ir wits.

Most of these men were doubtless caught in wars, as may be seen every
day in Africa, made slaves of, and sold to the Arabs for a few yards
of common cloth, brass wire, or beads. They would then be taken to the
Zanzibar market, resold like horses to the highest bidder, and then kept
in bondage by their new masters, more like children of his family
than anything else. In this new position they were circumcised to make
Mussulmans of them, that their hands might be "clean" to slaughter their
master's cattle, and extend his creed; for the Arabs believe the day
must come when the tenets of Mohammed will be accepted by all men.

The slave in this new position finds himself much better off than he
ever was in his life before, with this exception, that as a slave he
feels himself much degraded in the social scale of society, and his
family ties are all cut off from him--probably his relations have all
been killed in the war in which he was captured. Still, after the first
qualms have worn off, we find him much attached to his master, who feeds
him and finds him in clothes in return for the menial services which
he performs. In a few years after capture, or when confidence has been
gained by the attachment shown by the slave, if the master is a trader
in ivory, he will intrust him with the charge of his stores, and send
him all over the interior of the continent to purchase for him both
slaves and ivory; but should the master die, according to the Mohammedan
creed the slaves ought to be freed. In Arabia this would be the case;
but at Zanzibar it more generally happens that the slave is willed to
his successor.

The whole system of slaveholding by the Arabs in Africa, or rather on
the coast or at Zanzibar, is exceedingly strange; for the slaves, both
in individual physical strength and in numbers, are so superior to the
Arab foreigners, that if they chose to rebel, they might send the Arabs
flying out of the land. It happens, however, that they are spell-bound,
not knowing their strength any more than domestic animals, and they even
seem to consider that they would be dishonest if they ran away after
being purchased, and so brought pecuniary loss on their owners.

There are many positions into which the slave may get by the course of
events, and I shall give here, as a specimen, the ordinary case of one
who has been freed by the death of his master, that master having been a
trader in ivory and slaves in the interior.