The domestic slaves are generally well treated. The males who have arrived at the age of eighteen or nineteen are given a wife, and sent to live at their villages and farms in the country, where they build a hut, and until the harvest are fed by their owners. When the time for cultivating the ground and sowing the seed comes on, the owner points out what he requires, and what is to be sown on it. The slave is then allowed to enclose a part for himself and family. The hours of labour, for his master, are from daylight till mid-day; the remainder of the day is employed on his own, or in any other way he may think proper. At the time of harvest, when they cut and tie up the grain, each slave gets a bundle of the different sorts of grain, about a bushel of our measure, for himself. The grain on his own ground is entirely left for his own use, and he may dispose of it as he thinks proper. At the vacant seasons of the year he must attend to the calls of his master, whether to accompany him on a journey, or go to war, if so ordered. The children of a slave are also slaves, and when able are usually sent out to attend the goats and sheep, and, at a more advanced age, the bullocks and larger cattle; they are soon afterwards taken home to the master’s house, to look after his horse or his domestic concerns, as long as they remain single. The domestic slaves are fed the same as the rest of the family, with whom they appear to be on an equality of footing. The children of slaves, whether dwelling in the house or on the farm, are never sold, unless their behaviour is such that, after repeated punishment, they continue unmanageable, so that the master is compelled to part with them. The slaves that are sold are those taken from the enemy, or newly purchased, who, on trial, do not suit the purchaser. When a male or female slave dies unmarried, his property goes to the owner. The children of the slaves are sometimes educated with those of the owner, but this is not generally the case. The male and female children of the better sort of the Fellatas are all taught to read and write Arabic, but are instructed separately. The male children of the great are generally sent to another town, at some distance from that where their parents reside, to receive their education; in which case they usually reside in the house of a friend, and a malem or man of learning attends them. Those of the middle and lower classes generally send their children to the schools, which they attend for an hour at day-break, and another at sunset, reading their Arabic lessons aloud and simultaneously. They are required to get their lessons by heart before the writing is washed off the board on which it is written. The ink thus diluted is drank by the scholars, when their master writes a new lesson on the board.