Note 3 — Chapter II · GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SLAVERY.

2º. If we are told that there are no slaves, it is very probable that slavery really does not exist, for slavery is a phenomenon rather easy to observe, and the ethnographers are generally inclined to use the word in a too wide rather than in a too restricted sense. There is no need here for the extreme scepticism with which we have to receive an assertion of any tribe having no religion3. This does not prevent, of course, that if we find the existence of slavery denied by a writer who is generally badly informed, we may reject such an assertion.