I Do Not Recollect Any Ransomed Christian Slave, Who Discovered A Greater Elasticity Of Spirit, Or Who Sooner Recovered From The Indifference And Stupor Here Described."

It is to be remarked, that the Christian captives are invariably worse treated than the idolatrous or pagan slaves, whom the Arabs, either by theft or purchase, bring from the interior of Africa, and that religious bigotry is the chief cause of this distinction.

The zealous disciples of Mahomet consider the negroes merely as ignorant, unconverted beings, upon whom, by the act of enslaving them, they are conferring a benefit, by placing them within reach of instruction in "the true belief;" and the negroes, having no hopes of ransom, and being often enslaved when children, are in general, soon converted to the Mahommedan faith. The Christians, on the contrary, are looked upon as hardened infidels, and as deliberate despisers of the prophet's call; and as they in general steadfastly reject the Mahommedan creed, and at least never embrace it, whilst they have hopes of ransom; the Moslim, consistently with the spirit of many passages in the Koran, views them with the bitterest hatred, and treats them with every insult and cruelty which a merciless bigotry can suggest.

It is not to be understood that the Christian slaves, though generally ill treated and inhumanly worked by their Arab owners, are persecuted by them ostensibly on account of their religion. They, on the contrary, often encourage the Christians to resist the importunities of those who wish to convert them; for, by embracing Islamism, the Christian slave obtains his freedom, and however ardent may be the zeal of the Arab to make proselytes, it seldom blinds him to the calculations of self-interest.

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