was
afterwards ascertained, of her having been kept for many days in the
dhow in a sitting posture, with her knees doubled up against her face.
Indeed, most of the poor little things captured were found to be more or
less stiffened from the same cause.

An Arab interpreter had been sent with Lindsay, but he turned out to be
so incapable that it was scarcely possible to gain any information from
him. He was either stupid in reality, or pretended to be so. The
latter supposition is not improbable, for many of the interpreters
furnished to the men-of-war on that coast were found to be favourable to
the slavers, insomuch that they have been known to mislead those whom
they were paid to serve.

With great difficulty the cutter was pulled through the surf. That
afternoon the `Firefly' hove in sight, and took the rescued slaves on
board.

Next day two boats from the steamer chased another dhow on shore, but
with even less result than before, for the whole of the slaves escaped
to the hills. On the day following, however, a large dhow was captured,
with about a hundred and fifty slaves on board, all of whom were
rescued, and the dhow destroyed.

The dhows which were thus chased or captured were all regular and
undisguised slavers. Their owners were openly engaged in what they knew
was held to be piracy alike by the Portuguese, the Sultan of Zanzibar,
and the English. They were exporting slaves from Africa to Arabia and
Persia, which is an illegal species of traffic. In dealing with these,
no difficulty was experienced except the difficulty of catching them.
When caught, the dhows were invariably destroyed and the slaves set
free--that is to say, carried to those ports where they might be set
free with safety.

But there were two other sorts of traffickers in the bodies and souls of
human beings, who were much more difficult to deal with.

There were, first the legal slave-traders, namely, the men who convey
slaves by sea from one part of the Sultan of Zanzibar's dominions to
another. This kind of slavery was prosecuted under the shelter of what
we have already referred to as a domestic institution! It involved, as
we have said before, brutality, injustice, cruelty, theft, murder, and
extermination, but, being a domestic institution of Zanzibar, it was
held to be _legal_, and the British Government have recognised and
tolerated it by treaty for a considerable portion of this century!

It is, however, but justi