply this extensive demand, slaves, we may be assured, will be carried off, so long as they constitute a valuable article of trade, and so long as the negro countries are unable to protect themselves against the violence of their neighbours.

Slaves, both male and female, are divided into three classes, namely, those below ten or eleven years of age-those above eleven and under fifteen,-and those of fifteen and upwards. The second class is the most esteemed; a male slave of this class, provided he has the marks of the small-pox, is worth fifteen or sixteen, and a female, from twenty to twenty-five Spanish dollars. Slaves are brought from the countries to the south of Sennaar, namely, from Abyssinia and the Galla country. These are most esteemed, They are also procured from the negro countries of Africa, to the south and south-west of Darfour, from twenty to forty days journey from Kobbe the capital. Few slaves are imported into Egypt, without having frequently changed masters. Those which are procured from Fertit, for instance, which lies about twenty days journey to the south of Kobbe, are collected, after they are captured, on the borders of the country, by petty merchants who deal in grain. These sell them to the traders of Kobbe, from whom they are

bought by Kordofan traders, and transported to Obeydh in Kordofan, whence they are sent to Shendy. Here they are purchased either by the Souakin or Egyptian traders, who transport them either to Egypt or to Arabia. In Egypt, they frequently change hands several times before they are finally disposed of. Entire lots of slaves are sold at Esne and Siout, in upper Egypt, to wholesale dealers, who dispose of them in retail at Cairo. Young slaves, of four or five years old, are frequently exposed in the market, sometimes with, and at other times without their parents; and the traders so far shew humanity, that they seldom sell the parent and the child separately. When such a transaction takes place, the trader incurs universal reproach for his cruelty. The treatment of the slaves, by the traders who purchase them, is rather kind than otherwise. They are seldom Hlogged, are well fed, are not over-worked, and are spoken to in a kind manner, being taught to call their master " Abouy," my father. This results not, however, from humanity, but from policy, the traders apprehending that the slave, in the event of being ill-treated, would abscond; and being aware that any attempt to confine him would injure his health; for the newly imported slaves delight in the open air, and reluctantly enter houses, which they consider as prisons. When they are once in the desert, where the traders know that they have no means of escape, they frequently give vent to their savage tempers, in the treatment of their slaves, though they are always well fed. Slaves, after they are settled in families in the east, are treated much like children of the family, and always better than the free servants. in Arabia and Egypt, the law gives one great privilege to the slave, namely, that if he is discontented with his master, and decided not to remain with him, he can insist on being exposed to sale in the public slave-market. Slave boys are allowed entire freedom in the yard of the house where they are kept; but grown up males are kept in close confinement, and often chained. On the journey they are tied to a long pole, one end of which is fastened to the camel's saddle, and the other, which is forked, is passed on each side of the slave's neck, and tied behind with a strong cord. The slave-traders pretend that they respect the chastity of the handsomest female slaves; but according to Burckhardt this is false, the place where the caravan encampsbeing a scene of indiscriminate licentiousness.

Both

Slaves are occasionally mutilated for exportation, at Borgho, to the west of Darfour. But the chief place where this is practised, is at a village near Siout, in upper Egypt. The unhappy beings chosen for the purpose, are between eight and

twelve years of of age; and their value is, in this inhuman manner, raised from 300 to 1000 piastres-a profit so enormous, as to stifle, it would appear, every sentiment of mercy within the breast of the slave-trader. The operation, strange as it may seem, seldom proves fatal; the deaths being rarely more

than two in a hundred.

Mr. Burckhardt left Shendy on the 17th May, with the caravan for Souakin, where he arrived on the 26th June. His details of the journey are, as usual, amusing and curious; but our account of this interesting work has already extended to so great a length, that we must compress what we have now to add, within a very short compass. He passed through the fertile district of Taka, celebrated for its herds of cattle, and for its grain. The cattle would be even more numerous were it not for the wild beasts which haunt the forests, and destroy great numbers of them. There are lions, which, the natives say, sometimes reach the size of a cow, and tigers, or, as Burckhardt supposes, panthers. These wild animals were frequently heard growling round the encampment of the caravan during the night. At all the villages through which they passed, the appearance of a white man excited, more especially among the females, one universal shriek of surprise and horror. The whiteness of the skin is considered by the negroes as the effect of disease, and a sign of weakness, and it is always viewed with disgust. On the market-days at Shendy, Burckhardt mentions that he frequently terrified the people, by turning short upon them, when the general exclamation was, " God preserve us from the devil.”

"One day, after bargaining for some onions with a country girl in the market at Shendy, she told me, that if I would take off my turban and shew her my head, she would give me five more onions; I insisted upon having eight, which she gave me; when I removed my turban, she started back at the sight of my white closely-shaven crown, and when I jocularly asked her whether she should like to have a husband with such a head; she expressed the greatest surprise and disgust, and swore that she would rather live with the ugli est Darfour slave."

With the Souakin caravan there were about 20 pilgrims, travelling towards Mecca. Many of these came from the most re mote parts of the interior, and travel generally as beggars, being quite destitute. The two principal routes for the pilgrims, after they arrive on the Nile, is either along the course of the river to Egypt, or along the tracks of the Mogren and Atbara, to Taka, and thence to Souakin on the Red Sea. Those who come from Kordofan, go to Sennaar, and from thence, through Abyssinia,

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