During the early days of Mahdiism the slave trade received an enormous impetus, more especially subsequent to the capture of Bahr el Ghazal and the occupation of Darfur. After Gessi Pasha's victory over Zubeir Pasha's son and the dispersion of the slave-dealers, several of the latter fled into the interior, where pursuit was impossible; then followed the era of liberty under the Mahdi's banner, the slave-dealers emerged from their hiding-places, and, with quantities of slaves, proceeded to Omdurman.
When at El Obeid I often saw as many as 500 of them marching along to the sound of music. Slaves were dragged from Darfur, bound together with leather thongs round their necks in batches of thirty. Abu Anga brought thousands of them from the Nuba hills. The only districts untouched hitherto were those in the vicinity of the White Nile, but quite recently the garrisons of Fashoda, Regaf, and Lado have been busily engaged in this human traffic; these blacks, however, who during the intervals of peace had been gradually recovering their strength, now determined to resist the Dervish authority, which was not very strong in those far-distant districts. It would have been a great thing if the Dervishes could have been turned out of Lado and Regaf. The Abyssinian campaigns also brought quantities of slaves to Omdurman, but these are little fitted for hard work, and are employed for the most part in grinding corn, carrying water, and as concubines.
Slave-hunting, too, is not carried on in the same way as it used to be. The Khalifa is too knowing to send large raiding expeditions for slaves into the distant provinces, as he fears they might possibly become independent and turn upon him; besides, private individuals are no longer permitted to be in possession of firearms.
Blacks captured in the Khalifa's various wars are sold as slaves, and, while the free Mussulman tribes have been greatly weakened and reduced in numbers by war and famine, the blacks have, on the other hand, been growing both in numbers and in strength. There is abundant proof of this in the great difficulties which the Dervish force at Fashoda is now experiencing, being scarcely strong enough to quit their steamers and sailing boats. The inhabitants of Jebel Nuba are once more almost independent, and now the Dervishes do not dare even to go to the foot of the hills. The withdrawal also of the various Baggara tribes from the neighbourhood of Shakka, &c., to Omdurman has rid the local blacks of their hated presence in their country.
The once notorious Jaalin and Danagla slave-hunters are now beginning to experience in a degree what a slave's life is, and, indeed, it almost seems as if the Khalifa Abdullah was an instrument of Heaven's vengeance on those bloodthirsty and ruthless slave-hunters.
The lot of a slave is indeed a miserable one. He is looked upon as an animal created, as the Sudanese say, to make the life of Moslems easy; he must do all the hard work, both in the household and in the field. It is the idea of the Sudanese, that if a slave gets sufficient food he always becomes proud and unmanageable. His dress consists merely of a rag tied round his loins: whatever money he may make by his work is the property of his master.
The female slaves carry water and grind corn, in return they are continually blamed and cursed; any disobedience or dishonesty is punished by flogging, or their bodies are gashed with razors, salt being rubbed into the wounds, and, lest they should have any cause to forget, their half-healed cuts are often ripped open again and salt rubbed in afresh.
In the treatment of their slaves women are more cruel than men, more especially if jealousy is the cause of their anger. Woe to the unfortunate female slave who shows any love for her master! She suffers a species of torture which it would be impossible for me to describe here, and what wonder is it that in despair they often fly from their masters and mistresses?
Yet it is only by this harsh treatment that slaves can be made obedient; it is a very true saying that a person who is forcibly deprived of liberty can only be brought into subjection by force. Slaves under Mahdiist régime have so many different ways of revenging themselves on their masters that they never fail to seize an opportunity when it is offered.
The immorality of slaves is quite beyond description; but it cannot be the fault of the unfortunate creatures themselves, for in their own savage homes it is not so. They learn all the vices of their masters, and, indeed, are forced to participate in them or submit to a flogging; consequently, disease of the most loathsome kind is everywhere prevalent, and to be free from it is thought to be the mark of a poor creature. In many cases which have come within my own knowledge, the offspring of such people die young, putrid by disease; of fifteen children of one father, thirteen died in five years. At first the Baggara were not infected to any large extent, but contact with the inhabitants of the Nile valley has communicated the pest, which is now eating into the constitutions of this, the most powerful and warlike tribe in the Sudan.[R]