Page 427 - Travels in Arabis (Vol I)

388 TRAVELS IN OMAN. [cH.

or about thirteen thousand pounds; but Say-
yid S’aid, in order to gratify our Government,

who were then earnest in their endeavours to
suppress the trade, with unprecedented liber­

ality gratuitously abandoned the whole. For
this he has received no equivalent. Is this

generous? is it just? To Spain, a Christian
Government, we gave two hundred thousand

pounds for a similar abandonment, and re­
mitted some millions of their debt; yet, to a

Mohammedan prince, professing a faith which
openly sanctions, if it does not actually en­

join, slavery, we have given—our acknow­
ledgments !—at least, I hope we have, though

I have never heard of any. Proh pudor! Let
not England, who has hitherto stood forward

in a cause which may be said to have ele­
vated beyond all others the age in which we

live, and to have stamped it with a die in­
scriptive of the purest practical essence of

Christianity, be outrivalled in generosity by
the ruler of a remote part of Arabia !

I am informed that at Maskat about four
thousand slaves, of both sexes and all ages,

are disposed of annually. They may be
divided into three classes : the Towaylee, from