'The Slave Trade of East Africa.' [‎19] (28/108)

19
force by land or sea "which, his political Eesident might wield for his
or his subjects' benefit.
U 0ur treaty with the Sultan's father furnishes a more important
consideration than anything else. This treaty allows the Slave
Trade to be carried on within certain specified limits, and for the
avowed object of permitting supplies of labour to be carried to the
more southerly territories of the late Imaum. This concession of
a limited use of the Slave Trade was no doubt made in the hope
that, at some no very distant date, the way would be paved for
the complete cessation of the trade in slaves. It certainly never
was contemplated by either of the contracting parties that a special
stipulation for a small and well-defined remission of the traffic should
be made, as now it is made, the means of erecting the Island of
Zanzibar into a great slave emporium, and extending the ocean felaye
Trade to the Eed Sea and Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. . Still, though our object in
the Treaty has been perverted, and we have been practically over
reached, treaty obligations ought to be respected till that alteration is
made in the stipulations which the present aspect of the ocean
Slave Trade throughout the world demands."
Again, writing from Lake Nyassa in the following month of
August, he returns to the subject, and says:—
' i I would earnestly recommend that His Highness the Sultan
be pressed so to alter the Treaty with his late father as to cancel
our permission of a limited Slave Trade.
u This alteration cannot fairly be-called injurious to the status
of slavery in the Island of Zanzibar. It is a sheer absurdity to
imagine that the reigning family imports 3,000 slaves annually for
domestic purposes, and that the inhabitants generally import 12,000 for
similar purposes. They are all intended for exportation to the j^orth;
and the coast towns, Kilwa, Mombas, &c., receive far more slaves
from the interior than they ever make use of for cultivation.
"To render the measure I have ventured to propose efficient,
an English man-of-war should always be present in the harbour
of Zanzibar during the visits of the Northern Arabs; and during
the months when the dhows are known to run slaves, the force
usually stationed on their route should have a depot in their vicinity,
so that after a single capture the cruiser may not, as usually happens,
be obliged to retire and land the slaves at the most important crisis
for action."
And, again, in a letter dated 1st February, 1867 ? written from
Bemlbo, about 500 miles from the spot where he penned his
first report, he devotes the greater part of his space to the slave
trade, and concludes with a regret that the geogTaphical notes
must be so scanty.