THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1812, 6 November 1888, Page 3

THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.

BRITISH-BAST AFRICAN COMPANY. Cablegrams have informed us that the membeos of the British East African Company have been well received. It is not generally known that besides being a trading company there is a philanthropic side to the acquisition of a new colony in Africa, which is the practical meaning of the operations of the company. It is intended to be a counterpoise to the German East African Society, whose field of operations is nsar Zanzibar, and the Congo Free State on the western side of the continent. The country that is about to be occupied by the new corporation extends to the northward of Zanzibar, as far as the Someli couutry, which abuts on Abyssinia, destined ere long to become an Italian colony. Westward the company will operate as far as Lake Albert Nyanza. It is said to be a vast territory, containing some of the finest land in Central Africa, and abounding in pl a ces with an industrious population. The philanthropic side is ably set forth in a pamplet entitled " The Arab in Central Africa," issued by Mr James Stevenson, of Glasgow, wbbse name is so closely and honorably identified with the Blantyre and Livingstonla missions on the Zambesi. During several years past these missions have carried ob operations in the district which lies betweeu Tette and Nyasßa. We recently drew attention to the work done by these bodies, as described in Dr Stewarts organ, the Ohristain Express. The have expended £160,000 in efforts to develop the navigation of both rivers and lakes, and to win over to industrial pursuits the native tribes in those territories. Lately, however, these efforts have been thwarted and hindered by the steadfast hostility of Arab slave dealers, who have made • streauous effort to reconquer for themselves the happy huntiog grounds in which they carry on their infamous traffic. What this traffic is can best be understood from a few statements of the writer :

"During the last five years tbe information thut has onae to hand shows that the ravages of the Zanzibar Arabs have extended in area aud intensity among some of the most advanced races of tbe interior, so that countries lying west of the great lakes have been destroyed over an area of 1000 miles in length by 400 in breadth. The devastation extends as far as to the countries where the population was previously thinned by tbe West Coast slave trade, so that there is a near approach to tbe time when the nations of Europe may find that there is but a vety small industrial population remaining in these parts. 11 From the central regions slaves hsve recently been drawn to fill np tbe blanks created by earlitr slave raids near the Ease Coast, but the source of supply it coming to an end, both from the exhaustion of the centre, and quite recently from the Arabs having in a few places began to cultivate by slave labor the lands from which the inhabitants had been expelled.

Describing an Arab slave tractor g camp, he s»ys 1—

"There are rows upon rows of dark nakedness, relieved here and there by the white dresses of the captors. There are lines or groups of naked forms—upright, Btanding, or moviDg about listlessly; naked bodies are stretched under the sheds in all positions; naked legs innumerable are seen in the perspective of prostrate (Jaspers; there are countless naked ■• children—many mere infanta—forms of boyhood and girlhood, and occasionally a group of absolutely naked old women bending under a basket of fuel, or cassava tubers or bananas, who are driven through the moving groups by two or three musketeers. On paying mors attention to details, I observe that mostly all are fettered ; youths with iron rings round their necks, through which a chain, like one of our boat anchor chains, ia rove, securing the captives by twenties, The children over 10 are secured by these copper rings, each ringed leg brought together by the central ring, which acoounts for the apparent Hstlesaness of movement I observed on first coming in presence of this curious scent, The metners are secured by shorter chains, around whom their respective progeny of infants are grouped, hiding the cruel iron links that fall in loops or festoons on their mammas' breasts. There is not an adult man c»p-, tive amongst them, I "The slave traders admit that they have only 2300 slaves in this fold, yet they have raided through the length and breadth of a country larger than Ireland, bringing fire and spreading carriage with lead and iron. Both banks of the river show that U 8 villages and 43 districts have been devastated, out of whioh is only educed this scanty profit of 2300 females and children, and about 2000 tusks of ivory! Tbe spears, ewordß, bows, and the quivers of arrows show that many adults have fallen. Given that 138 villages were peopled only by 1000 each, we have only a profit of 2 per cent., aDd by the time all th«se captives have been subjected to the accidents of the river voyage to Kirundu and Nyangwe, of camp life and its harsh miseries, to the havoc of smallpox, and the pests which miseries breed, there will only remain a scant 1 per cent, upon the bloody yenture. "They tell me, however, that the convoys already arrived at Nyaogwe with ■ slaves captured in the interior have been | as, great as tueir,pre6ent band. Five exI petitions have copie aod gone with their boutyo'f ivory ahd'slaves, and these five expedition's have now completely weeded tbe large territory desoribed above. If each expedition has been as successful, the slave-traders have been enabled to obtain SQOO women and children safe to .Nyangwe, Kirundu, and Yibondo, above tbe Stanley Falls. This 5000 out of an annual millipn will be at the rate of a half per cent,, or five slaves out of T.QOO

people. . . . This is a poor profit out of such large waste of life, for originally wo assume the slaves to have mustered about 10,000 in number. To obtain the 2300 slaves out of the 118 villages they must have shot a round number of 2500 people, while 1300 men died by the wayside through scant provisions and the intensity of their hopeless wretchedness. How many are wonnded and die in the forest or droop to death through an overwhelming sense of their calamities we do not know ; but if the above figures are trustworthy, then the outcome from the territory with its million of souls is 6000 •laves, obtained at the crsel expense of 83,000 lives 1 And such slaves 1 Tbey are females or young children who canncl run away, or who, with youthful indifference, will ioOD forget the terrors of their capture 1 Yet e»oh of the very smallest infants has coit tbe lite of a father, and perhaps bi 3 three stout brothers aud three grown-up daughters. An entire family of bix souls have been done to death to obtain that small, feeble, useless child ! These are my thoughts as I look upon the horrible scene, Every second during which I regard them the clink of fetters and chains strikes upon my ears. My eyes catch sight of that continual lifting of the hand to ease the neck in the collar, or as it displays a manacle exposed through a muscle being irritated by its weight or want of fitness. My oerves are offended with the rancid effluvium of the uawashed herds within tbis human kennel. Th« smell of other abominations annoys me in that vitiated atmosphere. For bow could poor people, bound and rivetted in twenties, do otherwise than, wallow in filth ! Only the old women are taken out to forage. They dig out the cavassa tubers and search for the banana ; while the guard with musket ready, keenly watches for the coming of the revengeful native. Not much food can be procure,! in this manner, and what is obtained is flung down in a heap before each gang to at once cause an unseemly scramble. Many of these poor things have been already months fettered in this manner, and their bones stand out in bold relief in the attenuated skin, which hangs down in tbin wrinkles snd puckers; and yet who can withstand the feeling of pity so powerfully pleaded for by those large eyes and sunken cheeks! A desire to put an end to these abominations hae greatly stimulated the promoters of the British East African Company.—Otago D-aly Times.