I Had At Length Discovered That It Was Bad
Policy To Commence A Dissertation Against The Slave Trade Generally;
This
Attacked local interests, therefore it was more diplomatic to speak
against the capture of women and children that belonged to
My hearers,
but to avoid a discussion upon the moral aspect of the slave trade.
The negro idea of the eighth commandment is: "Thou shalt not steal - from
ME;" but he takes a liberal view of the subject when the property
belongs to another.
I had been rather startled in the year of my arrival at Gondokoro, when,
during the voyage, I landed and conversed with some sheiks of the Shir
tribe. One of these headmen was loud in his complaints against the
slave-hunters and against the slave trade in particular, from which his
tribe had suffered. Many of the women and children had been carried off
by a neighbouring tribe, called the Berri, on the east of the Nile. The
sheik therefore proposed that I should join him with my troops and
capture all the women and children that belonged to his enemies. This
was natural enough, and was a simple example of the revenge that is
common to uneducated human nature. The sheik and I got on famously, and
I found a good listener, to whom I preached a touching sermon upon the
horrors of the slave trade, which I was resolved to suppress.
The good man was evidently moved at the allusion to the forcible
separation of children from their parents.
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