Most slaves did not leave. I have several times tried to estimate the number of those in slavery and the number of those who left. Igor Kopytoff has used estimates made by me to minimize the importance of the exodus and to underline that most slaves chose not to leave. We differ in how important we consider a movement of probably over a million people and what that movement meant to slave systems, but in one way, he is right. Most slaves did not leave; probably somewhat over a third did. Leaving was not easy. Nobody was offering to help slaves, and where the masters were able to do so, they were willing to coerce. Most important, the exodus involved a long walk home. Slaves often owned nothing but what they could carry with them and in most cases that was very little. For those going from the Sahel to the southern savanna, it was usually a walk of twenty to thirty days. It was about 230 km from Banamba to Buguni, more than double that from Nioro, and even further for Gurunsi slaves returning from desert-side areas. Furthermore, they had no idea what they would find when they got home. If they could get land and seed, it was three months from planting to harvest.