156 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



"Africa," says Cameron, " is bleeding at every 

 pore. A country of unparalleled fertility, needing 

 only labor to make it the foremost productive 

 country on the globe, is depopulated by the slave- 

 trade and the massacres which attend it. If noth- 

 ing occurs to put a stop to these wars of exter- 

 mination, the land will become a wilderness ut- 

 terly impenetrable to traders and travelers. It 

 is a disgrace to the nineteenth century that such 

 horrors can go on. It is unaccountable that Eng- 

 land should let slip so favorable an opportunity 

 of opening for her products so important an out- 

 let." 



In Berlioux's conscientious work, " La Traite 

 Orientale," we learn that this odious traffic has 

 two other centres besides the regions south of 

 the equator. These are, in the first place, Soodan, 

 whence slaves are sent to the great mart of Koo- 

 ka in Bornoo, and thence to Moorzook, the capi- 

 tal of Fezzan, and so on into Tunisia and Tripoli; 

 in the second place, the Upper Nile. The cruel- 

 ties practised in this region have been described 

 by several European travelers, and latterly the 

 Egyptian authorities at Khartoom have been 

 justly charged with favoring the slave-trade. 

 Arab merchants and European adventurers would 

 enter the country of the Shillooks, the Dinkas, 

 and the Djours, penetrating as far as Gondokoro, 

 under the pretense of hunting elephants and buy- 

 ing ivory. They would have under their com- 

 mand a band of two or three hundred well armed 

 miscreants, and would establish a seribah, or in- 

 trenched camp. From this basis of operations 

 they would make raids upon the surrounding 

 tribes, which could make no effectual resistance. 

 Baker estimated the mean animal profit of each 

 seribah at 450 slaves. The slave-hunters received 

 from their employers a fixed payment in the 

 shape of slaves. It is estimated that even quite 

 recently 30,000 negroes were annually carried 

 away out of this region alone, and distributed 

 throughout the Mussulman territories. This 

 would presuppose a loss of 200,000 human lives. 

 The total number of unfortunates reduced to sla- 

 very or butchered during the raids must be con- 

 siderably over half a million. 



Happily, two recent events encourage the hope 

 that the slave-trade will cease throughout the en- 

 tire western half of the African Continent. On 

 setting out for Khartoom, there to assume com- 

 mand of all the Egyptian forces on the Upper 

 Nile, Colonel Gordon announced his determina- 

 tion of putting an end, cost what it might, to 

 this traffic, and there is no doubt that he will 

 succeed, provided his life is spared. It will be 

 remembered that in 1873 Sir Bartle Frere, at, the 



head of an English flotilla, exacted from the sover- 

 eign of Zanguebar a promise no longer to tolerate 

 the sale and exportation of slaves in his domin- 

 ions. After this the trade was carried on by the 

 way of Kilwa ; but Dr. Kirk, consul-general of 

 England, recently obtained from the sultan the 

 issuance of a proclamation prohibiting the 

 equipment of any caravan destined to engage in 

 the slave-trade, and threatening with confiscation 

 any such caravan coming down to the coast. 

 And, as the edict was rigorously enforced, bands 

 of captives, already en route, had to be taken 

 back into the interior. Money-lenders refuse to 

 risk their capital in enterprises whose results 

 are so precarious. One expedition, involving a 

 million francs, proved to be a total loss. Thus, 

 for the time being, the slave-trade is suspended 

 along the Zanguebar coast. 1 According to a pri- 

 vate letter, written by the gallant Captain Young, 

 commanding at Livingstonia on Lake Nyassa, 

 unlooked-for results have been obtained. Ten 

 thousand slaves used annually to pass by the 

 southern extremity of the lake on their way 

 coastward. In 18*76 only eighty-eight of these 

 wretches reached their destination by this route. 

 If by these energetic measures the traffic can be 

 rendered so risky as to be unprofitable, the Arab 

 traders will probably abandon it ; but, as is very 

 justly observed by Mr. Waller, great danger will 

 hence result to ulterior relations with the heart 

 of Africa. The native chiefs and Arab traders 

 in that region will find themselves suddenly de- 

 prived of the means of procuring cottonades, 

 glass beads, arms, and other commodities, which 

 they were wont to purchase with slaves. They 

 cannot buy all they want with ivory and tobacco 

 alone. They will be enraged on seeing their 

 commerce annihilated, and it is highly probable 

 that they will try to revenge themselves on trav- 

 elers and missionaries, on whom they will lay the 

 blame of suppressing the traffic in slaves. The 

 only means of escaping from this peril is to be 

 found in the idea proposed by the King of the 

 Belgians, of exchanging. European goods for the 

 agricultural products of Central Africa. The 

 majority of the chiefs, we are assured by Mr. 

 Waller, very well understand that man-hunting 

 and the massacres thence resulting are ruining 

 their dominions, and they would gladly see regular 

 commerce taking the place of the odious traffic 

 in human beings. 



1 These details I take from an interesting letter lately 

 published in English newspapers by Mr. Horace Waller, 

 who has spent several years in Zanguebar and in the inte- 

 rior of Africa. 



