Fred asked how many men were engaged in the business.
"As to that," said Abdul, "it is not easy to say. The merchants of Khartoum had organized a sort of military force for capturing the negroes and bringing them to market, and one of them was reported to have twenty-five hundred men in his pay. They were armed and drilled like soldiers, though not very thoroughly disciplined, and were divided into companies sufficiently strong to overpower any African village, and make prisoners of such of the inhabitants as they wished to carry to market. Altogether, it was thought that fifteen thousand subjects of the Khedive had left their honest occupations and were engaged, directly or indirectly, in the slave-trade."
"They must have occupied a great deal of country," said Frank, "for so many of them to be engaged in the traffic."
ARAB SLAVE-TRADERS.
"That is true," replied Abdul. "Every trader had a district to himself, and his men were divided into companies, with a chain of stations or military posts. They could thus hold sway over an immense area. One slave-trader named Agad controlled a region containing ninety thousand square miles, and another had a territory nearly as large.
"There was an agreement among the traders that they would not disturb each other's territory; they sometimes got into trouble and fought among themselves, but this was not often, as they had quite enough to do to kill and capture the natives. Each man in his own region could do what he chose, and the business had all the horrible features that the slave-trade has everywhere."
One of the boys asked how many slaves were taken from Central Africa every year, and where the slaves were carried.