Note (return) — TIMBUCTOO TO HOUSA.

The king cannot make any of his subjects slaves. They get their cotton from Bengala. 85 They have no salt, it comes from a great distance, and is very dear. Goods find a much better market at Housa than at Timbuctoo. There are merchants at Housa from Timboo, Bornoo, Moshu, and India; the travelling merchants do not regard distance. From Timboo and other great towns he has heard, and from his own knowledge can venture to assert, that they bring East India goods. Gold-dust, ivory, and slaves are the principal returns from Housa. The people of Housa have slaves from Bornoo, Bambarra, Jinnie, Beni Killeb 86 (sons of dogs), and Beni Aree (sons of the naked); they are, generally, prisoners of war, though many are stolen when young, by people who make a trade of this practice. The laws are very severe against this crime; it requires, therefore, great cunning and duplicity; no men of any property are ever guilty of it. The slave stealers take the children by night out of the town, and sell them to some peasant, who sells them to a third, and so from hand to hand, till they are carried out of the country; if this practice did not exist, there would be few slaves for the Barbary market. Beyond the age of fourteen or fifteen, a slave is hardly saleable in Barbary. Few merchants bring to Housa above two or three slaves at a time; but there are great numbers of merchants continually bringing them. His own slave was a native of Bambarra, and was brought very young to Timbuctoo. Slaves are generally stupid; but his, on the contrary, was very sensible; he understood several languages, particularly Arabic; he bought him as an interpreter; he would not have sold publicly for above twenty ducats; but he gave 50 for him; his master parting with him very reluctantly. He bought two female slaves at Housa, at 15 ducats each. 87 The value of slaves has since then doubled in Barbary; he does not know the present 88 price at Timbuctoo. At Timbuctoo not ten slaves in the hundred bought there, are females; when bought, the merchant shuts them up in a private room, but not in chains, and places a centinel at the door: when the confidence of any of them is supposed to be gained, they are employed as centinels. Housa having a great trade, is much frequented by people from Bambarra, Foulan, Jinnie, and the interior countries.