Some years, slaves to the number of two thousand are brought from the interior, by the native merchants, most of whom, they say, are prisoners of war. These merchants purchase them from the different princes, who have made captives of them. Their mode of travelling is by tying them by the neck with leather thongs, at about a yard distant from each other, thirty and forty in a string; having generally a large truss or bundle of corn, or an elephant's tooth, upon the head of each or many of them. In their way from the mountains, far in the interior, they have to travel through vast woods, where, for several days, perhaps, no water is to be procured. To obviate this distressing scarcity, they carry water in skins. There are a great number of these merchants, who, furnishing themselves with European goods from the slave-factors, penetrate the inland countries, and with them purchase, in their route, gold, slaves, and elephants' teeth. (Note E.) "They use asses as well as slaves to convey their goods, but no camels nor horses. Besides the slaves brought down to the factories by these merchants, many others are bought in the vicinity. These are either taken in war, as the former, or are men condemned for crimes; and, not unfrequently, they are stolen. These the Company never purchase, if able to ascertain the fact. It is worthy of remark, that, since the great demand for slaves, most punishments are changed into slavery; and there being an accruing advantage on such condemnations, they exaggerate faults scarcely more than venial, into crimes, in order to obtain the benefit of selling the criminal. Not only murder and the grosser crimes are punished in this manner, but every trifling misdemeanour renders the culprit obnoxious to the same dreadful penalty. It was not many days since that I had a man brought to me to be sold, for having stolen a tobacco pipe; and I had infinite trouble to persuade the aggrieved party to accept of a compensation, and to leave the man free.