THE BA NY AN SLA VE TRADERS. 503 



one day. The Manyenia are expert in throwing the spear ; and as I had a 

 glance of him whose spear missed by less than an inch behind, and he was 

 not ten yards off, I was saved clearly by the good hand of the Almighty 

 Preserver of men. I can say this devoutly now ; but in running the terrible 

 gauntlet for five weary hours among furies, all eager to signalize themselves 

 by slaying one they sincerely believed to have been guilty of a horrid out- 

 rage, no elevated sentiment entered the mind. The excitement gave way to 

 overpowering weariness, and I felt as I suppose soldiers do on the field of 

 battle — not courageous, but perfectly indifferent whether I were killed or 

 not." 



The real slave dealers are thus exposed by Dr. Livingstone : — " The 

 Banyan subjects have long been, and are now, the chief propagators of the 

 Zanzibar slave trade : their money, and often their muskets, gunpowder, 

 balls, flints, beads, brass wire, and calico, are annually advanced to the 

 Arabs, at enormous interest, for the murderous work of slaving, of the 

 nature of which every Banyan is fully aware. Having mixed much with 

 the Arabs in the interior, I soon learned the whole system that is called 

 : butchee.' Banyan trading is simply marauding and murdering by the 

 Arabs, at the instigation and by the aid of our Indian fellow subjects. The 

 cunning Indians secure nearly all the profits of the caravans they send 

 inland, and very adroitly let the odium of slaving rest on their Arab agents. 

 . . . It is a mistake to call the system of Ujiji slave ' trade ' at all — 

 the captives are not traded for, but murdered for ; and the gangs that are 

 dragged eastwards to enrich the Banyans are usually not slaves, but captive 

 free people. A Sultan anxious to do justly rather than pocket head-money, 

 would proclaim them all free as soon as they reached his territory. . . . 

 "I cannot say that I am altogether free from chagrin in view of the worry, 

 thwarting, and baffling, which the Banyans and their slaves have inflicted. 

 Common traders procure supplies of merchandise from the coast, and send 

 loads of ivory down by the same pagazi or earners we employ, without any 

 loss. But the Banyans and their agents are not their enemies. I have lost 

 more than two years in time, have been burdened with one thousand eight 

 hundred miles of tramping, and how much waste of money I cannot say, 

 through my affairs having been committed to the Banyans and slaves, who 

 are not men. I have adhered, in spite of losses, with a sort of John Bullish 

 tenacity to my task ; and while bearing misfortune in as manly a way as pos- 

 sible, it strikes me that it is well that I have been brought face to face with the 

 Banyan system, that inflicts enormous evils on Central Africa. Gentlemen in 

 India, who see only the wealth brought to Bombay and Cutch, and know that 

 the religion of the Banyans does not allowthem to harm a fly or mosquito, would 

 scarcely beHeve that they are the worst cannibals in all Africa. The Manyema 

 cannibals, among whom I spent nearly two years, are innocence compared 



