"They must have occupied a great deal of country," said Frank, "for so many of them to be engaged in the traffic." [Illustration: ARAB SLAVE-TRADERS.] "That is true," replied Abdul. "Every trader had a district to himself, and his men were divided into companies, with a chain of stations or military posts. They could thus hold sway over an immense area. One slave-trader named Agad controlled a region containing ninety thousand square miles, and another had a territory nearly as large. "There was an agreement among the traders that they would not disturb each other's territory; they sometimes got into trouble and fought among themselves, but this was not often, as they had quite enough to do to kill and capture the natives. Each man in his own region could do what he chose, and the business had all the horrible features that the slave-trade has everywhere." One of the boys asked how many slaves were taken from Central Africa every year, and where the slaves were carried. [Illustration: A SLAVE-GANG ON THE ROAD.] "It was estimated by Sir Samuel Baker," replied Abdul, "that not less than fifty thousand slaves were carried every year from the interior to the sea-coast, or kept in the camps of the slave-traders. The capture of fifty or a hundred slaves means the destruction of one or more villages, and the death of fifty or a hundred innocent persons while the destruction is going on. The traders induce tribes that would otherwise be at peace to make war on each other, by agreeing to buy all the prisoners. Whole districts are depopulated, life and property are insecure, and for every slave that is brought away it is safe to say that three or four of his kindred have been killed or die of starvation. It was a noble impulse of the Khedive to put an end to this state of affairs and remove the stigma of slave-dealing from his country." "But they still have slavery in Egypt, do they not?" inquired one of the boys. "Yes," was the reply, "slavery exists here, as Egypt is a Moslem country, and the Koran expressly allows it. But the form is growing milder every year, as the government does not protect it. Under Ismail Pacha a man might keep slaves, but if they ran away from him he could not call the police to assist in their capture, as he formerly was able to do. If they chose to stay away they could do so, without fear of being taken back; the result was that every slave-owner was obliged to treat his human property so kindly that there would be no inducement to leave him. Traffic in slaves is not permitted, and consequently the institution is not flourishing, and will soon disappear altogether.