Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873 edition. Excerpt: ... economy, it is not really so, for the cost of feeding slaves for the time they are on board is almost nil. In the vessel whence they are drawn there is usually abundance of coarse rice or grain, which, when boiled, makes ample provision for them. The cooking appliances for the ship's company need not generally be encroached on. Cooking utensils of sufficient capacity are commonly found in the dhows, and a temporary fire-place on the upper deck, with a temporary cook to attend it, make all the necessary culinary arrangements. Such utensils as are discoverable in the dhow, form platters for the food; but if all fails, some pieces of matting are very efficient dishes for the dry cooked rice. At feeding time, the slaves are grouped--generally by the shoulders--in messes of eight or ten, round the platters containing the rice or boiled grain; the negroes dig it out with the natural spade formed by closing and extending the fingers; the rice or grain so dug, is rolled in the hands into a sort of gigantic bolus, and then bolted. It is not a delicate mode of feeding, and looking at it is not calculated to increase your appetite for dinner; but as an illustration of the proverb that fingers were made before forks, it is perhaps satisfactory. Though the rescued East African slaves neither grin nor chatter to the extent which is proverbially natural to their West African brethren, they are good humoured when things go straight with them; and, like birds about to roost, they become more loquacious as evening draws on. Their talk is of their food, their immediate conditions, and immediate prospects. If the women are caught in the midst of a joke, ten to one it has reference to their prospect of husbands. A very standing joke amongst my female...
