526 
THE BANIANS, SLAVE TRADERS. 
trusted, by mistake, to Banians and their slaves, whose 
efforts were all faithfully directed towards securing my 
failure. These Banians are protected by English subjects, 
and by their money, their muskets, and their ammunition, 
the East African Moslem slave trade is mainly carried on. 
The cunning East Indians secure most of the pi’ofit of the 
slave trade, and adroitly let the odium rest on their Arab 
agents. The Banians will not harm a flea or a musquito, 
but my progress in geography has led me to the discovery 
that they are by far the worst cannibals in all Africa. 
They compass, by means of Arab agents, the destruction 
of more human lives for gain in one year than the Man- 
yemas do for their flesh pots in ten. The matter of sup- 
plies and men was unwittingly committed to these, our 
Indian fellow-subjects, who had to see me in their slave 
markets, and dread my disclosures on the infamous part 
they play. The slaves were all imbued with the idea that 
they were not to follow, but force me back ; and after riot- 
ing on my goods for sixteen months on the way, instead of 
three months, the whole stock of goods was sold off for 
slaves and ivory. Some of the slaves who came to Man- 
yema so baffled and worried me that I had to return 500 or 
600 miles. The only help I have received, except half a 
supply which I despatched from Zanzibar, in 1866, has been 
from Mr. Stanloy, your correspondent, and certain remains 
of stores which I seized from the slaves sent from Zanzibar, 
seventeen months ago, and I had to come back 300 miles to 
effect the seizure. I wait here at Unyanyembe only till 
Mr. Stanley can send me fifty free men* from the coast, and 
then I proceed to finish up the geographical part of my 
mission. 
I come back to the slavery question, and if I am per- 
mitted in any way to promote its suppression, I shall not 
grudge the toil and time I have spent. It would be better 
to lessen human woe than discover the sources of the Nile. 
When parties leave Ujiji to go westward into Manycraa, 
the question asked is not what goods they take, but how 
