shed to them by the Sultan, which
protects them from British cruisers within the prescribed limits,
namely, between Cape Dalgado and Lamoo, a line of coast about 1500 miles
in extent. But it is easy for them to evade the cruisers in these wide
seas and extensive coasts, and the value of Black Ivory is so great that
the loss of a few is but a small matter. On reaching the northern
limits the legal traders become pirates. They run to the northward, and
take their chance of being captured by cruisers.

The reason of all this is very obvious. The Sultan receives nearly half
a sovereign a head for each slave imported into Zanzibar, and our
Governments, in time past, have allowed themselves to entertain the
belief, that, by treaty, the Sultan could be induced to destroy this the
chief source of his revenue!

Surely it is not too much to say, that _Great Britain ought to enter
into no treaty whatever in regard to slavery, excepting such as shall
provide for the absolute, total, and immediate extirpation thereof by
whatsoever name called_.

Besides these two classes of slavers,--the open, professional pirates,
and the sneaking, deceiving "domestic" slavers,--there are the
slave-smugglers. They are men who profess to be, and actually are,
legal traders in ivory, gum, copal, and other produce of Africa. These
fellows manage to smuggle two or three slaves each voyage to the Black
Ivory markets, under pretence that they form part of the crew of their
dhows. It is exceedingly difficult, almost impossible, for the officers
of our cruisers to convict these smugglers--to distinguish between
slaves and crews, consequently immense numbers of slaves are carried off
to the northern ports in this manner. Sometimes these dhows carry Arab
or other passengers, and when there are so many slaves on board that it
would be obviously absurd to pretend that they formed part of the crew,
the owner dresses the poor wretches up in the habiliments that come most
readily to hand, and passes them off as the wives or servants of these
passengers. Any one might see at a glance that the stupid, silent,
timid-looking creatures, who have had almost every human element beaten
out of them, are nothing of the sort, but there is no means of _proving_
them other than they are represented to be. If an interpreter were to
ask them they would be ready to swear anything that their owner had
commanded; hence the cruisers are deceived in every way--in many wa