May 1861.] 



Notes op, Zanguebar. 



88 



the north of the equator, seized two dows carrying fair freight for 

 the Imam, and landed the long-eyed Abyssinians at Aden where I 

 believe they have settled very comfortably. 



Seyed Said was much shocked at these proceedings of his good 

 friends the English and since that time, to avoid the cruisers, the 

 poor girls are conveyed overland from Manonah to Bravah, thence 

 to Samoo, which lies to the south of the equator and are carried 

 from Samoo, coram populo, to Zanguebar. This transit only en- 

 hances the price of the article, and the Imam does not care for a 

 few paltry dollars more or less. Commercially speaking the loss 

 sustained in bringing them, from Manonah to Samoo overland 

 (1,500 miles) is about fifty per cent ; but the Imam could not un- 

 derstand that the laws he had consented to for his subjects were 

 to be so soon applied to himself, and with such unrelenting vigour. 



This fact is very instructive and significant. All attempts at sup- 

 pressing the Slave trade have invariably resulted in aggravating the 

 fate of the poor victims of cupidity, and the armaments of England 

 have produced this result to an extent known only to men who 

 have been witnesses of all the phases of that antichristian trade. 

 Many illustrations of this opinion will be found in the course of the 

 present notes ; and I have always been of opinion that the efforts 

 made for the repression of the Slave trade cause more atrocities 

 than are compensated for by the benefits attending them; and if 

 an end is to be put to that infamous traffic, the Slave holders must 

 be induced to free their Negroes. A continual demand will en- 

 sure a supply whatever be the risks. On the day that there is no 

 more demand, the trade will fall of itself. The best way perhaps 

 of securing the abolition of slavery at Cuba would be to land a 

 hundred thousand Negroes there at once. 



The old Imam spends every year large sums of money increas- 

 ing his museum of houris. He has also another way of spending 

 money not much more profitable ; being very fond of ship build- 

 ing, every year he adds two or three ships to his fleet lying at 

 anchor opposite M'tony. In 1849 he had a dozen of these ships 

 of war in the roads of Zanguebar ; they are built at Cochin, and 

 from my personal experience of the sailing qualities of two o f the 

 finest of the Imam's ships, they do not appear to be of the very 



