nd, or even a real check,
cannot be put on the traffic except through the co-operation of
Mussulmans themselves. The necessity has, indeed, been completely
recognized in the numerous treaties and arrangements made with the
Sultans of Turkey, Zanzibar, and Oman, and with the Viceroy of Egypt;
and, though I am far from stating that these arrangements are wholly
voluntary on the part of any of the princes, yet their good-will alone
can make the prevention efficient. An excellent proof of this is to be
found in the case of the Turkish Government, which, since its quarrel
with the English, has given full license to the traffic in the Red Sea,
which no means at the disposal of the latter can in any measure check.

At no modern period has a larger number of slaves been imported into
Hejaz and Yemen than during the last eighteen months, and until friendly
relations with the Porte, or whatever Mussulman authority succeeds the
Porte in those provinces, are restored, slave-trading will continue. I
do not myself entirely sympathize with anti-slave-trade ideas as applied
to Mohammedan lands, knowing as I do how tolerable and even advantageous
the social condition of the negroes is in them. But still I wish to see
slavery discontinued, and I believe that a firm but friendly attitude
towards Mussulmans will have completely extinguished it in another two
generations. A rupture with them can only prolong and aggravate its
existence.

Lastly, we may perhaps find a prospective interest for England in the
probability of a Caffre conversion to Mohammedanism at no very remote
period, and the extension of Islam to her borders in South Africa. It is
of course premature to be alarmed at this, as it is a contingency which
can hardly happen in the lifetime of any now living; but Mohammedanism
is not a creed which a hundred or two hundred years will see
extinguished in Africa or Asia, and already it has passed considerably
south of the Equator. Cape Colony at this day numbers some fifteen
thousand Mussulmans.

It would seem, then, on all these grounds difficult for England to ally
herself, in dealing with Islam, with what may be called the Crusading
States of Europe. Her position is absolutely distinct from that of any
of them, and her interests find no parallel among Christian nations,
except perhaps the Dutch. For good as for evil, she has admitted a vast
body of Mohammedans into her social community, and contracted
engagements from which she