“A rich citizen,” says this singular official report, “who has a sufficient number of emissaries called bondsmen, carries on this trade of kidnapping much more easily than a poor one does. The latter is often obliged to go himself to the _Kámpong Búgis_, or elsewhere, to take a view of the stolen victim, and to carry him home; while the former quietly smokes his pipe, sure that his thieves will in every corner find out for him sufficient game without his exerting himself at all. The thief, the interpreter, the seller, are all active in his service, because they are paid by him. In some cases the purchaser unites himself with the seller to deceive the interpreter, while in others the interpreter agrees with the thief and pretended seller to put the victim into the hands of the purchaser. What precautions, what scrutiny can avail, when we reflect, that the profound secrecy of the prisons is equalled only by the strict precautions in carrying the person on board?” The man-stealers were trained for the purpose. They marked out their victims, watched for days, and often weeks, endeavoured to associate themselves with them, and beguile them into some place where they might be easily secured. Or they pounced on them in the fields or woods. They roved about in gangs during the night, and in solitary places. None dare cry for help, or they were stabbed instantly, even though it were before the door of the purchaser. What hope indeed could there be for anybody, when the authorities were in this diabolical league? and this was the custom of legalizing a kidnapping: “A person calling himself an interpreter, repairs, at the desire of one who says that he has bought a slave, to the secretary’s office, accompanied by any native who, provided with a note from the purchaser, gives himself out as the seller. For three rupees, a certificate of sale in the usual form is immediately made out; three rupees are paid to the notary; two rupees are put into the hands of the interpreter; the whole transaction is concluded, and the purchaser has thus become the owner of a free-born man, who is very often stolen without his (the purchaser’s) concurrence; but about this he does not trouble himself, for the victim is already concealed where nobody can find him; nor can the transaction become public, because there never were found more faithful receivers than the slave-traders. It is a maxim with them, in their own phrase, “never to betray their prison.” Both purchaser and seller are often fictitious—the public officers being in league with the interpreters. By such means it is obvious a stolen man is as easily procured as if he were already pinioned at the door of his purchaser. You have only to give a rupee to any one to say that he is the seller, and plenty are ready to do that. Numbers maintain themselves on such profits, and slaves are thus often bribed against their own possessors. The victims are never examined, nor do