flaf, on the Dnieper, 48 miles S. of Ekaterinoflaf. Lon. 52. 30. E. Ferro. Lat. 47. 24. N. * SLAVER. z. f. [ faliva, Lat. flafe, Inlandick] Spittle running from the mouth; drivel.-Mathi. olus hath a paffage, that a toad communicates its venom not only by urine, but by the humidity and faver of its mouth, which will confift with truth. Brown Of all mad creatures, if the learn'd are right, It is the flaver kills, and not the bite. Pope. (1.) To SLAVER. v. n. [from the noun. 1. To be fmeared with spittle.Should I Slaver with lips, as common as the stairs? Sbak. 2. To emit fpittle.-Mifo came with fcowling eyes to deliver a slavering good-morrow to the two ladies. Sidney. Why muft he fputter, fpaw!, and flover it, In vain, against the people's favourite? Swift. (z.) *To SLAVER. v. a. To smear with drivel. With white froth his gown is flaver'd o'er. Dryden. ** SLAVERER. n. f. [flabbaerd, Dutch; from flaver.] One who cannot hold his spittle; a driveller; an idiot. (1.) SLAVERY. n. f. [from flave.] Servitude; the condition of a flave; the office of a flave. No man can think it other than the badge of flavery, by favage rudeness and importunate obtufions of violence to have the mift of his errour difpelled. King Charles. (2.) SLAVERY is a word, of which, though generally underflood, it is not eafy to give a proper definition. An excellent moral writer has defined it to be "an obligation to labour for the benefit of the mafter, without the contract or confent of the fervant." But may not he be properly called a flave who has given up his freedom to discharge a debt which he could not otherwise pay, or who has thrown it away at a game at hazard? In many nations debts have been legally discharged in this manner; and among the ancient Germans, fuch was the universal ardour for gaming, that it was no uncommon thing for a man, after having loft at play all his other property, to ftake, on a fingle throw of dice, himself, his wife, and his children. Tac. de Mor. Germ. That perfons who have thus loft their liberty are flaves, will hardly be denied; and furely the infatuated gamefter is a flave by his own contract. The debtor, too, if he was aware of the law, and contracted debts larger than he could reasonably expect to be able to pay, may july be confidered as having come under an obligation to labour for the benefit of a mafter with his own confent; for every man is anfwerable for all the known confequences of his voluntary actions. This definition of flavery feems to be defective as well as inaccurate. A man may be under an obligation to labour through life for the benefit of a mafter, and yet that mafter have no right to difpofe of him by fale, or in any other way to make him the property of a third perfon; but the word flave, as used among us, always denotes a perfon who may be bought and fold like a beaft in the market. Cicero defines SLAVERY to be "the obedience of a degraded 5 and abject mind, which has no will of its own." In its original fenfe, indeed, the word flave was of the fame import with neble, illustrious; but vaft numbers of the people called SLAVI, among whom it had that fignification, being, in the decline of the Roman empire, fold by their coun trymen to the Venetians, and by them difperfed over all Europe, the word flave came to denote a perfon in the lowest state of fervitude, who was confidered as the abfolute property of his master. See PHILOLOGY, Sec. XII. (3.) SLAVERY, ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN OF. As nothing can be more evident than that all men have, by the law of nature, an equal right to life, liberty, the produce of their own labour (fee RIGHT), and the property of their own perfons, it is not eafy to conceive what can have first led one part of them to imagine that they had a right to enflave another. Inequalities of rank are indeed inevitable in civil fociety; and from them refults that fervitude which is founded in contract, and is of temporary duration. (See MORAL PHILO SOPHY, Part II. Se&. III. IV.) He who has much property has many things to attend to, and must be difpofed to hire perfona to assist and serve him; while thofe who have little or no property must be equally willing to be hired for that pur pofe. And if the mafter be kind, and the fervant faithful, they will both be happier in this connec tion than they could have been out of it. But from a state of fervitude, where the flave is at the abfolute difpofal of his mafter in all things, and may be transferred without his own confent from one proprietor to another, like an ox or an ass, happiness must be for ever banished. How then came a traffic fo unnatural and unjust as that of flaves to be originally introduced into the world? The common anfwer to this question is, that it took its rife among savages, who, in their frequent wars with each other, either maffacred their captives in cold blood, or condemned them to perpetual flavery. In fupport of this opinion it is urged, that the Latin word fervus, which fignifies not a hired fervant, but a flave, is derived from fervare, to preferve; and that fuch men were called fervi, because they were captives whole lives were preferved on the condition of their becoming the property of the victor. That flavery had its origin from war, we think extremely pro bable; nor are we inclined to controvert this etymology of the word fervus; but the traffic in men prevailed almost universally, long before the Latin language or Roman name was heard of; and there is no good evidence that it began among favages. The word y, in the Old Testament, which in our verfion is rendered fervant, fignifies literally a flave, either born in the family of bought with money, in contradiftinction to which denotes a hired fervant: and as Noah makes ufe of the word ay in the curfe which he denounces upon Ham and Canaan immediately after the deluge, it would appear that flavery had its origin before that event. If fo, there can be little doubt but that it began among those violent perfons whom our tranfiators have called giants, though the original word literally fignifies faulters of others. Thofe wretches feem first to have feized upon women, whom they forcibly compelled SLA SLA ) That the practife of buying and felling fervanta thus early begun among the patriarchs defcended to their pofterity, is known to every attentive reader of the Bible. It was expressly authorised by the Jewish law, in which are many directions how fuch fervants were to be treated. They were to be bought only of the heathen; for if an Ifraelite grew poor and fold himself either to discharge a debt, or to procure the means of fubfiftence, he was to be treated not as a flave 2y, but as a hi red fervant 2, and reftored to freedom at the year of Jubilee. "Both thy bond-men and bondmaids (fays Mofes) fhall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them thall ye buy bond. men and bond-maids. And ye fhall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a poffeffion; they shall be your bond-men for ever." Lev. xxv. 39-46. Unli mited as the power thus given to the Hebrews over their bond-fervants of heathen extraction ap pears to have been, they were strictly prohibited from acquiring fuch property by any other means than fair purchase;" he that fealeth a man and felleth him," said their great lawgiver,“ shall be furely put to death." Lev. xxi. 16. ( 41 compelled to minifter to their pleasures; and from this kind of violence the progrefs was natural to that by which they enflaved their weaker brethren among the men, obliging them to labour for their benefit without allowing them wages. After the deluge the first dealer in flaves feems to have been Nimrod. “He began," we are told, “to be a mighty one in the earth, and was a mighty hunter before the Lord." He could not, how ever, be the first hunter of wild beafts; for that fpecies of hunting must have been practifed from the beginning; nor is it probable that his dexte. ity in the chafe, which was then the univerfal employment, could have been fo far fuperior to that of all his contemporaries as to entitle him to the appellation of the "mighty hunter before the Lord." Hence most commentators have concluded, that he was a hunter of men; an opinion which they found upon the import of his name, the word Nimrod fignifying a rebel. Whatever be in this, there can be little doubt, but that he became a mighty one by violence; for, being the fixth fon of his father, and apparently much younger than the other five, it is not likely that his inheritance exceeded theirs either in extent or in population. He enlarged it, however, by conqueft; for it appears from fcripture, that he invaded the territories of Afhur the fon of Shem, who had fettled in Shinar; and obliging him to remove into Affyria, he feized upon BABYLON, and made it the capital of the firft kingdom in the world. As he had great projects in view, it feems to be in a high degree probable, that he made bond-fervants of the captives whom he took in his wars, and employed them in building or repairing the metropolis of his kingdom; and hence we think is to be dated the origin of poft deluvian avery. That it began thus early can hardly be queftioned; for we know that it prevailed univerTally in the age of Abraham, who was born with. 1470 years after the death of Nimrod. That patriarch had 318 fervants or flaves, born in his own houfe, and trained to arms, with whom he purfued and conquered the four kings who had taken captive his brother's fon. And it appears from the converfation which took place between him and the king of Sodom after the battle, that both believed the conqueror had a right to confider has prifoners as part of his fpoil. "Give me (fays the king) the persons, and take the goods to thyfelf." It is indeed evident from numberleis pafLages of fcripture, that the domestics whom our traflators call servants were in thofe days univerLaily confidered as the moft valuable part of their mafter's property, and claffed with his flocks and herds. Thus when the facred hiftorian defcribes the wealth of Abraham, he fays, that he had fheep and oxen, and he-affes, and men-servants, and And maid servants, and the-affes, and camels.' #ben Abimelech wifhed to make fome reparation to the patriarch for the unintended injury he had done him, “ he took sheep and oxen, and men-servants, and women-servants, and gave them ut Abraham, and reitored to him Sarah his will." The riches and power of Ifaac and Jacob are estimated in the very fame manner. (4) SLAVERY AMONG THE ANCIENT JEWS, VOL. XXI. PART 1. (5.) SLAVERY AMONG THE GERMANS. It has been noticed above, (§ 2.) that among the ancient Germans it was not uncommon for an ardent gamefter to lofe his perfonal liberty by a throw of the dice. This was indeed a strong proof of fa vage manners; but the general condition of flaves among thefe favages feems to have been much better than among the polished Greeks and Romans. In Germany the flaves were generally attached to the foil, and only employed in tending cattle, and carrying on the bufinefs of agriculture for the menial offices of every great man's houfe were performed by his wife and children. Such flaves are feldom beaten, chained, or imprisoned. Sometimes indeed they were killed by their malters in a fit of fudden paffion; but none were confidered as materials of commerce, except thofe who had originally been freemen, and loft their freedom by play. Thefe, indeed, the fuccessful gamefter was very ready to fell, both because he felt them an ufelefs burden, and because their prefence continually put him in mind of that state to which a throw of the dice might one day reduce himfelf. Such is the account which Tacitus gives (De Mor. Germ. 24, 25.) of flavery among the ancient Germans. (6.) SLAVERY AMONG THE GREEKS. Whilft flavery, in a mild form, was permitted among the people of God, a much worfe kind of it prevailed among the heathen nations of antiquity. With other abominable cuftoms, the traffic in men quickly fpread from Chaldea into Egypt, Arabia, and over all the eaft, and by degrees found its way into every known region under heaven. Of this hateful commerce we shall not attempt to trace the progrefs through every age and country, but fhall only take a tranfient view of it among the Greeks and Romans, and a few other nations. One can hardly read a book of the Iliad or Odyffey, without perceiving that, in the age of Homer, all prifoners of war were treated as F faves, and compelled, without regard to rank, 15% Lex, or years, to labour for their masters in offices of the vilest drudgery. So univerfally was their cruel treatment of captives admitted to be the right of the victor, that the poet introduces Hector, when taking a tender and perhaps lafl farewell of his wife, telling her, as a thing of courfe, that, on the conquest of Troy, the would be compelled To bear the victor's hard commands, or bring The weight of water from Hyperia's spring. At an early period the Phoenicians had fuch an eftablished commerce in flaves, that, not fatisfied with reducing to bondage their prifoners of war, they kidnapped perfons who had never offended them, to fupply their foreign markets. In the Odyfley, B. 14. Ulyffes reprefents himself as having narrowly efcaped a fare of this kind laid for him by a falfe Phoenician. Such were the manners of the Greeks in the heroic age; nor were they much improved at the periods of greater refinement. Philip II. of Macedon having conquered the Thebans, not only fold his captives, but even took money for permitting the dead to be buried; and Alexander who had more generofity than Philip, afterwards razed Thebes, and fold the inhabitants, men, women, and children, for flaves. (See MACEDON, 10.) This cruel treatment of a brave people may indeed have proceeded from the avarice of the conqueror, but nore from the momentary refentment of a man who was favage and generous by turns, and who had no command of his pathons. But from the Tanner in which the Spartans behaved to their flaves, there is little reafon to imagine, that, had they received from the Thebans the fame provocation with Alexander, they would have treated their captives with greater lenity. "At Sparta (fays the late humane and elegant Dr Beattie,) flaves were treated with a degree of rigour that is hardly conceivable; although to them, as their husbandmen and artificers, their proud and idle mafters were indebted for all the neceffaries of life. The Lacedemonian youth, trained up in the practise of deceiving and butchering thofe poor men, were from time to time let loofe upon them, to fhow their proficiency in fratagem and maf facre. And once, without any provocation, and merely for their own amufement, we are told that they murdered 3000 in one night, not only with the connivance of law, but by its avowed permiffion. Such, in promoting the happiness of one part of fociety and the virtue of another, are the effects of flavery." It has been faid, that in Athens and Rome flaves were better treated than in Sparta: but in the former city their treatment cannot have been good, nor their lives comfortable, where the Athenians relifhed that tragedy of Euripides in which queen Hecuba is introduced as lamenting that he was chained like a dog at Agamemnon's gate! (7.) SLAVERY AMONG THE ROMANS. Of the eftimation in which faves were held at Rome we may form a tolerable notion from the well known fact, that one of those unhappy beings was often chained to the gate of a great man's house, to give admittance to the guests invited to the feaft. In the early periods of the commonwealth it was cuftomary, in certain facred thews exhibited on folemn occafions, to drag through the circus a flave, who had been fcourged to death holding in his hand a fork in the form of a gibbet. But we need not multiply proofs of the cruelty of the Romans to their flaves. If the inhuman combats of the gladiators (See GLADIATORS) admit of any apology, on account of the martial fpirit with which they were thought to infpite the fpectators, the conduct of Vedius Pollio muft have proceed. ed from the most wanton and brutal cruelty. (See POLLIO, N° 2.) This man threw fuch flaves as gave him the fighteft offence into his fish ponds to fatten his lampreys; and yet he was fuffered to die in peace! The emperor, indeed, ordered his lampreys to be destroyed, and his ponds to be filled up; but we hear of no other punishment inflicted on the favage mafter. Till the reign of Auguftus, the depofitions of laves were never ad mitted into the courts of judicature; and even then they were received only when perfons were ac cufed of treasonable practifes. The origin of flavery in Rome was the fame as in other countries. Prisoners of war were reduced to that flate, as if they had been criminals. The di&ator Camillus, one of the moft accomplished generals of the republic, fold his Hetrurian captives to pay the Ro man ladies for the jewels which they had prefent. ed to Apollo. Fabius, whofe cautious conduct faved his country when Hannibal was viuri30,000 of the citizens to flavery, and fold them ous in Italy, having fubdued Tarentum, reduced to the highest bidder. Coriolanus, when driven from Rome, and fighting for the Voifci, fcrupled not to make slaves of his own countrymen; and Julius Cæfar, among whofe faults wanton cruelty has never been reckoned, fold at one time 53,000 captives for flaves. Nor did the flaves in Rome confift only of foreigners taken in war. By one of the laws of the XII tables, creditors were empowered to feize their infolvent debtors, and keep them in their houfes till, by their fervices or a bour, they had difcharged the fum they owed: and in the beginning of the commonwealth they were authorised to fell fuch debtors, and even to put them to death. The children of flaves were the property not of the commonwealth, or of their own parents, but of their mafiers; and thus happy men as fell into that flate, whether through was flavery perpetuated in the families of fuch unthe chance of war or the cruelty of a fordid creditor. The confequence was, that the number of flaves belonging to the rich Patricians was almost incredible. Caius Cæcilius Ifidorus, who died about 7 years before the Chriftian era, left to his heirs 4116 flaves; and if any of those wretched creatures made an unsuccessful attempt to regain his liberty, or was even fufpected of fuch a defign, he was marked on the forehead with a red hot iron. In Sicily, during the moft flourishing periods of the commonwealth, it feems to have brea cuftomary for masters to mark their flaves in this phil-s, who not fatisfied with this fecurity, shut up manner; at least fuch was the practice of Damohis flaves every night in close prifons, and led them in the field. Hence arofe the fervile war in Siout like beafts in the morning to their daily labour cily. Though many laws were enacted by Augufus and other philanthropic emperors to diminith the power of creditors over their infolvent debtors; interior tribes of Africa. Of this we might reft affured, although we had no other evidence of the fact than what results from the practice of human facrifices, fo prevalent in the republic of Carthage. The genuine instincts of nature are often fubdued by dire fuperftition, but they cannot be wholly eradicated; and the rich Carthaginian, when a human victim was demanded from him to the gods, would be ready to fupply the place of his own child by the son of a poor ftranger, perfidiously purchased at whatever price. That this was, indeed, a very common practise among them, we learn from the teftimony of various bif torians, who affure us, that when Agathocles the tyrant of Syracufe had overthrown their generals Hanno and Bomilear, and threatened Carthage itself with a siege, the people attributed their miffortunes to the juft anger of Saturn for having been worshipped for fome years, by the facrifices of children meanly born, and fecretly bought, in, ftead of those of noble extraction. Thefe fubfti. tutions of one offering for another were confidered as a profane deviation from the religion of their forefathers; and therefore to expiate the guilt of fo horrid an impiety, a facrifice of two hundred children of the firft rank was on that occafion made to the bloody god. (See SACRIFICE, § 6.) As the Carthaginians were a commercial people we cannot fuppofe that they purchafed flaves only for facrifices. They undoubtedly condemned many of their prifoners of war to the state of fervitude, and either fold them to foreigners, or dif. tributed them among their fenators and the leaders of their armies. Hanno, who endeavoured to ufurp the fupreme power in Carthage whilft that republic was engaged in war with Timoleon in Sicily, armed 20,coo of his flaves to carry his nefarious purpose into execution; and Hannibal after his decifive victory at Canne, fold to the Greeks many of his prifoners whom the Roman fenate refufed to redeem. That illuftrious commander was indeed more humane, as well as more politic, than the generality of his coun trymen. Before his days it was cuftomary with the Carthaginians either to maffacre their captives in cold blood, that they might never again bear arms against them, or to offer them in facrifice as a grateful acknowledgment to the gods; but this was not always done even by their most fuperftitious or mott unprincipled leaders, Among other rich fpoils which Agathocles, after his victory, found in the camp of Hanno and Bo. milcar, were 20,coo pair of fetters and manacles, which thofe generals had provided for fuch of the Sicilian prifoners as they intended to preferve alive and reduce to a state of flavery. With the ancient ftate of the other African nations we are but very little acquainted. All the African states were in alliance with one or other of thofe rival republics; and as the people of those states appear to have been lefs enlightened than either the Romans or the Carthaginians, we cannot fuppofe that they had purer morals, or a greater regard for the facred rights of man, than the powerful nations by whom they were either protected or oppreffed. They would, indeed, infenfibly adopt their customs; and the ready market which Marius found for the prifoniers taken in Capfo, fhows F2 debtors; though the influence of the mild spirit of Chriftianity tended much to meliorate the con dition of flaves, even under Pagan masters; and though the emperor Adrian made it capital to kill a flave without a just reason; yet this infamous commerce prevailed univerfally in the empire for many ages after the conversion of Conftantine to the Chriftian religion. It was not completely abolished even in the reign of Juftinian; and in many countries, which had once been provinces of the empire, it continued long after the empire itfelf had fallen to pieces. (8.) SLAVERY, ANCIENT AND MODERN, in BR1TAIN. The Anglo-Saxons, after they were fet tled in this ifland, feem not to have carried on that traffic fo honourably as the Germans, (5) By a ftatute of Alfred the Great, the purchase of a man, a horse, or an ox, without a voucher to warrant the fale, was strictly forbidden. That law was, doubtlefs, enacted to prevent the fealing of men and cattle; but it shows us that fo late as the 9th or 10th century, a man when fairly purchafed, was, in England, as much the property of the buyer as the horfe on which he rode or the ox which dragged his plough. In the fame country, now fo nobly tenacious of freedom and the rights of man, a fpecies of flavery fimilar to that which prevailed among the ancient Germans subsisted even to the end of the 16th century. This appears from a commiffions iffued by Q. Elizabeth in 1574. for inquiring into the lands and goods of all her bond-men and bond-avomen in the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and Gloucefter, in order to compound with them for their manumiffion, that they might enjoy their lands and goods as freemen. In Scotland there certainly existed an order of flaves or bond-men, who tilled the ground, were attached to the foil, and with it were transferable from one proprietor to ano. ther, at a period fo late as the 13th century; but when or how those villains, as they were called, obtained their freedom, feems to be unknown to every lawyer and antiquary of the prefent day. Colliers and falters, were, in the fame country, flaves till within thefe 40 years, that they were magumitted by an act of the British legiflature, and restored to the rights of freeman and citizens. (See DEWAR.) Before that period the fons of coliters could follow no butinets but that of their fathers; nor were they at liberty to feek employment in any other mines than thofe to which they were attached by birth, without the confent of the lord of the manor, who, if he had no ufe for their fervices himself, transferred them by a written deed to fome neighbouring proprietor. (9) SLAVERY OF THE ANCIENT AFRICANS. That the favage nations of Africa were at any pefiod of history exempted from this opprobrium of our nature, which spread over all the reft of the world, the enlightened reader will not fuppofe. It is indeed in that vaft country that flavery has in every are appeared in its ngliest form. About the era of the Trojan war, a commerce in flaves was carried on between Phoenicia and Lybia: and the Carthaginians, who were a colony of Pranicians, and followed the cuftoms, manners and feligion of their parent ftate, undoubtedly continued the Tyrian traffic in human flesh with the that a that flavery was then no frange thing to the Nu. “At this time, therefore, according to Mr White midians. It seems indeed to have prevailed through ker, began that kind of traffic in human fiest, all Africa from the very first peopling of that us- “ Which spoils unhappy Guinea of its sons." explored country; and we doubt if in any age of But, as a female Ethiopian Nave is mentioned in the world the unhappy negro was absolutely fe. the Eunuch of Terence, we fufpect that Guinea cure of his personal freedom, or even of not be. was occasionally “ spoiled of iis fons” at a mucb ing sold to a foreign trader. earlier period. At any rate, from the obierva. (10.) SLAVERY, OF THE NEGROES, HISTORY OF tions made by the European travellers who Srft The. It is the common opinion, that the prac. penetrated into that continent, it appears undetice of making Naves of the negroes is of a very niable, that slavery must have prevailed from time modern date; that it owes its origin to the incur. immemorial among fuch of the tribes as had nefoons of the Portuguese on the western coait of ver carried on any commerce with foreign nations. Africa ; and that but for the cunning or cruelty In fact, this kind of commerce prevailed in Africa of Europeans, it would not dow exist, and would so early as in the reign of JUGURTHA. That it never have exifted. But all this is a complication was not introduced among the negroes either by of mistakes. Mr Whitaker, in his Review of the Arabs or by the Portuguese, appears fill Gibbon's Roman History, has proved, with a force more evident from the behaviour of the Dahoof evidence which admits of no reply, that from mans at the conquest of Whidah, and from the the Coast of Guinea a great trade in Naves was manner in which the people of Angola, at the carried on by the Arabs some hundreds of years earliest stage of their foreign trade, procured a before the Portuguese embarked in that traffic, supply of llaves for the Portuguese market. The or had even seen a woolly-headed negro. Even greater part of the Naves, whom the Angolans es es the wandering Arabs of the desert, who never ported from St Paulo de Loanda, were brought bad any friendly correspondence with the Chrif. from interior countries, some hundreds of leagues tians of Europe, have from time inmemorial been distant, where they could not have been regularly served by negro slaves. “The Arab muft be poor purchased, had that commerce been till then unindeed (says M. Saugnier) not to have at least one known. 'The Dahomans, till 1727, had never negro slavey. Their wives who are captive ne. seen a white man: and when their prince and his greffes, do all the domestic work, and are rough- army, first met with some Europeans in the town ly treated by the Arabs. Their children are of Sabi, they were so shocked at their complexion Naves like them, and put to all kinds of drudge and their dress, that they were afraid to approach ry. Surely no man, who is not completely pre- them, and could not be persuaded, that they judiced, will pretend that those roving tribes of were men till they heard them speak, and were Arabs fo remarkable for their independent spirit assured by the Whidanese that these were the and attachment to ancient customs, learned to merchants who purchased all the faves that were ensave the negroes from the Europeans! They fold in Guinea. We are assured by Spelgrave, seem to have, without interruption, continued who was then in the army, that those people the practice of Navery from the days of their great treated their captives with such horrid cruelty as ancestor ISHMAEL; and it seems evident, that was shocking to the natives of the sea coaft. A none of the European nations had ever seen a woolly, great part of their prisoners were sacrificed to their headed negro till the year 1100, when the crusaders gods, or eaten by ihe soldiers; and when our aufell in with a {mall party of them near the town thor exprefled to a colonel of the guard some furof Hebron in Judea, and were so fruck with the prise, that a prince so enlightened as the sovereign povelty of their appearance, that the army burst of Dabomy should facrifice fo many men whom te into a general ft of laughter. Long before might have sold to great advantage, he was told, the crusades, however, the natives of Guinea that it had been the custom of their nation, from had been sold in foreign countries. In 651 the time immemorial, to offer, after victory, a certain Mahometan Arabs in Egypt so harassed the king number of prisoners to the gods; and that they of Nubia or Ethiopia, who was a Christian, that selected the old men for victims, because they he agreed to send them annually, by way of tri- were of less value at market, and more dangerous bute, a vast number of Nubian or Etbiopian Naves from their experience than the young men. One into Egypt. Such a tribute, at that time, was of the kings of Dahomy Naughtered at once not more agreeable to the khalif than any other, “ as only all the captives taken in war, but also 127 the Arabs then made no small account of those prisoners of different kinds, that he might have a Naves.” This shows that a commerce in bond sufficiency of skulls to adorn the walls of his paTervants could not then be a new branch of trade lace; though at the very time of that massacre he either to the Arabs or the Ethiopians; but the knew that there were fix Nave-ftips in the road of vast number which the Ethiopian monarch was Whidah, from which he could have got for every now compelled to furnith every year, induced prime Nave a price little fhort of thirty pounds him to feed this great drain upon his subjects Sterling. (Dalzel's Hif. of Dahomy.) These from the natives of the neighbouring countries. facts, and numberless others which the reader will He therefore brought the blacks of Guinea, for find detailed in the Modern Universal History, vol. the first time, into the service and families of the xiii. by writers who were at the greatest pains to eaft; and the slaves which he paid in tribute to procure authentic information ; who were neither the Arabs, whether derived from Ethiopia, thc biatled by interest nor blinded by enthusiasm ; and Mediterranean regions, or the fhores of the At. who held the infamous traffic in utter abborrence lantic, were all called Ethiopians, troin the coun. --prove, beyond the possibility of doubt, that try by which they were conveyed into Egypt. Navery of the worst kind must bave prevailed |