AN AFRICAN SLAVE RAID. How Traffickers Human Flesh Bring Victims Isto Subjection.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 400, 7 September 1889, Page 3

AN AFRICAN SLAVE RAID. How Traffickers Human Flesh Bring Victims Isto Subjection.

The men who appear the strongest and whose escape is to be feaved, have their hands tied, and sometimes the_ir feet, in such a fashion that walking becomes a torture to them, and on their neck* are placed yokes w hich attach several of them together. They march all day ; at night, when they stop to rest, a few hand fills of 'sorgho' are distributed among the cap tives. This is all their food. Next morning they must start again. But after the first day or two the fatigue, the sufferings and privations have- weakened a great many. The women and the aged are the first to halt. Then, in order to strike tenor into this miserable mass of human beings, their conductors, armed with a wooden bar to economise powder, approach those who appear to be the most exhausted, and deal them a terrible blow on the nape of the neck. -The unfortunate victims utter a cry and fall to the ground, in tho convulsions of death. The terrified troop immediately resumes its march. Terror has imbued even the weakest with new strength. Each time someone breaks down the same horrible scene is repeated. At night, on arm ing at their halting place, after the first days of such a life, a not less frightened scene awaits them. The traffickers in human flesh have acquired by experience a knowledge cf how much their victims can endure. A glance shows them those who will soon sink from weaiineps ; then to economise the scanty food which they distribute, they pass behind the wretched beings and fell them with a single blow. Their corpses remain where they fall, when they are not suspended on the branches of the neighbouring trees ; and it is close to them that their comrades are obliged to eat and to sleop. But what sleep ! It may be easily imagined.