r-owners and grief
amongst slaves. The former wondered how it could be wrong to care
for persons who would have been eaten by their fellow-countrymen
if they had succumbed to the hard struggle for existence at home.
The latter saw themselves free--really free--in the desert, with
no supply of food, clothing, or other supplies, and no human
ties.[666] In all families of well-to-do people little negroes
are found. The author saw one who told her that the lady of the
house had suckled him.[667] It is reported from eastern Borneo
that a white man could hire no natives for wages. They thought it
degrading to work for wages, but if he would buy them they would
work for him.[668] In spite of what has been said above about
slavery on the west coast of Africa it is to be remembered that
the master-owner has the power of life and death and that he
often uses it. If he is condemned to death for a crime, he can
give a slave to be executed in his place.[669] In eastern Angola,
if a woman dies in childbirth, her husband has to pay her
parents. If he cannot, he becomes their slave.[670] In South
Africa Holub found that the fiercest slave chasers were blacks,
who had slaves at home and treated them worse than Mohammedans
ever did.[671] Formerly a Kaffir would work in the diamond mines
for three marks a day until he got money enough to buy cattle and
to buy a woman at home, a European suit, a kettle, and a rifle.
Then he went home and set up an establishment. Then he would
return to earn more and buy more wives, who would support him to
his life's end.[672] The stronger Hottentot tribes hold classes
of their own population, or mountain Damara and Bushmen, in
servitude, although no law defines a "slave." Those people hold
the treatment they receive to be due to their origin. Amongst all
South African tribes the rich exert their power to subjugate the
poor, who hang upon them in a kind of clientage, hoping to
receive something. Cruelty and even murder are not punished by
the judges.[673]

+276. Family slavery.+ The savage form of slavery in Africa furnishes us
one generalization which may be adopted with confidence. Whenever slaves
live in a family, sharing in the family life and associating freely
with the male members of it in work, religion, play, etc., the slavery
is of a very light type and implies no hardship for the slave.

+277. S