It consists in twenty yards of cotton cloth, or of that stuff which bears the name of "Merikani," a little powder, a handful of cowry (shells very common in that country, which serve as money), a few pearls, or even those of the slaves who would be difficult to sell.

The slaves are paid, when the trader has no other money.
Among the five hundred slaves that the caravan counted, there were few grown men.

That is because, the "Razzia" being finished and the village set on fire, every native above forty is unmercifully massacred and hung to a neighboring tree.

Only the young adults of both sexes and the children are intended to furnish the markets.
After these men-hunts, hardly a tenth of the vanquished survive.

This explains the frightful depopulation which changes vast territories of equatorial Africa into deserts.
Here, the children and the adults were hardly clothed with a rag of that bark stuff, produced by certain trees, and called "mbouzon" in the country.