of human beings. She was offered for six
thousand wadas, about ten shillings in English money. It is quite
impossible to conjecture of what use such a poor old creature can be.
The Shereef Kebir made a present of a little boy to Said of Haj Beshir
this evening. The poor little fellow looked very pitiful. He was stolen
from Daura. He has only one cheek marked with the shonshona, because his
mother lost all the children which she bare before him; and the custom
is, when a mother thus loses her children, to scarify only one cheek.

The mode of supplying the slave-markets of the north and south is truly
nefarious, and perhaps surpasses all the wickedness of the Tuaricks. The
Sarkee of Zinder wants gour-nuts, and has no money to purchase them; he
sends his servants or officers to a neighbouring village, and they steal
in open day two or three families of people, and bring them to the
Sarkee. These poor wretches are immediately exchanged for the gour-nuts.
A boy steals some trifling articles--a few needles; he is forthwith sold
in the souk; and not only he, but "if the Sarkee wants money," his
father and mother, brothers and sisters: and "if the Sarkee is very much
pressed for money," his familiars search for the brothers of the father,
and all their relations. Indeed, crime is a lucrative source of supply
for the prince, and what his vengeance spares from the executioner is
sold into foreign slavery.

In the approaching razzia, the Sarkee is expected to take the common
route of Daura, and carry off the villagers subjected to the Sheikh;
for, contrary to the opinion of the Shereef Kebir, the Sarkee will not
attack the Kohlans, who are the subjects of the Fullan, but the _bona
fide_ subjects of the Sheikh. He will probably bring back one thousand
slaves or captives. He will send two hundred to the Sheikh, with such a
message as this:--"I have eaten up the Kafers of Daura; here is your
offering of two hundred Kafers." Should the Sheikh receive a
remonstrance from the Bornou governor of Daura, that the Sarkee of
Zinder has come upon him and carried off Muslims, his subjects, he will
shut his ears. In all these razzias the lesser chiefs act an important
part, and each gets a share. A chief who fights under the Sarkee
captures fifty slaves, and gives up to the Sarkee twenty-five or thirty,
keeping the rest for himself and people.

If a single undistinguished man captures five, the Sarkee gets two of
the five; another captures tw