The Souakin caravans, that go as far as Sennaar, bring from thence a large quantity of tobacco, which they sell in the Yemen. These merchants enjoy more credit at Shendy than any others, because they are the richest and most numerous, all free Arabs themselves, not peasants, like those of Upper Egypt, or Blacks, like those of Kordofan; but composed chiefly of the best families of Souakin, and who are prompt to revenge an insult offered to any individual amongst them. They are always treated very politely by the Mek, to whom they make larger presents than any other traders. But I shall recur to this subject hereafter, under the head of Souakin, which at present is, next to Massouah and Cairo, the most important slave-trading place in north-eastern Africa, beyond the limits of Soudan.
The Dóngola trade is of little consequence at Shendy. The Dongoláwy bring dates, which they buy up in Mahass, and tobacco, the growth of their own country. Dates are sent to Sennaar and to Kordofan as presents to the chiefs, and are there considered, next to sugar, the most exquisite dainty they have.
The female slaves who have served an apprenticeship in the houses at Dóngola are eagerly sought for by all traders, as expert cooks, and good servants.i[37]
From the concurrence of all these traders, Shendy has become the first commercial town in the Black countries for the Egyptian and Arabian slave trade. These two trades, and the Abyssinian, are closely allied to each other, and merchants of all the three countries occasionally meet each other upon the most distant limits of their respective trades: and the imports into Africa from the north and east are much the same. The farthest limit of the trade appears to be Dar Saley, or perhaps Bagermé, to the west and north-west of Darfour. Although the countries, to a considerable distance beyond those provinces, keep up an intercourse with Darfour, for the purpose of receiving Arabian and Egyptian merchandize, they are not accessible to commercial enterprize; and merchants, with goods of any value, would in vain attempt to pass through the hostile tribes of Arabs and Bedouins who people the Bahr el Ghazal, and the idolatrous African nations between Bagermé and Afnou. Beyond Bahr el Ghazal, towards the frontiers of Bournou, the Fezzan, or Zeyla trade, as it is here termed, begins to exercise its influence, and spreads from thence far westward across Soudan. Notwithstanding my repeated questions on this head (and such questions may be put to the Black traders without fear of exciting jealousy or suspicion), I never could trace any regular intercourse, by means of caravans, between eastern and western Soudan; nor have I ever seen any merchants who came from the countries beyond Bagermé. Those persons who wish to engage in that direction join the Fezzan caravans at Bornou. The few Bornou people who come by the direct route through Bahr el Ghazal to Darfour are pilgrims who live by charity. The greater part of the slaves met with at Shendy are from the idolatrous countries in the vicinity of Darfour, Borgho, and Dar Saley. Those from Bornou, who are easily distinguished by their tattooed skin, never find their way to Shendy; such of them as are seen in Egypt, came by the way of Fezzan. Few foreign traders, except Egyptians, visit Shendy. A few Yembawy, or Arabians from Yembo, arrive occasionally by the Souakin caravans, and there are others of the same people, who accompany the Egyptian caravans, for there are considerable settlements of Yembawy at Kenne and Gous, in Upper Egypt. When I was at Shendy, there were at Kordofan, two Yembawy and one Turk from Mohil; the latter had gone thither with a small adventure from Egypt, but had spent his money in debauchery, and could not raise enough to carry him back to the northern countries. Turkishi[38] merchants going from Egypt to Darfour, and Sherifs from the Hedjaz, whose object it is to importune the chiefs for presents, occasionally come this way. While I was at Shendy an Arabian came from Souakin, who was of the tribe of Refaay (رفاعي), which is related to the great tribe of Djeheyne (جهينه),i[39] near Yembo; he told me that he had heard that there were descendants of his own tribe of Refaay settled to the south of Sennaar, and that he intended to visit them, in the hope of obtaining some presents from them, as they had always manifested kindness to their relatives in the Hedjaz, especially to such as had undertaken the journey for the purpose of saluting them. He knew the name, and the place of residence of one of the chiefs of these Refaay on the river, about six days above Sennaar, and he left Shendy with the Sennaar caravan, on his way thither.
Persons from the Hedjaz and from Egypt sometimes pass by Shendy on their way to Sennaar, in search of young monkeys, which they teach to perform the tricks so amusing to the populace in the towns of Arabia, Syria, and Egypt. I was repeatedly asked whether I had not come in search of monkeys, for that my equipments appeared too shabby for those of a merchant. These monkey-hunters are held in great contempt, because, as the Negroes say, they pass their whole lives in making others laugh at them.
I have extended my remarks upon commerce to so great a length because it is the very life of society in these countries. There is not a single family which is not connected, more or less, with some branch of traffic, either wholesale or retail, and the people of Berber and Shendy appear to be a nation of traders in the strictest sense of the word. I have a few remarks to add upon the most important branch of their commerce, the slave-trade.
I calculate the number of slaves sold annually in the market of Shendy at about five thousand, of whom about two thousand five hundred are carried off by the Souakin merchants, and fifteen hundred by those of Egypt; the remainder go to Dóngola, and to the Bedouins who live to the east of Shendy, towards the Atbara and the Red Sea. I have already made some mention of the places from whence these slaves come. Those brought from Kordofan to Darfour, are, for the greater part, from the idolatrous countries of Benda, Baadja, Fetigo, and Fertit, to the south and south-west of Darfour, from twenty to forty days from Kobbe; each of these countries speaks a separate language. The Darfour merchants trade with Fertit, which lies about twenty days distant from Kobbe, in a southerly direction: the country is mountainous, and its inhabitants are wholly ignorant of agriculture; but they have tasted the luxury of Dhourra and Dokhen; and are said, in cases of a dearth of these grains, to sell even their own children to procure them.
Far the largest proportion of the slaves imported into Shendy are below the age of fifteen. All of them, both male and female, are divided by the traders, with reference to age, into three classes: namely, Khomasy (خماسي), comprising those apparently below ten or eleven years; Sedasy (سَداسي), those above eleven and below fourteen or fifteen; and Balegh (بالغ), or grown up, those of fifteen and upwards. The Sedasy are the most esteemed; when I was at Shendy a male of this class was worth fifteen or sixteen dollars, provided he bore the marks of the small pox, without which a boy is not worth more than two-thirds of that price; a female was worth from twenty to twenty-five Spanish dollars. The price of the male Khomasy was twelve, of the female fifteen dollars. The male Balegh seldom sells for more than eight or ten dollars; and there is but a small proportion of this class, because it is thought both in Egypt and Arabia, that no great dependance can be placed upon any slave, who has not been brought up in the owner’s family from an early age. Hence there is a great reluctance to the purchasing of grown up slaves for domestic purposes, or even for labourers. The Baleghs are chiefly bought by the Bedouins, who employ them as shepherds. The Bisharein have many of them in all their encampments. Grown up female slaves, although past the age of beauty, sometimes sell for as much as thirty dollars, if they are known to be skilful in working, sewing, cooking, &c. In Syria few slaves are kept; those which I have seen there are, for the greater part, imported by the caravans from Bagdad, and come from Souahel on the Mozambik coast.
Few slaves are imported into Egypt, without changing masters several times, before they are finally settled in a family; for instance, those from Fertit are first collected on the borders of that country by petty merchants who deal in Dhourra. These sell them to the traders of Kobbe, who repair to Fertit in small caravans for that purpose. At Kobbe they are bought up by the Darfour, or Kordofan traders, who transport them to Obeydh in Kordofan. Here they generally pass into the hands of other Kordofan dealers, who carry them to Shendy, for the Soudan merchants commonly limit their speculations to a single market; thus the Kordofan people who trade to Darfour are different from those who visit Shendy, while, on the other hand, the Egyptians who trade to Shendy only, are different from those who proceed forward to Sennaar; and, in like manner, the Souakin traders are divided into Shendy and Sennaar merchants. At Shendy the slave is bought by some Egyptian or Abadbe. Upon his arrival in Upper Egypt he is disposed of either at Esne, Siout, or Cairo. In the two first places, entire lots of slaves are taken off by merchants, who sell them in retail at Cairo, or in the small towns of Upper Egypt, in each of which they stop for a few days, in their passage down the river. Even at Cairo they are not always finally disposed of in the first instance. The Khan of the slave-traders, called Okal-ed-djelabe, which is near the mosque El Azher, is crowded with pedlars and petty traders, who often bargain with the merchants of Upper Egypt for slaves immediately after their arrival, and content themselves with a small profit for the re-sale. Again, there are merchants from Smyrna and Constantinople residing constantly at Cairo, who deal in nothing but slaves; these persons export them from Alexandria, and it often happens that they pass through three or four hands, between Alexandria and their final destination in the northern provinces of Turkey. Such is the common lot of the unfortunate slave, but many instances happen of a still more rapid change of masters. At Shendy and Esne I have seen slaves bought and sold two or three times before they were finally removed from the market; after which, perhaps, if the master at the end of a few days trial did not find them answer his expectations, he would again put them up for sale, or exchange them for others. In fact, slaves are considered on the same level with any other kind of merchandize, and as such are continually passing from one merchant to another. The word Ras (head) is applied to them as to the brute species; and a man is said to possess ten Ras Raghig (رقيق), or ten head of slaves,i[40] in the same manner as he would be said to possess fifty Ras Ghanam, or head of sheep. When the buyer is desired to take the slave away, it is usual to say, Soughe, (سوقه), drive him out, an expression which is applied only to cattle, as Soug el ghanam go damek (سوق الغَنَم قدامك).
I have seen among the young slaves on sale at Shendy, many children of four or five years old without their parents; others of the same age are met with in the market, with their mothers; and the traders so far shew humanity, that they seldom sell them separately; when such a thing is done, the vender is in general reproached with being guilty of an act of cruelty.