My Clothes Were By This Time Become So Very Ragged That I Was Almost
Ashamed To Appear Out Of Doors, But Karfa, On The Day After His
Arrival, Generously Presented Me With Such A Garment And Trousers As
Are Commonly Worn In The Country.
The slaves which Karfa had brought with him were all of them
prisoners of war; they had been taken by the Bambarra army in the
kingdoms of Wassela and Kaarta, and carried to Sego, where some of
them had remained three years in irons.
From Sego they were sent,
in company with a number of other captives, up the Niger in two
large canoes, and offered for sale at Yamina, Bammakoo, and Kancaba;
at which places the greater number of the captives were bartered for
gold dust, and the remainder sent forward to Kankaree.
Eleven of them confessed to me that they had been slaves from their
infancy, but the other two refused to give any account of their
former condition. They were all very inquisitive, but they viewed
me at first with looks of horror, and repeatedly asked if my
countrymen were cannibals. They were very desirous to know what
became of the slaves after they had crossed the salt water. I told
them that they were employed in cultivation the land; but they would
not believe me, and one of them, putting his hand upon the ground,
said, with great simplicity, "Have you really got such ground as
this to set your feet upon?" A deeply-rooted idea that the whites
purchase negroes for the purpose of devouring them, or of selling
them to others that they may be devoured hereafter, naturally makes
the slaves contemplate a journey towards the coast with great
terror, insomuch that the slatees are forced to keep them constantly
in irons, and watch them very closely, to prevent their escape.
They are commonly secured by putting the right leg of one and the
left of another into the same pair of fetters.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 115 of 167
Words from 30890 to 31222
of 45368
