In writing this book, my aim has been to give a true picture in outline
of the Slave Trade as it exists at the present time on the east coast of
Africa.
In order to do this I have selected from the most trustworthy sources
what I believe to be the most telling points of "the trade," and have
woven these together into a tale, the warp of which is composed of thick
cords of fact; the woof of slight lines of fiction, just sufficient to
hold the fabric together. Exaggeration has easily been
avoided, because--as Dr Livingstone says in regard to the
slave-trade--"exaggeration is impossible."
If the reader's taste should be offended by finding the tragic and comic
elements in too close proximity I trust that he will bear in remembrance
that "such is life," and that the writer who would be true to life must
follow, not lead, nature.
I have to acknowledge myself indebted to Dr Ryan, late Bishop of
Mauritius; to the Rev. Charles New, interpreter to the Livingstone
Search Expedition; to Edward Hutchinson, Esquire, Lay Secretary to the
Church Missionary Society, and others, for kindly furnishing me with
information in connexion with the slave trade.
Besides examining the Parliamentary Blue-books which treat of this
subject, I have read or consulted, among others, the various
authoritative works to which reference is made in the foot-notes
sprinkled throughout this book,--all of which works bear the strongest
possible testimony to the fact that the horrible traffic in human beings
is in all respects as bad at the present time on the east coast of
Africa as it ever was on the west coast in the days of Wilberforce.
I began my tale in the hope that I might produce something to interest
the young (perchance, also, the old) in a most momentous cause,--the
total abolition of the African slave-trade. I close it with the prayer
that God may make it a tooth in the file which shall eventually cut the
chains of slavery, and set the black man free.
R.M. Ballantyne.
1873