NOT ON THE WANE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 122, 26 May 1930, Page 3

NOT ON THE WANE

SLAVE TRADE TO-DAY

FIRMLY ROOTED IN EAST

MANY WELL TREATED

By Eosita Forbes. (Copyright.)

' In the days of Sir Richard Burton, llarrar was tho centre of the profitable Abyssinian slave-trade, besides which it supplied most of tho eunuchs for Hie harems of Turkey and Western Arabia. -Before the war tlicSro was a regular traffic between the half-starved villages of Last a and Simyen, where tho local Copes can hardly wrench a living from the barren rocks on which their huts are plastered like moluscs, and tho coasts of Yemen and Ilodjaz.

Children of anything over three were sold by their parents for an average of twenty Menelik dollars —the price of a mule —in order that they might be hustled down to the Red Sea and packed into the dhows, which,' when not in ballast, can cross the reef at any point and lie hidden for days in tho creeks with which the Eritrean shore abounds. Sonic of these waifs probably died on their way to the markets of Mecca and Sabya, but once bought by the wealthy merchants and sheriffir of Western Arabia, their lot was considerably better than it could- possibly have been in their own country.

The slavery of the East is a beneficent institution providing there is no traffic which separates children from their parents. By Koranic law a slave must bo treated in cxaetty the same fashion as the other members of 'the household. Ho must eat tho1 same food and wear the same clothes as his master. A woman slave may not legally be married without her own consent, and she can demand the same dowry as a daughter of the house. If she is ill-treated by her husband she has the right to claim the protection 01 her master or of the local Court of justice. BECOMES PEEE. A slave who bears her lord a child is automatically freed, and on every festival, or on the receipt of any good news, it is customary for a rich man t1" free one or more of his slaves, but this makes no difference- to their manner of life, for an Arab household is as patriarchal as in the days of Abraham. The only segregation/is that of tho sexes. '■ The men, whether they bo free-born o. bought in the coastal markets, or bred like bloodstock from the family slaves, all eat out of' tho same dish.'! Their clothes arc exactly tlio same, except that the. Abyssinian .black has a greater love of colour and display than the Bedouin* he serves, so the waistcoat under his camels-hair abbaya is generally more richly embroidered than, that of his master. , -. ■ Staying in tho harems of "\yestern Arabia, if is almost impossiblo to distinguish between the wife and the slave. .Both wear .tho same heavy golden jewellery and share equally in the domestic labour. There is no feeling of inferiority among tho slaves, for at any moment they may bo freed, though such freedom will mean no change of condition, since, men and women alike, they are attached to the household of which they have become a component part, and they look down on tho free Khuddam class, the labourer., and porters of merchandise, who in Yemen have no right to carry arms. The only occasion on which a 'slave girl is sent away from her home is when she\ accompanies a daughter of tho house to the harem of her unknown hnsbfind. and under these circumstances tho lot of one girl is no harder than that of the other. ■ . THEOWN OUT OF WORK. , Incited by the European Ministries at Addis Abeba, tho Emperor Menelik promulgated an edict freeing-all;/, tho slaves in.his country on the death of their masters. The result has,been disastrous, for when a great man dies a horde of pampered personal retainer's, who'have known no other duties'than to walk in behind their master in'processions gorgeously, apparelled, or to follow his standard in war, are'thrown on their own devices, penniless, with a rifle as their solo possession. In. Abyssinia all land is owned by the village of tho family, and it is worked on communal lines. There is no hired labour. Consequently there is nothing for tho yearly increasing number' of freed slaves to do but, to join the bands of brigands, which ravage the northern mountain? like.a cloud of locusts. ■ While lie was still Regent, Eas Tafari made determined efforts to exterminate tho slavers who still carry on a sporadic and perilous tra/le out of reach of tho capital, with the result that where in olden day? caravans of 200 or 300 children went mqrc or less openly to the coast, now the dry river beds, winding through almost impenetrable thorn forests are the only roads for the merchant of human wares. My guide from Lalibela to Gondar was such a one, and ho informed me that, what with tho hostile attitude of tho Government and of the great territorial.chiefs who rule- tho north, and tho constant vigilance of the British gunboats which patrol the Red Sea, his trade was diminishing. "By Allah, it is hard to supply even the least number required by my brother, who is a merchant in Mcidi," he remarked woo-fully—-and I remember the harem of that said brother.. It was invariably full, but like a kalediscope, the crowd of shy, expressionless black faces was always ' changing, though the generic Moslem names with which tho waifs from Christian Ethiopia were endowed remained th 6 same. STOLEN CHILDREN. Before the war the sheriffs of Yemen added to their considerable wealth by stealing peasant children, training them within their blind-walled citadels, and soiling them in the same odour of sanctity. But the late Emir Idrisi, an advanced thinker and the only mentality has produced to equal Ib'n Sa'ud, put' a stop to the'traffic. At the present time it is still viossiblc to buy a slave in any of the Western Arabian towns, but.it has 'to be done by more or less private contract.- In Judda there is a house, where, after the pilgrimage (an excellent and holy excuse for the transport of. any number of mute, fuzzy heads, with r.ather. less than animal intelligence from suns'tcoped lands where the only kivr is that oC the strongest) male and female slaves can be bought for 17 to :J5 Egyp--tiau pounds. • In Yemen and Asir thoro is no difficulty, about purchasing human wares, but the price goes up if some gunboat has intercepted a cargo, on. its way across tho Bed Sea. The slavers are being harried out of the comfortable existence they used to lead, among the almost impenetrable mountains of Northern Abyssinia, but by bribery and by divers odd routes they still contrive to get a certain amount of merehai disc to tho waiting dhows, and tho lot of their captives or their purchases is harder than it used to be when, once aboard tho sainbukh, tho prospective slaves shared the existence and the labours of their guards. KEPT BELOW. Now, for fear of British interference, the wretched creatures are herded under the rudder deck, and there, half suffocated by the heat and stench, knee deep in bilge ..water, they may liave to endure several days' tossing \vMle their

prison-craft beats, across in therface of a. persistent gale! I once wat ched the arirval at Jeizau of such '&• d!»ow,'an& was told that two women hadf. died on. their journey, ono of them ?h childbirth. ,

Technically, it is legitimate for Moslems to make slaves only of!, enemies captured in battle, or of those peoples or tribes who have no written religion, but the regular slave-traders (.abide, by; no such limitations. When • Pie Abyssinian supply runs short theyl, raid tho length of the Western Arabian eoaat in well-armed dhows, whofce r jiles, however, are only used as a bist resort. Tho slaver generally follows the same method. lie picks out a light;; sambukh. tacking into the wind, and i full sail' he sweeps down ffn tho luc'Uess boat with the full force ''of the g ile-behind .his thirty tous. If tho m,v joeuvrc is proporly carried out, the sin iiller craft capsizes, after which the pirates havo nothing to do but pick out: tho most promising merchandise and * rescue it from the deep. Anything c >ld or sick is left to drown. • "'•-'■ No dhow crossing from I Jort,.Sudan, to Jeizan or Ilodeidah will . leave the. comparative safety of the Af ricau coast uhtil many miles south of i its destination, when it can count oi j a. strong azzicb (the prevailing south erly wind) to take it across the Bed Sc ti,' straight into harbour, without any li ngering on." that dangerous coast where : iho peculiarly unpleasant Dhuwi Bar yakat,,butchered the survivors of the Emdeu. ■ WILL CONTINTX; 5. In vain King Hussein an id the late Emir Idrisi, the former, und tr pressure from the British Govrnmen it, declared slavery to be illegal. As lpi jg as Western Arabia is determine! *oj spend the surplus of her trade in cc ff<ie, hides, and spices on new blood for her harems, the traffic is likely to conti eu):, espeei-. ally as the merchandise in i juestion appears to have very little n~ (ore feeling than a herd of cattle. The obstinacy; o ' those whom our ci-vilisati on would at all costs save from market ,; arid harem is one of the worst obstr icles in tho way of the zealous watcher s whi/ccaselessly patrol the JJed Seal, stopping, searching, and intorrogatiri g every suspicious dhow. Tho captive t are generally so much more, fright ened of the white men than they are o £ their gaoler- that whatever they say ;they appear to be lying, and I remcin fcer one particular fuzzy head who \ saj rescued iinich against his will and triumphantly restored.to Abyssinia, tho'. igh he .swore

truth.as ,it was subt discovered) that he'd been 1; <<m and bred in Arabia. ... :.

So long as the black ac 'cepts slavery as a natural end, in some leases, as an. enviable condition, it. wi fl be impossible to put an end to its _ existence. In the Sahara, near Kufra, tl kere are large slave farms-where men ai id women are bred for the market in a comparatively scientific manner, ;which takes into account the various strains j and relationships', and in Asir I havo known a sheriff deliberately, cross,one j'human breed with another in order [to raise a sturdy progeny. Slave-breeding, will last as long as the harem veils 1 £io major part of primitive Eastern lif ie, but largely owing to the vigilance of the French and .British Government, its foreiga trade is'undoubtedly on the.wane.