DEATH-STREWN TRAIL.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20363, 21 July 1934, Page 28 (Supplement)

DEATH-STREWN TRAIL.

HORRORS OF THE SLAVE CARAVAN.

THE TREK ACROSS THE DESERT TO THE RED SEA—MAXIMUM OF HUMAN SUFFERING—MANY DIE BY THE WAYSIDE—CORRUPTION AND BRIBERY AID TRAFFIC IN HUMAN LIVES—ARAB AND ABYSSINIAN FIGHT DUEL FOR DUSKY BEAUTY GERMAN SCIENTIST SEES HORRIFYING SPECTACLE.

JBy CAPTAIN PATRICK CLIFFORD, of tho Aboriginea Protection and AntiSlavery Society.—All rights reserved.)

Many famous artists have depicted what is known as a slave caravan crossing the desert towards the Red Sea, in the days when the world accounted traffic in human beings as a legitimate and praiseworthy branch of industry. Most of my readers will recall the expressions of abject misery on the faces of the pitiful victims, the ruthless lash of their Arab drivers, the yokes and the chains which keep them in bondage. I have held in my two hands a wooden yoke, almost as large as that used for a bullock, and so heavy that I could scarcely carry it. This crude affair was taken by an officer of the King’s African Rifles, not 100 years ago, but in 1931, after his troops had ambushed an Arab caravan. The splintered sides Vere stained with human blood, and bore eloquent testimony to the sufferings of the poor wretch who had worn it. . Beneath the blistering heat of the tropical sun, men, women and little children are tottering towards the Red Sea as I write. Others are on the somewhat kinder trail to Abyssinia, but one and all they are suffering the maximum of human misery. In my last article, I described the methods of slave-raiders, and how the victims are chained together and marched away. The one object of the Arab raiders is to get their victims to market as quickly as possible, and they know that they will be fortunate if a third of their prisoners survive the horrors of the march. Food is scanty, and water all but unprocurable, and the prisoners get barely sufficient of both to keep them alive. When it is remembered that an Arab

• in the desert drinks only a little of his camel's milk in every three days, and lives on dates and figs, one gets some idea of a slave's rations on the march. Babies Snatched From Mothers. The raiders care nothing for women with children at their breasts, and they allow them to retain them as long as the mothers can keep going. If they show exceptional signs of exhaustion, however, the children are brutally snatched from them and flung away to die. Many a wretched woman has become demented when this was done, and raved and screamed until a blow from a rifle butt silenced her forever. Slaves have been marched for as many as sixteen hours a day, and it is truly said that the route of a slave caravan is lined with the bones of those who have fallen to die by the wayside. I interrogated one young native woman in Aden, who has succeeded in reaching the British settlement after years of cruel slavery. Her ankles still bore the marks of the chains she had worn on the march to the slave market, and her head was permanently twisted slightly to one side from the effects of the yoke she had been loaded with. Her husband, to whom she had been married for a bare fortnight, had been taken with her, and she had seen him beaten to death for attacking an Arab guard who had assaulted her. This young woman was a Christian, and had received some rudimentary education at the hands of a missionary in her childhood. Consequently, 6he was mentally above her companions, and the horrors of that march were more vivid to her. Every step, she told me, was agony, because of the chafing of the shackles. The splinters of the yoke caused horrible sores, and a form of poisoning from which many died. She estimated that out of a caravan of 300 men and women, taken in two raids, only a little over 150 reached the Red Sea. and of these several died in the crossing. Perhaps, the most horrible part of her story, however, concerned a woman in childbirth, who broke down and could not rise again.

Fluctuations of Hope. Those slaves who reach the shores of the Red Sea feel their hopes rise somewhat as they sight the water. There is always a chance that a patrolling warshir> may stop the dhow, and that they will be set at liberty. Against this chance the Arabs take extraordinary precautions. Crossings are generally made at night, and often the prisoners are kept on shore for several weeks before a suitable opportunity for a safe crossing occurs. Then one night they are driven aboard a dhow, packed like sardines in the hold, and battened down for a journey that may take many weeks. In the stifling holds, the negroes have to sleep lying across each other, and sometimes they arc packed so closely that they have only room to stand. Many perish from suffocation and exhaustion, and fevers are so common that sailors from warships are placed under medical observation on returning from a captured ship filled with slaves. Time and again, when dhows have been pursued by warships, they have adopted the practice of throwing their prisoners overboard, one at a time, in older to force their pursuers to stop and pick them up. Tn fact, so common became this habit, that warships proceed to overhaul a dhow nowadays and sqcrifit-e the lives of a few in order to save many ©there.

Slaves Fight For Freedom. Although the dhow had been fumigated a week before, there still clung to the hold an indescribable stench, which drove me away. I came back, though, and finally descended into that pit of hell. My attention was attracted to a lai’ge iron staple at one end, and it was explained to me that a long chain was passed through the ring at the end of every prisoner's chain and fastened to the staple. Thus natives would virtually be chained in a bundle, and one shudders to think of their fate if anything had happened to the dhow. The reason for taking such extraordinary precautions is that the prisoners have been known to escape from the holds during a Red Sea crossing, and even in their emaciated condition to overpower their guards. One such incident occurred about eight years ago, and was reported by the master of a British tramp steamer, who wondered at the erratic course of a battered old dhow. Going close, he found she was manned by slaves, who had butchered their guards and taken control | of the ship. The poor, ignorant creatures; had no idea of handling it, but fortunately the tramp reported the occurrence to a warship, which went to their aid. It is often a case of the smiting of the Amalekite when Arabs are marching through Abyssinia with a caravan of slaves. All the great Ras (princes) of that country are- large slave-ownerg, and are wealthy enough to pay big prices for fine specimens. A Ras is absolutely in control of his own district, which he maintains by force of arms, and he sees no reason why he should respect the property .rights of a slave trader crossing his territory. If he hears of one, he usually takes a strong party out and inter-

cepts it, murders the Arabs and takes possession of the slaves. He may f either take them into his own service or sell • them to his neighbours, and no one will say him nay. For this reason the Arabs travel in much stronger force than is necessary for the control of their prisoners, and are armed to the teeth. Duel For Slave Beauty.

I checked the details of the' following story through anti-slavery officials in Kenya, and it gives a good idea of the conditions in Abyssinia such as I have described.. A trader took a great fancy to a beautiful young native woman, whom he had kidnapped in Africa, but on his arrival in Abyssinia he met the ras of a large district who offered to buy the girl. The Arab refused, whereupon the proud Abyssinian fought with him and was mortally woundedi ■ Later Abyssinians were sighted in strong force, and in the fight that followed, many of the slaves made good their escape. Only a few survived to_ reach Africa, however, the stx;agglers being picked up by various Abyssinians and dgain taken into slavery. The girl who was responsible for the whole affair was taken by the son of the man who had been murdered, and crucified that same afternoon on the grounds that she had caused the father’s death.

One hesitates to make a definite charge, but it is freely rumoured in many quarters that corrupt officials in Italian and French Somaliland have accepted large bribes for aiding Arab traders with intelligence reports, and facilitating their passage to the Red Sea. If Italian Somaliland was not crossed, the Arabs would have to take a much longer route, with the consequent loss of time and “cargo.” Some time ago Signor Mussolini pledged the active support of his Government against slavery, *nd no doubt he would deal harshly with any officials who betrayed their trust in the manner I have described. In fairness to the Italian Government, however, it must be stressed that many slave caravans have been intercepted in their territory, and probably this would more often prove the case if there were more adequate forces available for police purposes. I cannot do better than conclude this article with the account of a German scientist who recently explored many parts of that little-known land of Abyssinia. One night he and his small party had made camp, when a slave caravan passed in full view of thenf. The Arab traders took little notice of them, but the poor slaves set up a great wailing, which brought the whips of their mounted guards into instant action. As the pitiful caravan passed, the lean, chained, tortured wretches flung out their arms in supplication to the white man to whom they looked as their omnipotent protector. Describing the scene, the German said that the tears coursed down his cheeks, and lie had the greatest difficulty in refraining from attacking the fiendish traders single-handed. “Had I been able,” he wrote. “I should have shot the wretches like dogs,” and one can picture the impotent fury of this proud German, at being without' a sufficient force to perform that meritorious deed. Concluding, he writes: “Was this scene laid in the twentieth century, or in tlie days the world believes to have gone for ever?” Tt is. alas, and to the everlasting shame of civilisation that lie did sec that picture of horror in this century, and othem will see a similar scene many times before this horror is wiped out(To be continued.)