The Sooloo Archipelago. 133
superabundant
wealth, and the consequence is, there is no great ambition to amass it.
Polygamy and slavery, the accompaniments of the Mohammedan
faith,'flourish in Sooloo.
In
Sooloo a man hardly understands what it is to work for wages ; he is
somewhat ashamed to let himself-out. There must, however, be hewers of
wood and carriers of water, whether they be slaves who are a part of a
man's establishment, and who identify his interests with their own, or
servants earning a poor pittance, with far harder work, and liable to
be cast adrift on a pitiless world. There are exceptional cases in
which a slave meets with a hard master, but generally speaking, the
slaves are fairly happy, well treated, and not over-worked. They live
on the same food as their masters, and the wife they wish for is
generally obtained for them, but their children are also slaves. Some
men are born slaves, others are stolen into captivity, others are
slaves from debt, and lastly there are certain men who admit their
liability to servitude under the sons of their father's masters, but
they are never called upon to render service, and are practically free
agents.
Divers will occasionally sell for as much as
