SLAVERY IN ARABIA.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2531, 29 September 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

SLAVERY IN ARABIA.

A gust of wind the other day upset an Arab slave dhow, and 100 hapless wretches who were sailing to slavery in Arabia were drowned in sight of the English cruiser which was on the way to rescue them. Id the same week another slaver was captured after a hard fight, in which a number of the slaves on board received bulleta intended for their captors. That the export slave trade on the East African coast ia still active is attested by the fact that in two years nearly fifty of these slave dhows have been captured ; yet the punishment inflicted upon the guilty slave-stealera does not deter others engaging in the perilous but profitable business.

Recent facts collected by the agents of the Anti-Slavery Society of England show that slaves were never cheaper in Arabia nor moro numerous than at present. There has been a great revival of the slave trade in the Soudan, and the followers of the Mahdi have sent many hundreds of their captives to the coast, to be despatched across the Red Sea in the night to markets in Arabia. Even the daughters of wealthy Khartoum tnprchiints have been consigned to this terrible fate. The markets for which the dhows ship their loads of bondsmen at many an unfrequented point along the coasts of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean are mainly in Arabia aud Turkey. The present Khedive of Egypt, who owns no slaves and who pays wages to the bondsmen whom his father left behind him, is apparently powerless to prevent slave shipments from parts of his eastern coasD, which, a few years ago, he ordered to be kept clear of slaves.

A recent writer in an English review, after picturing the freah horrors of this revived traffic, eees no hope of again stifling the trade without a rigid patrol of some thousands of miles of coast. This costly expedition could at best accomplish only temporary results. Tho evil must be attacked at the sources of the trade, and in the region whoso demand for slaves tho Arab dealers are willing , to stratify at any peril. Some day, when Christendom wakes up to the fact that tho export African slave trade is again in full blast, much-needed pressure may be brought to bear upon Turkey to preveDt tho importation of slaves. Tho evil will never be stamped out until tho natives learn through contact with civilising influences to prefer legitimate commerce to the criminal traffic which the Arabs encourage.