HORRORS OF THE SLAVE TRADE.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1400, 25 January 1873, Page 3

HORRORS OF THE SLAVE TRADE.

Two cutters of her Majesty's ship Vulture recently, captured a slave dhow off 1 Raa-el-had. The Times qf India says tihat the chase lasted upwards of two hours, daring which the Arab at the helm of the dhow was mortally wounded by a fortunate bullet from the rifle of one of the , coxswains of the boats, at a distance of about 600 yards. This, however, had no effect upon the dhow's course, and she still held on, but with the boats steadily gaining. The rocket cutter being less heavily weighted, closed first, and by a well-directed rocket, when within about 160 yards, shot away the parrell which secured the yard to the mast, bringing the sail down instantly, and causing the vessel to heave-to. The gun-cutter how coming up, the two boats went alongside and the crews boarded together. The crew and passengers, including the slave merchants, were found to number 24 Arabs, all armed to the teeth. Many of them were very reluctant to give up their swords and creases, but this, of course, was speedily enforced, and the whole, with the exception of the captain and three of the crew, were landed without delay. The captain was lamenting that he had escaped four men-of-war off Zanzibar, only to fall a prize to a man-of-war's boats at the end of his voyage. The number of slaves it was impossible at the time to estimate : crowded on deck and in the hold below, the dhow seemed, but for the aspect of misery, a very nest of ants. The hold, from which a most intolerable stench proceeded, was several inches deep in the foulest bilge water and refuse, among which there were numbers of children . and ; adults in the most loathsome stages of small-pox and scrofula of every description. On examination by. the surgeon, were were no fewer than 35 cases of small-pox in various stages ; and from the time of the first taking of the dhow to their landing at Butcher's t Island, Bombay, .15 died out of the whole number, and' siflce then there have bpen mo^e deaths among them, Perhaps * the most atrocious piece of cruelty of the Arabs was heard afterwards from the slaves themselves. They said that at the first discovery of small-pox among them by the Arabs, all the infected slaved were at once thrown overboard, and this was continued A day by day till a fourth had ferished.