Some Ivory Was Offered For Sale; But The Chief Traffic Was
In Human Chattels.
Would that we could give a comprehensive account
of the horrors of the slave-trade, with an approximation to the
number of lives it yearly destroys!
For we feel sure that were even
half the truth told and recognized, the feelings of men would be so
thoroughly roused, that this devilish traffic in human flesh would be
put down at all risks; but neither we, nor any one else, have the
statistics necessary for a work of this kind. Let us state what we
do know of one portion of Africa, and then every reader who believes
our tale can apply the ratio of the known misery to find out the
unknown. We were informed by Colonel Rigby, late H.M. Political
Agent, and Consul at Zanzibar, that 19,000 slaves from this Nyassa
country alone pass annually through the Custom-house of that island.
This is exclusive of course of those sent to Portuguese slave-ports.
Let it not be supposed for an instant that this number, 19,000,
represents all the victims. Those taken out of the country are but a
very small section of the sufferers. We never realized the atrocious
nature of the traffic, until we saw it at the fountain-head. There
truly "Satan has his seat." Besides those actually captured,
thousands are killed and die of their wounds and famine, driven from
their villages by the slave raid proper. Thousands perish in
internecine war waged for slaves with their own clansmen and
neighbours, slain by the lust of gain, which is stimulated, be it
remembered always, by the slave purchasers of Cuba and elsewhere.
The many skeletons we have seen, amongst rocks and woods, by the
little pools, and along the paths of the wilderness, attest the awful
sacrifice of human life, which must be attributed, directly or
indirectly, to this trade of hell.
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