cattle-lifting or kidnapping. Some of the pastoral tribes--as the
Wamasai, the Wakwafi, the Watuta, and the Warori--assert the theory that
none but themselves have a right to possess herds, and that they
received the gift directly from their ancestor who created cattle; in
practice they covet the animals for the purpose of a general gorge.
Slaves, however, are much more frequently the end and aim of feud and
foray. The process of kidnapping, an inveterate custom in these lands,
is in every way agreeable to the mind of the man-hunter. A “_multis
utile bellum_,” it combines the pleasing hazards of the chase with the
exercise of cunning and courage; the battue brings martial glory and
solid profit, and preserves the barbarian from the listlessness of life
without purpose. Thus men date from foray to foray, and pass their days
in an interminable blood-feud and border war. A poor and powerful chief
will not allow his neighbours to rest wealthier than himself; a quarrel
is soon found, the stronger attacks the weaker, hunts and harries his
cattle, burns his villages, carries off his subjects and sells them to
the first passing caravan. The inhabitants of the land have thus become
wolves to one another; their only ambition is to dispeople and destroy,
and the blow thus dealt to a thinly populated country strikes at the
very root of progress and prosperity.
As detrimental to the public interests as the border wars is the
intestine confusion caused by the slave trade. It perpetuates the vile
belief in Uchawi or black magic: when captives are in demand, the
criminal’s relations are sold into slavery. It affords a scope for the
tyranny of a chief, who, if powerful enough, will enrich himself by
vending his subjects in wholesale and retail. By weakening the tie of
family, it acts with deadly effect in preventing the increase of the
race.
On the coast and in the island of Zanzibar the slaves are of two
kinds--the Muwallid or domestic, born in captivity, and the wild slave
imported from the interior.
In the former case the slave is treated as one of the family, because
the master’s comfort depends upon the man being contented; often also
his sister occupies the dignified position of concubine to the head of
the house. These slaves vary greatly in conduct. The most tractable are
those belonging to the Diwans and the Wasawahili generally, who treat
them with the utmost harshness and contempt. The Arabs spoil them by a
kinder usage; few employ the stick, the salib, or cross--a forked pole
to which the neck and ankles are lashed--and the makantale or stocks,
for fear of desertion. Yet the slave if dissatisfied silently leaves the
house, lets himself to another master, and returns after perhaps two
years’ absence as if nothing had occurred. Thus he combines the
advantages of freedom and slavery. Moreover, it is a proverb among the
Arabs that a slave must desert once in his life, and he does so the more
readily as he betters his condition by so doing. The worst in all points
are those belonging to the Banyans, the Indians, and other European
subjects; they know their right to emancipation, and consult only their
own interests and inclinations. The Muwallid or domestic slave is also
used like the Pombeiro of West Africa. From Unyamwezi and Ujiji he is
sent to traffic in the more dangerous regions--the master meanwhile
dwelling amongst his fellow countrymen in some comfortable Tembe. This
proceeding has greatly injured the commerce of the interior, and
necessitates yearly lengthening journeys. The slave intrusted with cloth
and beads suddenly becomes a great man; he is lavish in supporting the
dignity of a fundi or fattore, and consulting nothing but his own
convenience, he will loiter for six months at a place where he has been
sent for a week. Thus it is that ivory sold in Unyamwezi but a dozen
years ago at 10 lbs. for 1 lb. of beads now fetches nearly weight for
weight. And this is a continually increasing evil. No caravan, however,
can safely traverse the interior without an escort of slave-musketeers.
They never part with their weapons, even when passing from house to
house, holding that their lives depend upon their arms; they beg,
borrow, or steal powder and ball; in fact they are seldom found unready.
They will carry nothing but the lightest gear, the master’s
writing-case, bed, or praying-mat; to load them heavily would be to
ensure desertion. Contrary to the practice of the free porter, they
invariably steal when they run away; they are also troublesome about
food, and they presume upon their weapons to take liberties with the
liquor and the women of the heathen.
The imported slaves again are of two different classes. Children are
preferred to adults; they are Islamised and educated so as to resemble
the Muwallid, though they are even somewhat less tame. Full-grown serfs
are bought for predial purposes; they continue indocile, and alter
little by domestication. When not used by the master they are left to
plunder or to let themselves out for food and raiment, and when dead
they are cast into the sea or into the nearest pit. These men are the
scourge of society; no one is safe from their violence; and to preserve
a garden or an orchard from the depredations of the half-starved
wretches, a guard of musketeers would be required. They are never armed,
yet, as has been recounted, they have caused at Zanzibar servile wars,
deadly and lasting as those of ancient Rome.
Arabs declare that the barbarians are improved by captivity--a partial
theory open to doubt. The servum pecus retain in thraldom that wildness
and obstinacy which distinguish the people and the lower animals of
their native lands; they are trapped, but not tamed; they become
captives, but not civilised. However trained, they are probably the
worst servants in the world; a slave-household is a model of discomfort.
The wretches take a trouble and display an ingenuity in opposition and
disobedience, in perversity, annoyance, and villany, which rightly
directed would make them invaluable. The old definition of a slave still
holds good--“an animal that eats as much and does as little as
possible.” Clumsy and unhandy, dirty and careless, he will never labour
unless ordered to do so, and so futile is his nature that even the
inducement of the stick cannot compel him to continue his exertions; a
whole gang will barely do the work of a single servant. He “has no end,”
to use the Arab phrase: that is to say, however well he may begin, he
will presently tire of his task; he does not and apparently he will not
learn; his first impulse, like that of an ass, is not to obey; he then
thinks of obeying; and if fear preponderate he finally may obey. He must
deceive, for fraud and foxship are his force; when detected in some
prodigious act of rascality, he pathetically pleads, “Am I not a slave?”
So wondrous are his laziness and hate of exertion, that despite a high
development of love of life he often appears the most reckless of
mortals. He will run away from the semblance of danger; yet on a journey
he will tie his pipe to a leaky keg of gunpowder, and smoke it in that
position rather than take the trouble to undo it. A slave belonging to
Musa, the Indian merchant at Kazeh, unwilling to rise and fetch a pipe,
opened the pan of his musket, filled it with tobacco and fire, and
beginning to inhale it from the muzzle blew out his brains. Growing
confident and impudent from the knowledge of how far he may safely go,
the slave presumes to the utmost. He steals instinctively, like a
magpie: a case is quoted in which the gold spangles were stripped from
an officer’s sword-belt whilst dining with the Prince of Zanzibar. The
slave is almost always half-naked; whatever clothes he obtains from the
master are pawned or sold in the bazar; hence he must pilfer and plunder
almost openly for the means of gratifying his lowest propensities,
drinking and intrigue. He seems to acquire from captivity a greater
capacity for debauchery than even in his native wilds; he has learned
irregularities unknown to his savage state: it is the brutishness of
negroid nature brought out by the cheap and readily attainable pleasures
of semi-civilisation. Whenever on moonlight nights the tapping of the
tomtom responds to the vile squeaking of the fife, it is impossible to
keep either a male or female slave within doors. All rendezvous at the
place, and, having howled and danced themselves into happiness, conclude
with a singularly disorderly scene. In the town of Zanzibar these
“Ngoma” or dances were prohibited for moral reasons by the late Sayyid.
The attachment of a slave to his master is merely a development of
selfishness; it is a greater insult to abuse the Ahbab (patroon), than,
according to Eastern fashion, the father and mother, the wife and
sister. No slave-owner, however, praises a slave or relies upon his
fidelity. The common expression is, “There is no good in the bondsman.”
Like the Somal, a merry and light-hearted race in foreign countries, but
rendered gloomy and melancholy by the state of affairs at home, the
negroid slaves greatly improve by exportation: they lose much of the
surliness and violence which distinguish them at Zanzibar, and are
disciplined into a kind of respect for superiors. Thus, “Seedy Mubarak”
is a prime favourite on board an Indian steamer; he has also strength
and courage enough to make himself respected. But “Seedy Mubarak” has
tasted the intoxicating draught of liberty, he is in high good humour
with himself and with all around him, he is a slave merely in origin, he
has been adopted into the great family of free men, and with it he has
identified all his interests. Eastern history preserves instances of the
valour and faithfulness of bondsmen, as the annals of the West are fond
of recording the virtues of dogs. Yet all the more civilised races have
a gird at the negro. In the present day the Persians and other Asiatics
are careful, when bound on distant or dangerous journeys, to mix white
servants with black slaves; they hold the African to be full of strange
childish caprices, and to be ever at heart a treacherous and
bloodthirsty barbarian. Like the “bush-negroes” of Surinam, once so
dangerous to the Dutch, the runaway slaves from Zanzibar have formed a
kind of East African Liberia, between Mount Yombo and the Shimba section
of the Eastern Ghauts. They have endangered the direct caravan-road from
Mombasah to Usumbara; and though trespassing upon the territory of the
Mwasagnombe, a sub-clan of the Wadigo, and claimed as subjects by
Abdullah, the son of Sultan Kimwere, they have gallantly held their
ground. According to the Arabs there is another servile republic about
Gulwen, near Brava. Travellers speak with horror of the rudeness,
violence, and cruelty of these self-emancipated slaves; they are said to
be more dangerous even than the Somal, who for wanton mischief and
malice can be compared with nothing but the naughtiest schoolboys in
England.
The serviles at Zanzibar have played their Arab masters some notable
tricks. Many a severe lord has perished by the hand of a slave. Several
have lost their eyes by the dagger’s point during sleep. Curious tales
are told of ingenious servile conspiracy. Mohammed bin Sayf, a Zanzibar
Arab, remarkable for household discipline, was brought to grief by
Kombo, his slave, who stole a basket of nutmegs from the Prince, and,
hiding them in his master’s house, denounced him of theft. Fahl bin
Nasr, a travelling merchant, when passing through Ugogo, nearly lost his
life in consequence of a slave having privily informed the people that
his patroon had been killing crocodiles and preserving their fat for
poison. In both these cases the slaves were not punished; they had
acted, it was believed, according to the true instincts of servile
nature, and chastisement would have caused desertion, not improvement.
As regards the female slaves, the less said about them, from regard to
the sex, the better: they are as deficient in honour as in honesty, in
modesty and decorum as in grace and beauty. No man, even an Arab, deems
the mother of his children chaste, or believes in the legitimacy of his
progeny till proved.
Extensive inquiries into the subject lead to a conviction that it is
impossible to offer any average of the price of slaves. Yet the question
is of importance, as only the immense profit causes men thus to overlook
all considerations of humanity. A few general rules may be safely given.
There is no article, even horse-flesh, that varies so much in
market-value as the human commodity: the absolute worth is small
compared with the wants of the seller and the requirements and the means
of the purchaser. The extremes range from six feet of unbleached
domestics or a few pounds of grain in time of famine, to seventy
dollars, equal to 15_l._ The slaves are cheapest in the interior, on
account of the frequency of desertion: about Unyamwezi they are dearer,
and most expensive in the island of Zanzibar. At the latter place
during the last few years they have doubled in price: according to the
Arabs, who regard the abolition of slavery with feelings of horror, this
increase results from the impediments thrown in the way by the English;
a more probable explanation may be found in the greater cheapness of
money. At Zanzibar the price of a boy under puberty is from fifteen to
thirty dollars. A youth till the age of fifteen is worth a little less.
A man in the prime of life, from twenty-five to forty, fetches from
thirteen to twenty dollars; after that age he may be bought from ten to
thirteen. Educated slaves, fitted for the work of factors, are sold from
twenty-five to seventy dollars, and at fancy prices. The price of
females is everywhere about one-third higher than that of males. At
Zanzibar the ushur or custom-dues vary according to the race of the
slave: the Wahiao, Wangindo, and other serviles imported from Kilwa, pay
one dollar per head, from the Mrima or maritime regions two dollars, and
from Unyamwezi, Ujiji, and the rest of the interior three dollars. At
the central depôt, Unyanyembe, where slaves are considered neither cheap
nor dear, the value of a boy ranges between eight and ten doti or double
cloths; a youth from nine to eleven; a man in prime, from five to ten;
and past his prime from four to six. In some parts of the interior men
are dearer than children under puberty. In the cheapest places, as in
Karagwah and Urori, a boy costs three shukkahs of cloth, and three fundo
or thirty strings of coral beads; a youth from ten to fifteen fundo; a
man in prime from eight to ten; and no one will purchase an old man.
These general notes must not, however, be applied to particular tribes:
as with ivory and other valuable commodities, the amount and the
description of the circulating medium vary at almost every march.
It was asserted by the late Colonel Hamerton, whose local knowledge was
extensive, that the average of yearly import into the island of Zanzibar
was 14,000 head of slaves, the extremes being 9000 and 20,000. The loss
by mortality and desertion is 30 per cent. per annum; thus, the whole
gang must be renewed between the third and fourth year.
By a stretch of power slavery might readily be abolished in the island
of Zanzibar, and in due time, after the first confusion, the measure
would doubtless be found as profitable as it is now unpalatable to the
landed proprietors, and to the commercial body. A “sentimental
squadron,” like the West African, would easily, by means of steam,
prevent any regular exportation to the Asiatic continent. But these
measures would deal only with effects, leaving the causes in full
vigour; they would strike at the bole and branches, the root retaining
sufficient vitality to resume its functions as soon as relieved of the
pressure from without. Neither treaty nor fleet would avail permanently
to arrest the course of slavery upon the seaboard, much less would it
act in the far realms of the interior. At present the African will not
work: the purchase of predial slaves to till and harvest for him is the
great aim of his life. When a more extensive intercourse with the
maritime regions shall beget wants which compel the barbarian, now
contented with doing nothing and having nothing, to that individual
exertion and that mutual dependency which render serfdom a moral
impossibility in the more advanced stages of human society,--when man,
now valueless except to himself, shall become more precious by his
labour than by his sale, in fact an article so expensive that strangers
cannot afford to buy him,--then we may expect to witness the extinction
of the evil. Thus, and thus only can “Rachel, still weeping for her
children,” in the evening of her days, be made happy.
Meanwhile, the philanthropist, who after sowing the good seed has sense
and patience to consign the gathering of the crop to posterity, will
hear with pleasure that the extinction of slavery would be hailed with
delight by the great mass throughout the length and breadth of Eastern
Africa. This people, “robbed and spoiled” by their oppressors, who are
legionary, call themselves “the meat,” and the slave-dealers “the
knife:” they hate and fear their own demon Moloch, but they lack
unanimity to free their necks from his yoke. Africa still “lies in her
blood,” but the progress of human society, and the straiter bonds which
unite man with man, shall eventually rescue her from her old pitiable
fate.
[Illustration: The Bull-headed Mabruki.]
[Illustration: African standing position.]
CONCLUSION.
On the 9th February the Battela and the stores required for our trip
arrived at Konduchi from Zanzibar, and the next day saw us rolling down
the coast, with a fair fresh breeze, towards classic Kilwa, the Quiloa
of De Gama, of Camoens, and of the Portuguese annalists. I shall reserve
an account of this most memorable shore for a future work devoted
especially to the seaboard of Zanzibar--coast and island:--in the
present tale of adventure the details of a _cabotage_ would be out of
place. Suffice it to say that we lost nearly all our crew by the
cholera, which, after ravaging the eastern coast of Arabia and Africa,
and the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, had almost depopulated the
southern settlements on the mainland. We were unable to visit the course
of the great Rufiji River, a counterpart of the Zambezi in the south,
and a water-road which appears destined to become the highway of nations
into Eastern equatorial Africa. No man dared to take service on board
the infected vessel; the Hindu Banyans, who directed the Copal trade of
the river regions aroused against us the chiefs of the interior;
moreover, the stream was in flood, overflowing its banks, and its line
appeared marked by heavy purple clouds, which discharged a deluge of
rain. Convinced that the travelling season was finished, I turned the
head of the Battela northwards, and on the 4th March, 1859, after a
succession of violent squalls and pertinacious calms, we landed once
more upon the island of Zanzibar.
Sick and way-worn I entered the house connected in memory with an old
friend, not without a feeling of sorrow for the change--I was fated to
regret it even more. The excitement of travel was succeeded by an utter
depression of mind and body: even the labour of talking was too great,
and I took refuge from society in a course of French novels _à vingt
sous la pièce_.
Yet I had fallen upon stirring times: the little state, at the epoch of
my return, was in the height of confusion. His Highness the Sayyid
Suwayni, Suzerain of Maskat, seizing the pretext of a tribute owed to
him by his cadet brother of Zanzibar, had embarked, on the 11th
February, 1859, a host of Bedouin brigands upon four or five
square-rigged ships and many Arab craft: with this power he was
preparing a hostile visit to the island. The Baloch stations on the
mainland were drained of mercenaries, and 7000 muskets, with an amount
of ammunition, which rendered the town dangerous, were served out to
slaves and other ruffians. Dows from Hadramaut brought down armed
adventurers, who were in the market to fight for the best pay. The
turbulent Harisi chiefs of Zanzibar were terrified into siding with his
Highness the Sayyid Majid by the influence of H. M. consul, Captain
Rigby. But the representatives of the several Christian powers could not
combine to preserve the peace, and M. Ladislas Cochet, Consul de France,
an uninterested spectator of the passing events, thought favourably of
his Highness the Sayyid Suwayni’s claim, he believed that the people if
consulted would prefer the rule of the elder brother, and he could not
reconcile his conscience to the unscrupulous means--the _force
majeure_--which his opponent brought into the field. The Harisi,
therefore, with their thousands of armed retainers--in a single review I
saw about 2200 of them--preserved an armed neutrality, which threatened
mischief to the weaker of the rival brothers: trade was paralysed, the
foreign merchants lost heavily, and no less than eighty native vessels
were still at the end of the season due from Bombay and the north. To
confuse confusion, several ships collecting negro “emigrants” and “free
labourers,” _per fas et nefas_, even kidnapping them when necessary,
were reported by the Arab local authorities to be anchored and to be
cruising off the coast of Zanzibar.
After a fortnight of excitement and suspense, during which the wildest
rumours flew through the mouths of men, it was officially reported that
H. M.’s steamer _Punjaub_, Captain Fullerton, H.M.I.N., commanding, had,
under orders received from the government of Bombay, met his Highness
the Sayyid Suwayni off the eastern coast of Africa and had persuaded him
to return.
Congratulations were exchanged, salutes were fired, a few Buggalows
belonging to the enemy’s fleet, which was said to have been dispersed by
a storm, dropped in and were duly captured, the negroes drank, sang, and
danced for a consecutive week, and with the least delay armed men poured
in crowded boats from the island towards their several stations on the
mainland. But the blow had been struck, the commercial prosperity of
Zanzibar could not be retrieved during the brief remnant of the season,
and the impression that a renewal of the attempt would at no distant
time ensure similar disasters seemed to be uppermost in every man’s
mind.
His Highness the Sayyid Majid had honoured me with an expression of
desire that I should remain until the expected hostilities might be
brought to a close. I did so willingly in gratitude to a prince to whose
good-will my success was mainly indebted. But the consulate was no
longer what it was before. I felt myself too conversant with local
politics, and too well aware of what was going on to be a pleasant
companion to its new tenant. At last, on the 15th March, when concluding
my accounts with Ladha Damha, the collector of customs at Zanzibar, that
official requested me, with the usual mystery, to be the bearer of
despatches, privately addressed by his prince, to the home government. I
could easily guess what they contained. Unwilling, however, to undertake
such a duty when living at the consulate, and seeing how totally opposed
to official _convenance_ such a procedure was, I frankly stated my
objections to Ladha Damha, and repeated the conversation to Captain
Rigby. As may be imagined, this little event did not diminish his desire
to see me depart.
Still I was unwilling to leave the field of my labours while so much
remained to be done. As my health appeared gradually to return under the
influence of repose and comparative comfort, I would willingly have
delayed at the island till the answer to an application for leave of
absence, and to a request for additional funds could be received from
the Government of Bombay and the Royal Geographical Society. But the
evident anxiety of my host to disembarrass himself of his guest, and the
nervous impatience of my companion--who could not endure the thought of
losing an hour--compelled me, sorely against my wish, to abandon my
intentions.