Yet was not the
plain-spoken Maryam's reply without its moral.
How often is it our
fate, in the West as in the East, to see in bright eyes and to hear
from rosy lips an implied, if not an expressed, "Why don't you buy me?"
or, worse still, "Why can't you buy me?"
All I required in return for my services from the slave-dealer, whose
brutal countenance and manners were truly repugnant, was to take me
about the town, and explain to me certain mysteries in his craft, which
knowledge might be useful in time to come. Little did he suspect who
his interrogator was, and freely in his unsuspiciousness he entered
upon the subject of slave hunting in the Somali country, and Zanzibar,
of all things the most interesting to me. I have, however, nothing new
to report concerning the present state of bondsmen in Egypt. England
has already learned that slaves are not necessarily the most wretched
and degraded of men. Some have been bold enough to tell the British
public that, in the generality of Oriental countries,[FN#19] the serf
fares far
[p.61]better than the servant, or indeed than the poorer orders of
freemen. "The laws of Mahomet enjoin his followers to treat slaves with
the greatest mildness, and the Moslems are in general scrupulous
observers of the Apostle's recommendation. Slaves are considered
members of the family, and in houses where free servants are also kept,
they seldom do any other work than filling the pipes, presenting the
coffee, accompanying their master when going out, rubbing his feet when
he takes his nap in the afternoon, and driving away the flies from him.
When a slave is not satisfied, he can legally compel his master to sell
him.
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