Note 278 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.
Reading edition
Among the Ewe of the Slave Coast slavery is practised on a very large scale. Some men keep 200–300 slaves, who form their capital. The slaves are generally employed in carrying oil from the inland to the coast for sale to Europeans. The maintaining of order among such great numbers of slaves requires great severity. Slavery marks all their institutions. It is a common saying with them that “the large water-tub does not go to the spring”, whereby they mean that freemen must not do such work as is only fit for slaves and boys278.