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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 302, 22 December 1874, Page 4

Her Majesty's ship Vulture, Commander A, T. Brooke, was cruising off the north-west coast of Madagascar on the morning of the llih of August, when a sail to the south-west was reported by the mast head man. Chase was given, and nearly five hours afterwards the dhow was come up with and boarded. It was full of slaves— 4l men, 50 women, and 137 children. The slaves were suffering acutely from weakness and cramp, having bad to remain in one position for a long time, several of the children were unable to straighten their legs for three or four days after they were received on board. 'One woman was found buried up to her neck in damp sand at the bottom of the slave dhow, under the lower slave deck. The owners of tbe human cargo were 35 armed Arabs, and tbe captain determined to take them to Zanzibar, and have them eaonmarily dealt with. The Yultare sailed for the Seychelles, after burning the dhow and picking up four boats that had been sent away cruising a few days previously. The passage was made in ten days, and during that time several liberated slaves died of: dysentery and extreme debility. This is the largest capture that has been made for a very long time. — Mitchells Register. The. Tahiti Tkade.— The Governor's yacbt Blanche (writes the Auckland correspondent of the Otago Daily Time*), has been bought by the firm of Owen and Graham, of this city, for, I bear, £2000, nnd ia to bo put into the trade between Tahiti and the Eastward Islands, with whicb trade Messrs Owen and Grabam have long been connected. These gentlemen were, aod are still, I presume, shareholders in the great cotton planting company of Tahiti, so long managed by tbe late Mr Stewart, and so well known for the large scale on which its operations were conducted. Nearly 2000 men, chiefly Chinese, were employed, and a very large sum of money invested in the undertaking. Stewart was monarch within certain bounds, bad his own constable to keep order, his own gaol/aad large judicial powers

as a magistrate. The lnte Emperor Napoleoa was also a shareholder— by proxy of course— ia the company, io which he took great intereet, as tending to develop French commerce nod strength in the I'aciflc. Just before the Franco-Prussian war ho was in negotiation with the company to buy up their rights, and to put the sSmt entirely under French management. The price to be given wos either £200,000 or £250,000, but the war put an abrupt termination to the pro posals, and the fall in cotton which followed the war has seriously depreciated the value of th 9 estate, which has, with its immense atom of machinery, liouseß, and plant, been offered in Auckland for less thmi £20,000— about one-tenth the money that it cost.