the way
for further action. Sir Bartle Frere was to Zanzibar, with the view of
negotiating a treaty with the Sultan, to render illegal all traffic in
slaves by sea. Sir Bartle was unable to persuade the Sultan, but left
the matter in the hands of Dr. Kirk, who succeeded in 1873 in
negotiating the treaty, and got the shipment of slaves prohibited over a
sea-board of nearly a thousand miles. But the slave-dealer was too
clever to yield; for the route by sea he simply substituted a route by
land, which, instead of diminishing the horrors of the traffic, actually
made them greater. Dr. Kirk's energies had to be employed in getting the
land traffic placed in the same category as that by sea, and here, too,
he was successful, so that within the dominions of the Sultan of
Zanzibar, the slave-trade, as a legal enterprise, came to an end.

But Zanzibar was but a fragment of Africa. In no other part of the
continent was it of more importance that the traffic should be arrested
than in Egypt, and in parts of the Empire of Turkey in Africa under the
control of the Sultan. The late Khedive of Egypt was hearty in the
cause, less, perhaps, from dislike of the slave-trade, than from his
desire to hold good rank among the Western powers, and to enjoy the
favorable opinion of England. By far the most important contribution of
the Khedive to the cause lay in his committing the vast region of the
Soudan to the hands of our countryman, Colonel Gordon, whose recent
resignation of the office has awakened so general regret. Hating the
slave-trade, Colonel Gordon employed his remarkable influence over
native chiefs and tribes in discouraging it, and with great effect. To
use his own words, recently spoken to a friend, he cut off the
slave-dealers in their strongholds, and he made all his people love him.
Few men, indeed, have shown more of Livingstone's spirit in managing the
natives than Gordon Pasha, or furnished better proof that for really
doing away with the slave-trade more is needed than a good treaty--there
must be a hearty and influential Executive to carry out its provisions.
Our conventions with Turkey have come to little or nothing. They have
shared the usual fate of Turkish promises. Even the convention announced
with considerable confidence in the Queen's speech on 5th February,
1880, if the tenor of it be as it has been reported in the _Temps_
newspaper, leaves far too much in the hands of the Turks, and unless it
be energetical