person who is forcibly deprived of
liberty can only be brought into subjection by force. Slaves under
Mahdiist _regime_ have so many different ways of revenging themselves on
their masters that they never fail to seize an opportunity when it is
offered.

The immorality of slaves is quite beyond description; but it cannot be
the fault of the unfortunate creatures themselves, for in their own
savage homes it is not so. They learn all the vices of their masters,
and, indeed, are forced to participate in them or submit to a flogging;
consequently, disease of the most loathsome kind is everywhere
prevalent, and to be free from it is thought to be the mark of a poor
creature. In many cases which have come within my own knowledge, the
offspring of such people die young, putrid by disease; of fifteen
children of one father, thirteen died in five years. At first the
Baggara were not infected to any large extent, but contact with the
inhabitants of the Nile valley has communicated the pest, which is now
eating into the constitutions of this, the most powerful and warlike
tribe in the Sudan.[R]

Export of slaves to Egypt and the Red Sea is forbidden, because the
Khalifa fears that the English may intercept them and make soldiers of
them; but a certain number of female slaves are still smuggled through.
By the re-occupation of Tokar the Red Sea route, which had been
extensively used, was closed to the Dervishes. It is permissible to give
male and female slaves papers of freedom, but the custom is never
practised. If a female slave bear a child to her master she cannot be
sold, and after her master's death she becomes a free woman; if she bear
a child to a freed man, who is not a black, her position remains
unaltered, and the child grows up a slave, because it is considered to
be illegitimate.

Omdurman is full of slaves; even in the poorest houses one female slave
at least will be found. Hard work and ill-treatment ages them very
rapidly. Many of them long for their native homes and detest slavery,
but the great majority of them submit without a murmur to their wretched
fate.

FOOTNOTES:

[R] The disease lies dormant in the summer, but acquires
virulence with cold weather. The medicines used are iodide of potassium
and sarsaparilla.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE BAGGARA MASTERS OF THE SUDAN.

Relations between Abdullah and the rival Khalifas--Mahdiism
practically dead--The Khalifa's son, Osman--His marriage to