Slavery
A word about slavery. It is simply preposterous to talk about slavery, as that term is understood, either being legalized or existing in this part of Africa. It is nonsense. The system is a patriarchal one, there being no actual difference, socially, between the slave (called by their protector son or daughter) and the children of the person with whom they live. Such persons intermarry, and frequently become the heads of state: indeed, generally so, as I do not remember at present a king or chief with whom I became acquainted whose entire members of the household, from the lowest domestic to the highest official, did not sustain this relation to him, they calling him baba or "father," and he treating them as children. And where this is not the case, it either arises from some innovation among them or those exceptional cases of despotism to be found in every country. Indeed, the term "slave" is unknown to them, only as it has been introduced among them by whites from Europe and America. So far from abject slavery, not even the old feudal system, as known to exist until comparatively recent in enlightened and Christian Europe, exists in this part of Africa.
Criminals and prisoners of war are legally sold into slavery among themselves, just as was the custom in almost every civilized country in the world till very lately, when nothing but advanced intelligence and progressive Christianity among the people put a stop to it. There is no place, however, but Illorin, a bona fide Mohammedan kingdom, where we ever witnessed any exhibition of these facts.
How Slaves Are Obtained
Slaves are abducted by marauding, kidnapping, depraved natives, who, like the organized bands and gangs of robbers in Europe and America, go through the country thieving and stealing helpless women and children, and men who may be overpowered by numbers. Whole villages in this way sometimes fall victims to these human monsters, especially when the strong young men are out in the fields at work, the old of both sexes in such cases being put to death, whilst the young are hurried through some private way down to the slave factories usually kept by Europeans (generally Portuguese and Spaniards) and Americans, on some secluded part of the coast. And in no instances are the parents and relatives known to sell their own children or people into slavery, except, indeed, in cases of base depravity, and except such miserable despots as the kings of Dahomi and Ashantee; neither are the heads of countries known to sell their own people; but like the marauding kidnapper, obtain them by war on others.
IX
DISEASES OF THIS PART OF AFRICA, TREATMENT, HYGIENE, ALIMENT
Diseases, Face of the Country, Spring Water
The diseases in this part of Africa are still more simple than those of Liberia; and even the native fever, for known causes, generally is much less severe. In Liberia, and all that part of Africa, the entire country (except the cleared farms in the republic and the limited rice-fields of the natives) is a dense, heavy-wooded, primitive forest, rank with the growth and putrified vegetation of a thousand ages. But the entire Aku country, throughout the second plateau, presents a very different phase. Here, one is struck with the beautiful clear country which continually spreads out in every direction around; and (except the thickets or forests left as defences, ambuscades, and arbors of rest, rugged hilltops, and gullies), there is nothing but recent timber to be found growing on the lands. Timber in Africa is reproduced very speedily; hence may be found in some parts designedly left very heavy timber; but the greatest unbroken forest through which we passed at any one time, of this description, never exceeded, I think, ten miles. All the spring (shallow wells generally) and other living water, as perennial streams, is both good-tasted, and if the constant use of running stream water be a fair test, I would decide as wholesome. There are some good springs in Africa, and good water doubtless may everywhere be obtained by digging suitable wells.