those who fell
exhausted, not fit to be sold, were finished with gunshots or the
knife. Thus they hold them by terror. But the result of this system
is, that on the arrival of the caravan, fifty out of a hundred slaves
are missing from the trader's list. A few may have escaped, but the
bones of those who died from torture mark out the long routes from the
interior to the coast.

It is supposed that the agents of European origin, Portuguese for the
most part, are only rascals whom their country has rejected, convicts,
escaped prisoners, old slave-drivers whom the authorities have been
unable to hang--in a word, the refuse of humanity. Such was Negoro,
such was Harris, now in the service of one of the greatest contractors
of Central Africa, Jose-Antonio Alvez, well known by the traders of
the province, about whom Lieutenant Cameron has given some curious
information.

The soldiers who escort the captives are generally natives in the pay
of the traders. But the latter have not the monopoly of those raids
which procure the slaves for them. The negro kings also make atrocious
wars with each other, and with the same object. Then the vanquished
adults, the women and children, reduced to slavery, are sold by the
vanquishers for a few yards of calico, some powder, a few firearms,
pink or red pearls, and often even, as Livingstone says, in periods of
famine, for a few grains of maize.

The soldiers who escorted old Alvez's caravan might give a true idea
of what African armies are.

It was an assemblage of negro bandits, hardly clothed, who brandished
long flint-lock guns, the gun-barrels garnished with a great number of
copper rings. With such an escort, to which are joined marauders who
are no better, the agents often have all they can do. They dispute
orders, they insist on their own halting places and hours, they
threaten to desert, and it is not rare for the agents to be forced to
yield to the exactions of this soldiery.

Though the slaves, men or women, are generally subjected to carry
burdens while the caravan is on the march, yet a certain number of
porters accompany it. They are called more particularly "Pagazis," and
they carry bundles of precious objects, principally ivory. Such is the
size of these elephants' teeth sometimes, of which some weigh as much
as one hundred and sixty pounds, that it takes two of these "Pagazis"
to carry them to the factories. Thence this precious merchandise is
exported to the markets