408 LIFE OF LA VI D LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



and it is with money furnished by them that two-thirds of the slave-trade is 

 carried on. These Banyans, as Dr. Livingstone has so frequently pointed out, 

 are our fellow-subjects, and have hitherto carried on their detestable traffic in 

 human flesh under the protection of the British flag. No wonder that Living- 

 stone found it difficult to get letters to and from the coast, and found it next 

 to impossible to get stores and articles of absolute necessity delivered in the 

 interior. The voice of this prophet in the wilderness of Africa was pronouncing 

 the death-knell of their trade, and was to be stopped at all hazards. He was 

 too conspicuous a man, and stood too well with the native tribes, to be slain 

 with safety, but he might be starved out. "Weary waiting and hope deferred 

 might tire out the iron constitution, and break the lion heart, and to this they 

 and their emissaries set themselves. But they had not calculated upon the 

 resolute endurance and high courage of the man with whom they had to deal ; 

 and the very means they took to stop his voice made it tenfold more powerful 

 when, through the aid of Mr. Stanley, its story of shame and horror penetrated 

 to the ends of the earth. 



The climate of Zanzibar is not naturally unhealthy, but the almost total 



want of sanitary arrangements has made it a very pest house. A little energy, 



and a small money outlay, would make Zanzibar a hundred per cent. 



healthier than it is ; but the climate, and the influence exercised by the Arabs, 



Banyans, and Hindis, soon subdues the vitality of the most energetic European, 



and the Malagash inlet, a shallow arm of the sea, which makes the site of 



Zanzibar a peninsula, with a neck of only 250 yards, is the receptacle for " the 



undrained filth, the garbage, offal, dead mollusks, dead pariah dogs, dead cats, 



all species of carrion, and remains of men and beasts unburied. "Were these 250 



yards cut through by a ten foot ditch, and the inlet deepened slightly, Zanzibar 



would become an island of itself, and what wonders would it not effect as to 



health and salubrity !" On suggesting this to Captain Noble, the American 



Consul, he admitted the ease with which so great an improvement could be 



carried out, and the great need for it, but pleaded his utter helplessness. 



" Oh," said he, " it is all very well for you to talk about energy, and that 

 kind of thing, but I assure you that a residence of four or five years on this 

 island, among such people as are here, would make you feel that it was a 

 hopeless task to resist the influence of the example by which the most energetic 

 spirits are subdued, and to which they must submit in time, sooner or later. 

 We were all terribly energetic when we first came here, and struggled bravely 

 to make things go on as we were accustomed to have them at home, but we 

 have found that we were knocking our heads against granite walls, to no 

 purpose whatever. These fellows — the Arabs, the Banyans, and the Hindis — 

 you can't make them go faster by ever so much scolding and praying ; and in a 

 very short time you see the folly of fighting against the unconquerable. Be patient, 

 and don't fret ; that is my advice, or you won't live very long here." 



