Quotation from: Lost Continent

Written by: Edgar Rice Burroughs

In the center of the troops following the imperial elephant
marched a great caravan of slaves. The old street sweeper
at my elbow told me that these were the gifts brought in
from the far outlying districts by the commanding officers
of the frontier posts. The majority of them were women,
destined, I was told, for the harems of the emperor and his
favorites. It made my old companion clench his fists to see
those poor white women marching past to their horrid fates,
and, though I shared his sentiments, I was as powerless to
alter their destinies as he.