THE SLAVE TRADE.

Bruce Herald, Volume VI, Issue 402, 17 January 1872, Page 7

THE SLAVE TRADE.

[' PALL MALL GAZETTE.']

Some idea of the barbarities practised i by the slave-dealers on the East Coast of ! Africa may be formed by reading" the evidence given by the Rev. Horace Waller, | lately printed with the report of the Select Committee on that subject. Speaking of that portiou of the trade carried on by the ] Northern Arabs, Mr Wall says the pro,cess of catching the slaves is this": The ' slave-dealer goes into the country with so many muskeis and so many pieces ot calico, and he finds out the most powerful chief He then gives him spirits and keeps him in a state of semi-drunkenness the whole, time, telling him that he must have more slaves. He gives him muskets and powder on account, and the man forthwith seeks an opportunity to settle some old quarrel witn some other chief. As soon as war breaks out, favorable conditions are created for carrying on the slave trade: because famine is sure to follow in a country where the people are dependent on one wet season for tilling the ground, for it is only during thft wet season that corn can be sown. Then a chief without food and the means of buying food will sell his people very cheaply indeed. Captures are made in war. Kidnapping is prevalent all over the country, which leads again to all sorts of petty disputes and 'retaliation, and the more disturbed the country is the cheaper slaves becoore. So cheap do they at last become that Mr Waller has known children of the age of from eight to ten years bought for less corn than would go into a hat : and it may be easily imagined that when they are bought so cheaply and when they fetch so large a price on the coast, it pays the slave- dealer iivell to collect as many slaves as he can, knowing that he must loose a certain portion on the way, but also knowing that the remainder will pay him a large profit. It is '(remarks Mr Waller) like sending up for a large block of ice to London in r the "hot weather ; you know that a Certain portion will melt atfay before it reaches you in the •country, but that which remains will be sufficient for your wants. Mr Waller 'further explained -how this '" bWk of ice" melted in transit :— " Sirikness may break out ; they may' cross a part of the country where there is very little food, and than many die of famine. Then again, if there is anything like insubordination ia the slave gang the axe and knife are used very freely 'in deed, and an indiscriminate slaughter takes place amdtg all those who are 'inclined to be obstreperous. We liberated a gang of eighty- four slaves one morning, and withina few miles of the place where we liberated 'fchettt we were shown places in '■the bush where slaves had been killed only that morning. One ;poor woman had a a child on her back which she had recently given birth to, and which slie was too weak to carry further, and the slave-dealer took it by tlie heels and dashed 'its brains out against a 'tree. Another woman was ill herself aftd could not keep in the line, and the slave-dealer dashed her brains out with the a-xe, and she was cut out of the. slave throng. They are all united in -a long string-, 'the men being yoked in heavy forked sticks, which are kept on their necks 'from the time they are cap-, tured till the time they are delivered [ to the slave-shipper, sometimes for six weeks, and sbmeftimes even three months at a time." Mr WaHer en tirply concurs wjth Dr Livingstone in the opinion that, from due cause or other, for every slave that comes to the coast about ten lives are lost in the interior.