Add to this his annual excursions for slaves, sometimes bringing 1,000 or 1,600, of which one-fourth are his, as well as the same proportion of camels.

He alone can sell horses, which he buys for five or six dollars, when half starved, from the Arabs, who come to trade, and cannot maintain them, and makes a great profit by obtaining slaves in exchange for them.

All his people are fed by the public, and he has no money to pay, except to the bashaw, which is about 15,000 dollars per annum.

There are various other ways, in which he extorts money.

If a man dies childless, the sultan inherits great part of his property; and if he thinks it necessary to kill a man, he becomes his entire heir.
In Mourzouk, about a tenth part of the population are slaves, though many of them have been brought away from their native country so young as hardly to be considered in that light.