Chap. XXV. DECLINE OF MOHAMMEDANISM. 513 



crowded with people. Hunger will ere long compel them 

 to sell each other. An intelligent man complained to us 

 of the Arabs often seizing slaves, to whom they took a fancy, 

 without the formality of purchase ; but the price is so low — 

 from two to four yards of calico — that one can scarcely think 

 this seizure and exportation without payment worth their 

 while. The boats were in constant employment, and, curi- 

 ously enough, Ben Habib, whom we met at Linyanti in 

 1855, had been taken across the Lake, the day before our 

 arrival at this Bay, on his way from Sesheke to Kilwa, and 

 we became acquainted with a native servant of the Arabs, 

 called Selele Saidallah, who could speak the Makololo lan- 

 guage pretty fairly from having once spent some months in 

 the Barotse Valley. 



From boyhood upwards we have been accustomed, from 

 time to time, to read in books of travels about the great 

 advances annually made by Mohammedanism in Africa. The 

 rate at which this religion spreads was said to be so rapid, 

 that in after days, in our own pretty extensive travels, we 

 have constantly been on the look out for the advancing wave 

 from North to South, which, it was prophesied, would soon 

 reduce the entire continent to the faith of the false prophet. 

 The only foundation that we can discover for the assertions 

 referred to, and for others of more recent date, is the fact 

 that in a remote corner of North-Western Africa the Fulahs, 

 and Mandingoes, and some others in Northern Africa, as 

 mentioned by Dr. Barth, have made conquests of terri- 

 tory ; but even they care so very little for the extension of 

 their faith, that after conquest no pains whatever are taken 

 to indoctrinate the adults of the tribe. This is in exact 

 accordance with the impression we have received from our 

 intercourse with Mohammedans and Christians. The followers 

 of Christ alone are anxious to propagate their faith. A 



2 L 



