CEXTEAL AFRICA. 



155 



000 inhabitants, situated in Upper Guinea, back 

 of Dahomey and the Ashantee country. Here he 

 has established an exchange, and made consider- 

 able profits. He buys ivory for one franc 20 cen- 

 times per kilogramme, and sells at the rate of 730 

 francs per ton salt, the price of which in Europe 

 is 50 francs. Gold-dust, from which the Gold 

 Coast derives its name, is here abundant in the 

 river-sand. M. Bonnat has returned to Europe, 

 in order to obtain improved apparatus ; he will 

 soon go back, taking with him M. George Bazin, 

 son of the inventor of the ingenious dredge em- 

 ployed in recovering the coin from the famous 

 Spanish galleon sunk in the bay of Vigo. M. 

 Bonnat has never suffered from disease during 

 his stay in Salaga, for he has used the same diet- 

 ary as the natives ; and yet the climate of Guinea 

 is more unwholesome than that of the lake-region. 

 The slave-trade is the great scourge of Africa. 

 To procure slaves, regular man-hunts are set on 

 foot. The Arab traders in the country lying near 

 the coast of the Indian Ocean and the Portuguese 

 half-breeds of the Atlantic coast carry on this 

 system of man-hunting, with the aid of the native 

 chiefs. The latter sell their own subjects, or at- 

 tack neighboring tribes, in order to procure cot- 

 tonades, glass beads, or arms. The result is fre- 

 quent wars of extermination. The man-hunters 

 fall upon a village, slay all those who make re- 

 sistance, and carry off all that have not made their 

 escape — men, women, and children. Some of the 

 captives are sent down to the coast, or transported 

 to Egypt or Arabia ; others are sold at various 

 markets in the interior, for employment in the 

 fields or in domestic service ; others, again, serve 

 as a medium of exchange — as actual money. 

 Throughout the entire region between the coast 

 of Congo and Lake Tanganyika the price of com- 

 modities is estimated at so many slaves, just as 

 formerly in Europe it was estimated at so many 

 head of cattle. Again and again was Cameron 

 unable to obtain what he wanted simply because 

 he did not possess the one form of money which 

 the people would accept by way of payment. 

 Traders visit the regions where ivory is abundant, 

 and make payment for their purchases in slaves. 

 In order to get back from Nyangwe to Benguela, 

 Cameron was obliged to travel in company with 

 Portuguese half-breeds, who were leading herds 

 of these unfortunate people in the direction of 

 Bihe. 1 



1 This statement of Cameron's has called forth a strong 

 protest in the Portuguese Chambers from Senhor Texeira 

 de Vasconeellos and Senhor d'Andrade It would be the 

 height of injustice to hold the Portuguese Government 

 answerable for the horrible crimes committed by half- | 



In proportion as commerce penetrates into the 

 interior, and the chiefs learn to have new wants, 

 the slave-trade develops and calls for a larger 

 number of victims. For every ten slaves that 

 reach their destination, a hundred lives are lost 

 in the attack upon the village or on the route. 

 To escape from the slave-hunters the natives flee 

 from their homes, conceal themselves in the jun- 

 gle, and return to the savage state. Cameron 

 fell in with this unfortunate class of people every- 

 where in the woods bordering on Lake Tangan- 

 yika. Livingstone has drawn a striking picture 

 of the ravages wrought by the traffic in slaves. 

 In 1851, when he visited the region of Lake Ny- 

 assa, he found there a dense population, industri- 

 ously cultivating a fertile soil, and living in great 

 comfort. The climate was so mild, and the na- 

 tives so gentle, so industrious, that he conceived 

 the idea of here settling the colony which later 

 was actually founded here, and which bears his 

 name. Ten years afterward, when he passed 

 through this same country, he could not recog- 

 nize it. The villages had been burned down and the 

 fields abandoned ; the people were gone — slaugh- 

 tered, carried away, or hid in the jungle. The 

 water courses were still choked with corpses, and 

 on the trees hung the bodies of women that had 

 been horribly mutilated. During the last years 

 of his life, Livingstone was ever haunted by these 

 horrible sights. 



" In endeavoring," he wrote, shortly before his 

 death, "to give an account of the slave-trade in 

 Eastern Africa, I have had to keep far within the 

 limits of the truth, for fear of being charged with 

 exaggeration ; but it were impossible to overstate 

 its cruelty and the evils resulting from it. The 

 spectacle that I have witnessed, though it included 

 nothing save the every-day incidents of this traffic, 

 was of so revolting a character that I am forever 

 striving to efface it from my memory. At times I 

 succeed in forgetting the painfulest of my recollec- 

 tions ; but often the dreadful scenes at which I 

 have been present rise up before my eyes in spite 

 of all that I can do, and cause me to start out of 

 my sleep with horror at the dead of night." 



breeds, and even by negroes who call themselves Portu- 

 guese because they have learned a few words of the Port- 

 uguese language during their stay in the coast towns. In 

 the late lamented Marquis de Sa da Bandeira's " O Tra- 

 balho Rural Africano," we may read of the measures 

 taken with a view to secure equal rights to all natives in 

 the Portuguese colonies. As was very eloquently demon- 

 strated by Senhor Texeira, his country has passed laws 

 quite as humane as those of any of the countries which 

 assume to lecture Portugal now. Nevertheless, the gov- 

 ernors of the Portuguese colonies in Africa might take 

 greater care to prevent an abuse of the national flag in 

 covering a hateful traffic, and one severely prohibited by 

 law. 



