The lot of a slave is indeed a miserable one. He is looked upon as an animal created, as the Sudanese say, to make the life of Moslems easy; he must do all the hard work, both in the household and in the field. It is the idea of the Sudanese, that if a slave gets sufficient food he always becomes proud and unmanageable. His dress consists merely of a rag tied round his loins: whatever money he may make by his work is the property of his master. The female slaves carry water and grind corn, in return they are continually blamed and cursed; any disobedience or dishonesty is punished by flogging, or their bodies are gashed with razors, salt being rubbed into the wounds, and, lest they should have any cause to forget, their half-healed cuts are often ripped open again and salt rubbed in afresh. In the treatment of their slaves women are more cruel than men, more especially if jealousy is the cause of their anger. Woe to the unfortunate female slave who shows any love for her master! She suffers a species of torture which it would be impossible for me to describe here, and what wonder is it that in despair they often fly from their masters and mistresses? Yet it is only by this harsh treatment that slaves can be made obedient; it is a very true saying that a person who is forcibly deprived of liberty can only be brought into subjection by force. Slaves under Mahdiist _régime_ have so many different ways of revenging themselves on their masters that they never fail to seize an opportunity when it is offered. The immorality of slaves is quite beyond description; but it cannot be the fault of the unfortunate creatures themselves, for in their own savage homes it is not so. They learn all the vices of their masters, and, indeed, are forced to participate in them or submit to a flogging; consequently, disease of the most loathsome kind is everywhere prevalent, and to be free from it is thought to be the mark of a poor creature. In many cases which have come within my own knowledge, the offspring of such people die young, putrid by disease; of fifteen children of one father, thirteen died in five years. At first the Baggara were not infected to any large extent, but contact with the inhabitants of the Nile valley has communicated the pest, which is now eating into the constitutions of this, the most powerful and warlike tribe in the Sudan.[R]