Chap. V. PLAN FOR CHECKING SLAVE-TEADE. 129 



them the same prices which they at present get after carrying 

 their merchandise 300 miles beyond this to the Coast, it might 

 induce them to return without going further. It is only by 

 cutting off the supplies in the interior, that we can crush the 

 slave-trade on the Coast. The plan proposed would stop 

 the slave-trade from the Zambesi on one side and Kilwa on the 

 other; and would leave, beyond this tract, only the Por- 

 tuguese port of Inhambane on the south, and a portion of 

 the Sultan of Zanzibar's dominion on the north, for our 

 cruisers to look after. The Lake people grow abundance 

 of cotton for their own consumption, and can sell it for a 

 penny a pound, or even less. Water-carriage exists by the 

 Shire and Zambesi all the way to England, with the single 

 exception of a portage of about thirty-five miles past the 

 Murchison Cataracts, along which a road of less than forty 

 miles could be made at a trifling expense ; and it seems 

 feasible that a legitimate and thriving trade might, in a 

 short time, take the place of the present unlawful traffic. 



Colonel Kigby, Captains Wilson, Oldfield, and Chapman, 

 and all the most intelligent officers on the Coast, were 

 unanimous in the belief, that one small vessel on 

 the Lake would have decidedly more influence, and 

 do more good in suppressing the slave-trade, than half 

 a dozen men-of-war on the ocean. By judicious operations, 

 therefore, on a small scale inland, little expense would be 

 incurred, and the English slave-trade policy on the East 

 would have the same fair chance of success, as on the West 

 Coast. 



