Evening, died a young female slave. She had been ill a month. She was of the most delicate frame, and cost seventy dollars as a great beauty. She was buried in the grave-yard of the Marabet without any ceremonies. Happy creature to have so died. They first tried to dig a grave in open desert, but not succeeding, they carried her to the burial-ground of the Marabet.
11th.—To-day is the fourteenth day of the month, and Wednesday instead of Monday, by the reckoning of my fellow travellers. A fine morning, but we all felt severe cold during the past night, and which nipped up the poor slaves.
This morning visited Haj Ibrahim early, and seeing a young female very ill I remarked: "You had better leave her with the daughter of the Marabout." He replied, much agitated, "Oh, no, it's a she-devil." Thinking she might be sulky, as Negroes often sulk, I made no other observation. A few minutes after I heard the noise of whipping, and turning round, to my great surprise, I saw the Haj beating her not very mercifully. He had a whip of bull's hide with which he gave her several lashes. This displeased me much, for I thought if the girl had sulked a little she might have been cured without recourse to the whip, in her debilitated state. About a quarter of an hour afterwards, or not so much, I saw Haj Omer, servant of the Haj, going towards the graveyard, with a small ax in his hand, and suspecting something had happened, I followed to see what it was. On arriving at the Marabet, I asked,
"What are you going to do?"
"Dig a grave, only," was the reply.
"What," I continued, "are you going to dig the grave of the Negress whom Haj Ibrahim was just now beating?"
"Yes," Omer returned, greatly ashamed.
I was not surprised at the answer, but a disagreeable chill came over me. Omer then added apologetically, "They bring these poor creatures by force, they steal them. They give them nothing to eat but hasheesh (herbs). Her stomach is swollen. We couldn't cure her; Haj Ibrahim beat her to cure her. She had diarrhœa." This requires no comment. I add only, if Haj Ibrahim, who is a good master, can treat his slaves thus, what may we not expect from others less humane? There is no doubt but that the whipping of this poor creature hastened her death. She was, indeed, whipped at the point of death. I stopped to see the lacerated slave buried. She was some eleven years of age, and of frailest form. A grave was dug for her about fifteen inches deep and ten wide. It is fortunate there are no hyenas or chacalls to scratch up these bodies. They do "rest in peace." Into this narrow crib of earth she was thrust down, resting on her right side, with her head towards the south, and her face towards the east, or towards Mecca. She had on a small chemise, and her head and feet and loins were wrapped round with a frock of tattered black Soudan cotton. Omer, before he put her in, felt her breast to see if she were really dead. At first he seemed to doubt it, and fancied he felt her heart beating, but at last he made up his mind that she was really dead. I felt her hands. They were deathly cold. At times Moors bury people warm, and not unfrequently alive. They are always in a desperate hurry to get corpses under ground, thinking the soul cannot have any peace whilst the body lies unburied. As the last service to the body, Omer took some earth and stopped up her nostrils. This was done to prevent her reviving should she be not really dead, and attempt to move. Unquestionably if buried in the open desert, it is a service, for the wretch only revives to die a more horrible death. Some small flag-stones were then laid over the narrow cell, and these were covered with earth, in the form of a common grave, being only a little narrower than our graves, as the body is turned up on its side. The two poor young things lay side by side, the one who died yesterday, and the one to-day, giving their liberated spirits opportunity to return to the loved land of freedom, the wild woods of the Niger. Happy beings were they;—better to die so in The Desert, in the morning of their bondage, than live to minister to the corrupt appetites of the unfeeling sensualist! Seeing others, free people, with pieces of stone raised up at their heads, and wishing the slave and the free to have equal rights in the grave, I fetched two pieces of stone and placed them at their heads likewise. If it be permitted to pray for the dead, God save, in mercy, these two youthful, frail, but almost sinless souls!
DIRGE[32].
"O'er her toil-wither'd limbs sickly languors were shed, And the dark mists of death on her eyelids were spread; Before her last sufferings how glad did she bend, For the strong arm of death was the arm of a friend.