more appalling
spectacle than this. My head swam as I gazed. A single horseman rode
first, showing the way, and the wretched captives followed him as if
they had been used to this condition all their lives. Here were naked
little boys running alone, perhaps thinking themselves upon a holiday;
near at hand dragged mothers with babes at their breasts; girls of
various ages, some almost ripened into womanhood, others still infantine
in form and appearance; old men bent two-double with age, their
trembling chins verging towards the ground, their poor old heads covered
with white wool; aged women tottering along, leaning upon long staffs,
mere living skeletons;--such was the miscellaneous crowd that came
first; and then followed the stout young men, ironed neck to neck! This
was the first instalment of the black bullion of Central Africa; and as
the wretched procession huddled through the gateways into the town the
creditors of the Sarkee looked gloatingly on through their lazy eyes,
and calculated on speedy payment.

[19] Mr. Richardson interchanges the words _razzia_ and _gazia_;
the latter, I imagine, is the correct word, but the former
is better known to European readers.--ED.

In the afternoon I was informed that the Sarkee was really about to
enter the town.

Expecting to see other captives, and anxious to be an eye-witness to all
these atrocities attendant on the razzia, I went to see him pass with
his cavalry. After waiting ten minutes, there rode up single cavaliers,
then lines of horsemen, all galloping towards the castle-gates to show
the people their equestrian skill; then came a mass of cavalry, about
fifty, with a drum beating, and in the midst of these was the sultan.
There was nothing very striking in this cavalcade; a few cavaliers had
on a curious sort of helmet, made of brass, with a kind of horn standing
out from the crown; others wore a wadding of woollen stuff, a sort of
thin mattrass, in imitation of a coat of mail. Its object is to turn the
points of the poisoned arrows. The cavaliers thus dressed form the
body-guard of the Sarkee. Amongst these troops were some Bornou
horsemen, who rode with more skill than the Zinder people. The best
cavaliers resembled as much as possible the Arab cavaliers of the north.
There were no captives with these horsemen; the slaves had only come in
to the number, it was said, of some two or three thousand during the
day. Although I wished to see them, I w