'The Slave Trade of East Africa.' [‎13] (22/108)

13
brother of Muscat, an annual subsidy of 40,000 crowns, equal
to about £8,000 sterling.
Subsequent events have shown that the particular source
whence this subsidy was to be drawn was the royalty derived
by the Sultan from the slave-trade, of which he has the keys.
We have been thus particular in detailing the connection be
tween the saintly house of Muscat and the slave-trade, because,
although there are branches of the East Coast slave-trade
wholly unconnected with either Zanzibar or Muscat, there can
be no question that, since the decline of the Portuguese power,
and the extinction of the American trade, the principal abettors
of the trade have been the rulers of Muscat and Zanzibar.
In former days, about twenty to twenty-five years ago, our
cruisers used to seize slavers in the Mozambique Channel,
bound for Cuba or South America, and the writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. well remem
bers the arrival at the Cape of Good Hope of ship-loads of
these poor creatures, who were liberated there, and apprenticed
by the Government to such of the inhabitants as would under
take for five years the support and training of the boy or girl
committed to their care. In place of this trade, now defunct,
there is a small trade in slaves carried on with Madagascar and
the French islands of Mayotta, Nos Be and Reunion; the
latter used to go under the name of the free engages system—a
name pronounced by Colonel Playfair, the late Consul at
Zanzibar, to be but a synonym for the slave-trade.
We now come to the main division—the Northern Slave-
trade—which is carried on entirely by Arabs; the capital,
however, being largely furnished by Banians British
subjects, and the chief points between which it is
pursued are from the mainland opposite and to the south
of Zanzibar, to the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, and thence
to the Red Sea and Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. .
Before proceeding further with our subject, let us examine
into the reasons assignable for the existence of this Slave Trade.
Monsieur Menon, of the island of Reunion^ who was formerly
engaged in promoting what he calls African emigration to the
French colonies, ascribes the existence of the Slave Trade to the
fact that the tribes of the interior are in a state of perpetual