4Y2 ACROSS AFRICA. [Chap. 



\y expended than hitherto by the lower classes of East-coast 

 traders. 



Many of the larger merchants are wise enongli to see that 

 slave carriage is the most precarious and costly of all means of 

 transport, and they would be glad to avail themselves of any 

 other method that might be introduced. 



On the lines occupied by the Portuguese, especially that from 

 Bihe to Urua and Katangu, there is a vast amount of internal 

 slave-trade ; but the greater portion of those captured — for they 

 are nearly all obtained by rapine and violence — are not taken 

 to the coast, but to Kaffir countries, where they are exchanged 

 for ivory. I should not be at all surprised to hear that much 

 of "the labor" taken to the diamond-fields by the Kaffirs is 

 obtained from this source. 



The traders are not a whit behind their forefathers — who 

 invoiced their slaves as bales of goods, and had a hundred bap- 

 tized in a batch by the Bishop of Loanda, by aspersion, in order 

 to save a small export duty — in their bad treatment of slaves, 

 or their recklessness as to the means by which they are ol> 

 tained. 



The internal trade is principally carried on by slaves of mer- 

 chants residing at the coast, and — as is always the case with 

 those equally low in the scale of civilization — they are the most 

 cruel oppressors of all who fall into their clutches. 



Ivory is not likely to last forever (or for long) as the main 

 f-xport from Africa ; indeed, the ruthless manner in which the 

 elephants are destroyed and harassed has already begun to show 

 its effects. In places where elephants were by no means un- 

 common a few years ago, their wanton destruction has had its 

 natural effect, and they are now rarely encountered. 



Having this probable extinction of the ivory trade in view, 

 and allowing, as all sensible people must, that legitimate com- 

 merce is the proper way to open up and civilize a country, we 

 must see what other lucrative sources of trade may hereafter 

 replace that in ivory. 



Fortunately we have not far to go ; for the vegetable and 

 mineral products of this marvelous land are equal in variety, 

 value, and quantity to those of the most favored portions of the 

 globe ; and if the inhabitants can be employed in their exploi- 



