TENACITY OF PURPOSE. 
579 
who aw not men. I have adhered, in spite of losses, with 
a sort of John Bullish tenacity to my task, and while bear- 
ing misfortune in as manly a way as possible, it strikes me 
that it is well that I have been brought face to face with 
the Banian 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 Banians does not allow them to harm a fly, very 
naturally conclude that all the Cutehecs may safely bo 
entrusted with the possession of slaves. But I have been 
forced to see that those who shrink from killing a flea or 
musquito, are virtually the worst cannibals in all Africa 
The Manycma cannibals, among whom I spent nearly two 
years, are innocents compared with our protected Banian 
fellow subjects. By their Arab agents, they compass the 
destruction of more human lives in one year than the 
Manyema do for their flesh pots in ten ; and could the 
Indian gentlemen, who oppose the anti-slave-trade policy 
of the Foreign Office, but witness the horrid deeds done by 
the Banian agents, they would be the foremost in decreeing 
that every Cutchee found guilty of direct or indirect 
slaving should forthwith be shipped back to India, if not 
to the Andaman islands. 
The Banians, having complete possession of the Custom 
House and revenue of Zanzibar, enjoy ample opportunity 
to aid and conceal the slave trade and all fraudulent trans- 
actions committed by their agents. It would be good 
policy to recommend the Sultan, as he cannot trust his 
Moslem subjects, to place his income from all sources in 
the hands of an English or American merchant, of known 
reputation and uprightness. He would be a check on the 
slave trade, a benefit to the Sultan, and an aid to lawful 
commei’ce. 
But by far the most beneficial measure that could be in- 
troduced into Eastern Africa would be the moral element, 
which has worked so beneficially in suppressing the slave 
trade around all the English settlements of the west coast. 
