How glad, therefore, was I when I found them not half so forlorn and neglected as we Europeans are accustomed to imagine! I saw around me friendly smiling faces, from the grimaces and contortions of which I could easily discover that their owners were making quizzical remarks on every passing stranger.
The market is a great yard, surrounded by rooms, in which the slaves live.

By day they may walk about in the yard, pay one another visits, and chatter as much as they please.
In a market of this kind we, of course, see every gradation of colour, from light brown to the deepest black.

The white slaves, and the most beautiful of the blacks, are not however to be seen by every stranger, but are shut up in the dwellings of the traffickers in human flesh.

The dress of these people is simple in the extreme.
They either wear only a large linen sheet, which is wrapped round them, or some light garment.

Even this they are obliged to take off when a purchaser appears.