APPENDIX III. 



503 



try it on two children. Tliey were inoculated twice over, 

 without being able to produce the disease ; but I had no 

 great reason to regret my failure, for I afterwards heard 

 that the French, who, on purchasing young slaves, always 

 vaccinate them, had often introduced it among the in- 

 habitants, but that it had been found impossible to propa- 

 gate it. Is not this astonishing, that a people with 

 whom self-interest is a stronger passion than any other, 

 should be under the influence of motives which cause them 

 to act in direct opposition to it ? One person — he who 

 had allowed me to inoculate his children — acknowledged 

 he himself had lost no less than thirty 3^oung slaves during 

 the late prevalence of the disease. Perhaps the indiffer- 

 ence they show at the proposal of a preventative remedy 

 arises from a want of faith in its efficacy. 



We now began to think of setting out on our return 

 along the coast to Mocha ; the wind had begun to set 

 in steady from the S.W., and our consort, the Sylph, 

 which it had been deemed advisable to convert into a 

 brig, being ready to return to Bombay, whither we had 

 orders to send her, we were about to depart, when a 

 circumstance occurred which for some time delayed it. 



The Surat merchants, who had often complained of 

 the Hakim's treatment, represented that he had de- 

 manded 3500 crowns from them as their proportion 

 of the tribute exacted by the Imam of Muscat, and in 

 failure of pa^nnent had threatened them with imprison- 

 ment. As these people were trading under the English 

 flag, and were, in fact, British subjects, Captain Smee 

 did not conceive that a foreign prince had any right 

 to tax them, especially as the}- had already paid the 

 customary port dues. Impressed with these sentiments, 



