"'This is a mere spoliation of Turkey,' I hear some one cry. Well, yes;

the Osmanli rose to empire by spoiling others, and it is now his turn

to be spoiled. What he won by the sword he must keep by the sword,

or the sword will snatch it from him. His presence in Europe is in

these days an anachronism; it might be tolerated for good, certainly

not for evil. He is fit only for Asia Minor, where, untrammelled by

rival Plenipotentiaries and unscrupulous Ambassadors, he can throw off

the tights that embarrass his limbs, and become once more the 'man

on horseback.' There, at least, he can clean abolish his _Irádes_,

his _Tanzimát_, and other bastard forms of constitutionalism, which,

combined with so-called reforms, have destroyed the old forms without

substituting anything new; which have weakened his material powers,

spoiled his temper, and debased his character. There he can revert to

those mediæval institutions that made the race what it was; to the

eternal '_non possumus_,' to the 'Pacha of many Tales,' to the slave

and the concubine, to the eunuch and the mute, to the bowstring, the

bastinado, and the bag for the light o' love. There _la gent qui

porte le turban_ may cultivate its mixture of childishness and senile

cunning; its levity of mind, cloaked by solemn garb and mien; its

mental indolence, with spasmodic efforts by way of change; and its

conscious weakness warring with overweening arrogance. But Europe will

no longer bear in her bosom this survival of the Unfittest. _Apage

Sathanas!_ Return, Tartar, to that Tartary whence thou earnest. These

are the words of St. Louis, and they shall be heard."

* * * * *

[He also wrote later on--]

"THE PARTITION OF TURKEY.

"The curious are beginning to ask, Do statesmen, politicians, and

Foreign Offices really wish to settle the so-called 'Eastern Question'?

Does the trade hesitate to take it in hand from the dread vision of

half its occupation gone? And yet what a host of evils such _fainéance_

breeds! Take, for instance, the last miserable move, known to politics

as the 'Cession of Dulcigno,' a paltry village on the wild Albanian

shore. It kept the fleets of Europe at bay for a couple of months;

it kept the whole of Southeastern Europe in 'hot water;' it kept

newspapers in news while starving trade; and it supplied history with

an episode the most comical, the most absurd. Of the Turk we may say

(with Spenser)--

'That his behaviour altogether was

_Alla Turchesca_.'

He has adhered to his traditional policy--procrastination, promising,

non-performance. 'The friendly concert of the Great Powers' has

been sorely tried, strained to breaking point. Bulgaria, 'one and

indivisible,' has been arming and drilling instead of tilling and

earing. Greece has made it the business of her national life to raise a

loan and an army of 60,000 men. Albania has, perhaps, fared the worst.

The Porte encouraged her to resist the so-called 'will of Europe,' and

to oppose with all her might the transfer of Albanians to Montenegrins.

Then the Porte executed the normal manœuvre _volte face_; commanded,

or pretended to command, her to give up her property; and made a happy

despatch of her recusant chiefs--by means of the usual cup of coffee.

The turbulent mountain region is now between two stools; she is neither

Turkish nor Albanian, she is lost to the Porte without having gained

her independence; and, like the Libanus in the past, she has become one

of the 'tinder-boxes' of the West. Meanwhile the work of the European

world has suffered, and still suffers, from an armed peace which has

many of the evils and none of the good which war brings.

"When I last wrote (1879) the Turco-Russian campaign of two years,

which must have cost the lives of a million human beings, had

dragged itself to its weary end. It left the Sick Man weaker and

more prostrated than ever--even the political doctors with their

patent drugs could do no good to a constitution fast breaking up.

The short respite from his sufferings called peace was not a 'peace

with honour.' Resolved to maintain the 'integrity of Turkey,' the

rough surgeons dismembered, disintegrated her. She was, before that

treatment, a 'scattered Empire like England;' after it she became a

'geographical expression,' as was the Italy of the eighteenth century.

Virtually she lost all her European provinces, except Roumelia, which

took the peculiarly inconsequent title of Eastern Bulgaria. Dynastic

demoralization and despotic government; diminished territory and

autonomous provinces; national bankruptcy, with confusion of finance,

unpaid debts, and a paper money which caused disturbances wherever

it circulated, have made the Sick Man a dying man; and, instead of

soothing and syruping his last moments, the greedy heirs standing by

his bedside are wrangling and recriminating and calling one another

names over the approaching distribution of his property.

"The 'future of Turkey' was virtually settled in 1816, when

'Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington' proposed to the great Muscovite

Empire the mediatization of Constantinople. Russia saw how great a

boon this step would be to her. She may look forward to absorbing the

Queen of the Bosphorus after half a century; in the present state

of things she knows that the superb possession would be a well-nigh

unmitigated evil. It would cut her Empire in two: and the southern

would only injure the sounder and sturdier northern half. The _status

quo_ she knew to be equally detrimental; autocratic governments must

obey popular will; and an ebullition of national rage may at any moment

force on a campaign like that of 1877-78. She wants rest; and she

wishes to recruit her finances, to reorganize her armies, and to settle

conclusions with the Tartars and the Chinese. In fact, peace in Europe,

but not an armed peace, is a desideratum to her, and she can obtain

it only when Constantinople becomes a free town. She knew this half a

century ago, and she knows it still.

"Meanwhile, the partition of Turkey has been going on merrily. In the

war brought on mainly by our old enemy Rashíd Pasha, the 'rebellious

Principalities,' Montenegro and Servia, have enlarged their boundaries;

but both want more, and both will have more. For the characteristic

of the actual 'situation' is its purely provisional nature. No one is

satisfied as matters now stand; all are without exception claimants,

and urgent claimants, for something more than 'administrative

autonomy,' either municipal or provincial. The new 'tributary

principality' of Bulgaria Proper, as I suppose we must call her, will

not be satisfied with _quasi_ independence. She has spent the last two

years in preparations for a campaign; in buying arms and in drilling

under Russian officers. She waits only for Greece to begin the game;

whilst Greece says, 'Gentlemen of Bulgaria, fire first.' It is the

old story of the Earl of Chatham and Sir Richard Strachan. Eastern

Roumelia, which is Southern Bulgaria, cannot be satisfied with her

rank as a mere province, even under a nominal Christian Governor whose

ministry rules. She must conquer her freedom; and she will conquer it

by uniting with Bulgaria Proper, and by throwing herself into the arms

of Russia, if we compel her to commit this act of political suicide.

"Greece, that progressive little kingdom, which has been so much and

so unjustly abused by the sentimentalists of England, behaved with

exemplary patience during the Russo-Turkish War. She allowed herself to

be cajoled by promise after promise, and now she finds that--

'In native swords and native ranks,

The only hope of freedom dwells.'

Action, in fact, is thrust upon her. The two Conferences of Berlin

promised her a thin slice of enslaved Greece, which she thankfully

accepted as an earnest of more. It would weary the reader to recount

the miserable subterfuges and tergiversation of Turkey, who alternately

presents the bittock to her lips and withdraws it, proposing impossible

conditions. In this mean matter politics are complicated by something

like personal spite and racial hatred. The Turk makes it a _pundonor_

not to yield to the Greek; he would keep for his own use the right of

robbery and rape, kidnapping and murdering. The Greek will bear no more

the hateful yoke.

"The former declares with perfect untruth that the transfer of Janina,

Larissa, and other places would be the loss of a commanding strategic

line. The Greek asserts that he must also have Epirus, Thessaly, and

even Thrace, because the whole country is Greek in language, manners,

and religion. And a fresh complication has sprung up. Greece has been

making, for her, immense sacrifices, and an army of 30,000 to 40,000

men will soon eat up a State whose population is 1,500,000, and whose

revenue of £3,600,000, with a deficit of half a million and a debt of

eighteen millions; it would hardly keep her in bread and cheese. Every

day costs her more money than she can afford; the business of everyday

life is at a standstill.

"Austria has at length adopted the course prescribed to her in the

last century by the soldier and statesman, Prince Eugène of Savoy, who

advised her to abandon her worse than useless Italian conquests, and to

bring her weight to bear upon the Turk. After an 'occupation,' which

was a campaign costing some 4000 lives, she has established herself

in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, which are geographical necessities to

the 'Kingdom of Dalmatia,' the old 'Mother of Emperors.' Here she has

done, despite her enemies, excellent work. A traveller writes to me,

'The improvements effected in the new protectorate during the last two

years must be seen to be believed. The military roads extending from

Brood on the Sava to Serajevo, and from Serajevo through Herzegovina,

by Mostar, to the mouth of the Narenta, do infinite honour to the

Engineer Department, and, considering the immense outlay of the

Imperial Treasury, to the forethought and generosity of the Government.

A capable police has been organized, and district courts and schools

have been established throughout the length and breadth of the land. I

found perfect order and tranquillity prevailing everywhere, and well

will it be for the best interests, social and political, of the people,

the farther Austrian rule is extended and the longer it is perpetuated.'

"Austria took formal charge of the Ottoman in South-Eastern Europe at

the Congress of Berlin--a step enthusiastically hailed by a statesman

as 'glad tidings of great joy.' The Emperor's journey to Dalmatia

(1876) was the beginning of that policy, and we have still to see the

results of the Imperial round of visits in the summer of 1880. It is

understood that the attitude of England has revived the league known

as the Dreikaiserbund, and that Germany and Austria are united in

the determination that the other third should not profit exclusively

by annexing Turkish territory. When the war breaks out, and it may

break out at any moment, Austria cannot remain passive. Under pain

of retrograding she must advance. Adrianople will become necessary

to the Dual Empire when Greece enlarges herself; when Bulgaria shall

conquer her independence, the course of events must carry Austria

forward to Salonica. There is nothing to prevent her becoming a great

Jugo-Slav (South Slavonic) power, the mainstay of the Catholic Slavs,

as Russia is of the Northern or orthodox. By cultivating the Christian

populations on the Lower Danube, and by a league with 'Old Bulgaria'

(Servia, Roumania, Roumelia, etc.), she would invest the Muscovite

rival to the south and the south-west, while Germany hems him in to the

west and the north-west. Russia declares that such a union, forming a

state of siege impossible to endure, would be a calamity second only to

the restoration of the kingdom of Poland.

"Austria has two opponents who will serve only to force her forwards.

The Land of the Magyar has become a country of 'white Turks,' of

'ogres,' as Mr. Freeman calls them, more Ottoman than the Ottomans.

Kossuth's lately published volumes explain the reason why; but the

ambitions and the passions of 1848, which brought about the unnatural

and abominable union, cannot outlast a second generation. The other

rival is Italy, whose statesmen view, with a curious mixture of rage

and spite, the aggrandizement of a quondam master. Since Italia became

_una_, her politicians have shown a turbulent spirit which menaces the

peace of Europe. _Italia Irredenta_, an old idea, but an expression

apparently coined in 1878, means much. The _Redenta_ represents an

'Italy free from Etna to Trieste.' The Moderates would be satisfied

with annexing the Trentino, the duchy of Gorizia, and the peninsula

of Istria. The 'Immoderates' add all Dalmatia and part of Albania; in

fact, wherever the Roman _regiones_ extended. But Trieste will not be

Italian. Mr. Disraeli said, 'The port of Trieste is not a mere Austrian

port; it belongs to the German Confederation; and an attack on Trieste

is not an attack on Austria alone, but also on Germany.' The managing

man, _par excellence_, of Europe has as openly declared that if the

Italians attempt to march upon the Vice-Queen of the Adriatic, they

will meet a sword-point which is not Austrian. Italy might do better

than to lay out her income upon 'bloated armaments,' a disproportionate

army which she is still increasing, and colossal ironclads, which any

torpedo-cockboat may blow up. She is one of the poorest of nations,

in the very richest of soils; her agriculture has progressed little

beyond that of the 'Georgics;' her railroads are a disgrace; so is

her post-office; her finances suffer from the good old practice of

converting a stocking into a bank; and her business is injured by

her over-'cuteness' and greed of gain. She is no longer the charming

country of the early nineteenth century. Freedom has taught her all the

roughness, but little of the virtue of the Northerner. Honesty seems to

be at its lowest ebb. The knife is king. Whatever Italy has of genius,

energy, and 'go-ahead' is now devoted to warlike preparations, and to

dreams of conquest. The awaking will be bitter.

"So much for Turkey in Europe, where, despite Mr. Redhouse, she can

hardly be said to exist. In Asia, or rather Asia Minor, her future

home, she has lost her most valuable possessions--Kars, the great base

of military operations, and Batoum, the rival of Trebizonde, and the

port that commands the Bosphorus. The Muscovite really requires nothing

more in Western Asia; and it was a masterly stroke of policy our

pledging ourselves to protect what wants no protection. It is again the

Dean's--

'When nothing's left to need defence

They build a magazine.'

But here again Russia is being forced forward. She has nothing to do

with the bleak and barren mountains of Armenia, an Asiatic Scotland;

but the cries of the unfortunate Christians, though peremptorily

suppressed in the Turkish papers, are exciting legitimate Muscovite

sympathies. It is the old story of the 'Bulgarian atrocities.' Armenia,

when I last wrote, was a 'rebellious province,' and she was to be put

down by slipping at her the Kurd bloodhound. This race of bandits,

fanatical as it is ferocious, has perpetrated every horror under the

sun; and the complication of a hunger-year has made the desolate

Christians ready to accept any rule. And now they are attacking in

force Persia, the neighbour and ally of Russia, so as to compel the

latter to remove.

"The 'reform by moral force,' the honest gendarmerie, the just

tribunals, and the tax-gathering publicans turned to saints, all

these choice projects of a future for Asia Minor have turned out, as

might have been expected, the merest visions, baseless as a mirage.

If England were _doctrinaire_, she would either let the task severely

alone or she would appoint to every government (_vilayet_) of Turkey a

British 'Resident,' after the fashion of Anglo-India. But compromise

is her specific; it is a panacea for home use, and, _ergo_, it is a

panacea everywhere. She has done neither this nor that; she has adopted

_mezzi termini_ (half-measures); she has again applied the rule of

thumb; she has 'meddled and muddled' once more. How perfectly she has

failed is known to every newspaper reader.

"A number of English officers, mostly ignorant of the languages and

customs of the East, have been made Consuls and Vice-Consuls in Asia

Minor. Turkey, on her side, has sent Englishmen, with high official

rank in her armies, to inspect provinces, to inquire into abuses,

and to send in long reports for instant pigeon-holing. This is again

mere dust thrown in the general eyes. As Sultan of Turkey, the old

Bāsh-Buzzuk of Cavala would have given new life to the battered and

broken empire of the 'unspeakable;' and, naturally enough, his ambition

was dreaded by the northern pretenders to Constantinople. Let one

sentence suffice to show the difference of development between the

two. Syria has not one made harbour; Egypt has three. Egypt has a

dozen railroads; Syria boasts only of one carriageable highway, and

that is French property. But Palestine grows in importance every year.

Mr. Laurence Oliphant has surveyed the land of Gilead, the eastern

frontier; and, supported by the Israelitish capitalists of Europe,

he proposes to restore that part of Judæa to her old owners. Captain

Cameron, equally well backed, has virtually begun the Euphrates Valley

line, despite the adverse forecasts of Mr. Wilfrid Blunt. Jerusalem, it

is true, cannot, in the present state of Europe, become the exclusive

possession of any European Power. But already almost all the land

around has been bought up by the Jews, and the Sacred City, like her

holy sisters, Hebron, Tiberias, and Safet, may be said to belong to

them. The sooner Syria is made over to Egypt the better.

"Then we shall recognize the full value of Cyprus. The marvellous

excitement, caused at home and abroad, by this latest scrap of

annexation shows the way the popular wind blows--the reaction of the

melancholy policy which restored and ruined Corfu. We do not wish to

make the Mediterranean an 'English lake;' but it is, and ever will

be, our highway to India and to Indo-China; and we reasonably object

to its becoming a French lake or a Russian lake. And England wants

secure ports and stations for her guardhouses, the ironclads. Candia

and Mitylene would not oppose the hoisting of the Union Jack. These

acquisitions must be unpopular at first--they will cost money, and men

will die of fever. The Turks, who occupied three centuries of misrule

in making the noble islands howling wildernesses, will clamour as they

now do for the 'surplus revenues' produced by British blood and gold.

Rome was not built in a day, nor will Cyprus be restored in a week.

But our energy and industry must at last prevail. We will clean out

harbours, raise cities, and drain away malaria. We are not justified in

failing where our crusading ancestors succeeded so grandly.

"As regards Egypt we are beginning only now to appreciate the grand

results brought about by the great high-minded Ali Pasha and his

successors. We want from her nothing but the free right of transit

and transport; but we are resolved that the great highway of nations

shall not be barricaded by her or by others. Meanwhile, the absolute

independence of Egypt has become a necessity. Her connection with

Turkey is an unmixed and unmitigated evil. She wants all her hands;

and yet she was compelled to send a large contingent to the last

Russo-Turkish campaign. When the Turks are freely allowed wholesale

'repudiation,' the Nile Valley must pay her usurious creditors the

uttermost farthing of a public debt individually contracted. She wants

all her money, and she should, in common justice, be freed from her

heavy tribute, and from the heavier benevolences and _douceurs_ which

perpetually find their way to the Seraglio, or rather into ministerial

pockets. And Egypt is at present, despite the rose-water reports of

officials, who take a personal pride in writing, not the truth but what

is wished to be the truth, far from comfortable. Abyssinia has placed

her between the horns of a dilemma. She must either grant or not grant

a port to the barbarous and bloodthirsty Nestorians called Christians.

In the former case, the only imports will be arms and ammunition,

especially the latter, for Johannes, the Emperor, has thousands of

breech-loaders, but no cartridges. In the latter case she will be

in a state of chronic war with her turbulent neighbour, who is ever

threatening her inland frontier.

"And Egypt has lately offended the moral sense of Europe by a

peculiarly retrograde Mohammedan measure--the systematic revival of

the import slave-trade. England has a manner of convention with her

for suppressing it: but the provisions of 1877 should be made more

stringent. She has now reached that point of civilization when she can

afford to proclaim a total abolition of compulsory labour, the full

and immediate emancipation of the 'chattel.' Slaves and eunuchs, the

latter denounced by Islamism, are mere articles of luxury for pashas

and beys. I will not deny that when the infamous revival of trade in

human beings was brought to their notice, her Ministry addressed a

circular letter to the _Mudirs_ or provincial Governors, and appointed

a director for its suppression. But this, again, was the Eastern trick

of _poudre aux yeux_. The director went up the Nile, and the slaves

came down the Red Sea. Then the director, having apparently done enough

for a rose-water report, retired to his winter quarters at Cairo,

and the slaves returned to the Nile. Meanwhile the Ministry, whilst

permitting this shameful traffic, has systematically neglected the

gold and silver placers discovered on the Midian coast, and evidently

extending far southwards; in fact, the old Ophir and Havilah. In

Turkish Arabia (the _vilayet_ province of Yemen, near Sana'a), a new

digging has been discovered, and, with true Oriental exaggeration, has

been proclaimed 'one of the richest in the world.' But in the hands

of the Turkish Government even a diamond-mine, a Golconda, would be a

losing affair; it can be worked with profit only by European heads and

hands. Meanwhile Egypt must recover her prestige by abolishing slavery

and by exploiting her mineral wealth.

"To conclude. Poets are sometimes prophets; and we have a specimen in

the forecast of Camoens, which dates from the year of grace 1572--

'Those fierce projectiles, of our days the work,

Murderous engines, dire artilleries,

Against Byzantine walls, where dwells the Turk,

Should long ago have belcht their batteries.

Oh, hurl it back, in forest caves to lurk,

Where Caspian crests and steppes of Scythia freeze,

That Turkish ogre-progeny multiplied

By potent Europe's policy and pride.'

"What also wrote Torquato Tasso, only a few years after Camoens?

'For if the Christian Princes ever strive

To win fair Greece out of the tyrant's hands,

And those usurping Ismaelites deprive

Of woeful Thrace, which now captived stands;

You must from realms and sea the Turks forth drive,

As Godfrey chased them from Judah's lands,' etc.

Amen, and so be it!

"R. F. B.

"Trieste."

[1] Written in 1876.

[2] Lord Beaconsfield.

[3] This was written in 1876.

[4] "This was written at the end of 1876. It would be impossible

to-day (1878) not to sympathize with and admire Austria and her brave

army struggling single-handed and manfully in the great Bosnian and

Herzegovinian difficulty, but when it is over her reward will be great.

It is a large step in the right direction; but we, who want a great

Austrian Empire, wish she had had all the nineteen million Slavs, not a

part."

[5] "This was written January, 1876."

[6] "I fear that the Future now threatens to be the Present

(1893)."--I. B.

[7] This was written in 1876.

[8] His grandson was Chancellier at Trieste in 1888.--I. B.

[9] "See 'Lettres, Journal, et Documents,' vol. ii. pp. 298-300. He

rates the mob at five thousand, and writes dramatically. The cushions

of a divan do not form an _espèce de tombeau_, where a woman can be

_ensevelie vivante_. M. de Lesseps says that he had the details from

the chief actors of the drama, but I prefer M. Sabatier's account."

[10] "Our diamond weights are as follows:--

16 parts = 1 (diamond) grain = 4/5 grain, troy.

4 diamond grains = 1 carat = 3 1/5 (3.174 grains, troy).

"The Indian weights are:--

1 Dhan = 15.32 grains, troy, in round numbers half a grain.

4 Dhary = 1 Rati = 1 2/3 grains, troy.

8 Rati = 1 Masha = 18 grains, troy.

12 Mashas = 1 Tola = 180 grains troy.

"The 'ounces' in the text probably represents 'tolas,' certainly not

troy ounces of 24 grains."

[11] "Mr. Maclean kindly drew my attention to the Treaty with the

Nizam (November 12th, 1766), which cedes to the E. I. Company 'the

five Circars or Provinces of Ellour (Ellore, north of Masulipatam),

Rajahmondra Siccacole (or Chicacole on the coast), and Moortizanuggur

or Gunton.' The four first named were added to the French dominions by

De Bussy. 'These Circars,' we read, 'include territory extending along

the coast from the mouths of the Kistna (Krishna) northward to near

Ganjour, and stretching some distance inland.' Article No. 11 of the

same Treaty runs thus: 'The Hon'ble E. I. Company, in consideration of

their diamond mines, with the villages appertaining thereto, having

been always dependent on H. H. the Nizam's Government, do hereby agree

that the same shall remain in possession now also.'"

[12] "All this was written two years before the late Afghan War began."

APPENDIX F.

LETTERS ON THE JEDDAH MASSACRE, AND CHOLERA--HIS WARNING TO THE

GOVERNMENT, WHICH CALLED DOWN A REPRIMAND ON HIM.

"To the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, London.

"Sir,--I have the honour to inform you that on the 1st of December,

1856, I addressed to you a letter which I hope has been duly received.

On the 2nd instant, in company with Lieutenant Speke, I left Bombay

Harbour, on board the H.E.I. Company's ship of war _Elphinstone_

(Captain Frushard, I.N., commanding), _en route_ to East Africa. I have

little to report that may be interesting to geographers; but perhaps

some account of political affairs in the Red Sea may be deemed worthy

to be transmitted by you to the Court of Directors or to the Foreign

Office.

"As regards the Expedition, copies of directions and a memorandum

on instruments and observations for our guidance have come to hand.

For observations, Lieutenant Speke and I must depend upon our own

exertions, neither serjeants nor native students being procurable

at the Bombay Observatory. The case of instruments and the mountain

barometer have not been forwarded, but may still find us at Zanzibar.

Meanwhile I have obtained from the Commanding Engineer, Bombay, one

six-inch sextant, one five and a half ditto, two prismatic compasses,

five thermometers (of which two are B.P.), a patent log, taper,

protractors, stands, etc.; also two pocket chronometers from the

Observatory, duly rated; and Dr. Buist, secretary Bombay Geographical

Society, has obliged me with a mountain barometer and various

instructions about points of interest. Lieutenant Speke has been

recommended by the local Government to the Government of India for

duty in East Africa, and the services of Dr. Steinhaüser, who is most

desirous to join us, have been applied for from the Medical Board,

Bombay. I have strong hopes that both these officers will be allowed to

accompany me, and that the Royal Geographical Society will use their

efforts to that effect.

"By the subjoined detailed account of preliminary expenses at Bombay,

it will be seen that I have expended £70 out of £250 for which I was

permitted to draw.

"Although, as before mentioned, the survey of Eastern Intertropical

Africa has for the moment been deferred, the necessity still exists.

Even in the latest editions of Horsburgh, the mass of matter relative

to Zanzibar is borrowed from the observations of Captain Bissel, who

navigated the coast in H.M.'s ships _Leopard_ and _Orestes_, about A.D.

1799. Little is known of the great current which, setting periodically

from and to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, sweeps round the Eastern

Horn of Africa. The reefs are still formidable to navigators; and

before these seas can be safely traversed by steamers from the Cape, as

is now proposed, considerable additions must be made to Captain Owen's

survey in A.D. 1823-24. Finally, operations on the coast will form the

best introduction to the geographical treasures of the interior.

"The H.E.I. Company's surveying brig _Tigris_ will shortly be out of

dock, where she has been undergoing a thorough repair, and if fitted up

with a round-house on the quarter-deck would answer the purpose well.

She might be equipped in a couple of months, and despatched to her

ground before the south-west monsoon sets in, or be usefully employed

in observing at Zanzibar instead of lying idle in Bombay Harbour.

On former surveys of the Arabian and African Coasts, a small tender

of from thirty to forty tons has always been granted, as otherwise

operations are much crippled in boisterous weather and exposed on

inhospitable shores. Should no other vessel be available, one of the

smallest of the new pilot schooners now unemployed at Bombay might be

directed to wait upon the _Tigris_. Lieutenant H. G. Fraser, I.N., has

volunteered for duty upon the African coast, and I have the honour to

transmit his letter. Nothing more would be required were some junior

officer of the Indian navy stationed at Zanzibar for the purpose of

registering tidal, barometric, and thermometric observations, in

order that something of the meteorology of this unknown region may be

accurately investigated.

"When passing through Aden I was informed that the blockade of the

Somali Coast had been raised without compensation for the losses

sustained on my last journey. This step appears, politically speaking,

a mistake. In the case of the _Mary Ann_ brig, plundered near Berberah

in A.D. 1825, due compensation was demanded and obtained. Even in

India, an officer travelling through the states not under British rule

can, if he be plundered, require an equivalent for his property. This

is, indeed, our chief protection--semi-barbarians and savages part with

money less willingly than with life. If it be determined for social

reasons at Aden that the blockade should cease and mutton become cheap,

a certain percentage could be paid upon the exports of Berberah till

such time as our losses, which, including those of Government, amount

to £1380, are made good.

"From Harar news has reached Aden that the Amir Abubakr, dying during

the last year of chronic consumption, has been succeeded by a cousin,

one Abd el Rahman, a bigoted Moslem, and a violent hater of the Gallas.

His success in feud and foray, however, has not prevented the wild

tribes from hemming him in, and unless fortune interferes, the city

must fall into their hands. The rumour prevalent at Cairo, namely,

that Harar had been besieged and taken by Mr. Bell, now serving under

'Theodorus, Emperor of Ethiopia' (the chief Cássái), appears premature.

At Aden I met in exile Sharmarkay bin Ali Salih, formerly Governor of

Zayla. He has been ejected in favour of a Dankali chief by the Ottoman

authorities of Yemen--a circumstance the more to be regretted as he has

ever been a firm friend to our interests.

"The present defenceless state of Berberah still invites our presence.

The eastern coast of the Red Sea is almost entirely under the Porte.

On the western shore, Cosseir is Egyptian; Masáwwah, Sawakin, and

Zayla, Turkish; and Berberah, the best port of all, unoccupied. I have

frequently advocated the establishment of a British agency at this

place, and venture to do so at once. This step would tend to increase

trade, to obviate accidents in case of shipwreck, and materially

assist in civilizing the Somal of the interior. The Government of

Bombay has doubtless preserved copies of my reports, plans, and

estimates concerning the proposed agency, and I would request the

Royal Geographical Society to inquire into a project peculiarly

fitted to promote their views of exploration in the Eastern Horn of

Africa. Finally, this move would checkmate any ambitious projects in

the Red Sea. The Suez Canal may be said to have commenced. It appears

impossible that the work should pay in a commercial sense. Politically

it may, if at least its object be, as announced by the Count d'Escayrac

de Lauture, at the Société de Géographie, to 'throw open the road of

India to the Mediterranean coasting trade, to democratize commerce

and navigation.' The first effect of the highway would be, as that

learned traveller justly remarks, to open a passage through Egypt to

the speronari and feluccas of the Levant, the light infantry of a more

regular force.

"The next step should be to provide ourselves with a more efficient

naval force at Aden, the head-quarters of the Red Sea squadron. I may

briefly quote, as a proof of the necessity for protection, the number

of British _protégés_ in the neighbouring ports, and the present value

of the Jeddah trade.

"Mocha now contains about twenty-five English subjects, the principal

merchants in the place. At Masáwwah, besides a few French and

Americans, there are from sixteen to twenty British _protégés_, who

trade with the interior, especially for mules required at the Mauritius

and our other colonies. Hodaydah has from fifty to sixty, and Jeddah,

besides its dozen resident merchants, annually witnesses the transit of

some hundreds of British-protected subjects, who flock to the Haj for

commerce and for devotion.

"The chief emporium of the Red Sea trade for centuries past has been

Jeddah, the port of Meccah. The custom-house reports of 1856 were

kindly furnished to me by Captain Frushard, I.N. (now commanding

the H.E.I.C.'s sloop of war _Elphinstone_), an old and experienced

officer, lately employed in blockading Berberah, and who made himself

instrumental in quelling certain recent attempts upon Turkish supremacy

in Western Arabia. According to these documents, thirty-five ships of

English build (square-rigged) arrived at and left Jeddah between the

end of September and April, from and for various places in the East,

China, Batavia, Singapore, Calcutta, Bombay, the Malabar coast, the

Persian Gulf, and Eastern Africa. Nearly all carried our colours, and

were protected, or supposed to be protected, by a British register:

only five had on board a European captain or sailing master, the rest

being commanded and officered by Arabs and Indians. Their cargoes from

India and the Eastern regions are rice, sugar, piece goods, planking,

pepper, and pilgrims; from Persia, dates, tobacco, and raw silk; and

from the Mozambique, ivory, gold dust, and similar costly articles.

These imports in 1856 are valued at £160,000. The exports for the

year, consisting of a little coffee and spice for purchase of imports,

amounts, per returns, to £120,000. In addition to these square-rigged

ships, the number of country vessels, open boats, bungalows, and

others, from the Persian Gulf and the Indian coasts, amounts to 900,

importing £550,000, and exporting about £400,000. I may remark, that

to all these sums at least one-third should be added, as speculation

abounds, and books are kept by triple entry in the Holy Land.

"The next port in importance to Jeddah is Hodaydah, where vessels touch

on their way northward, land piece and other goods, and call on the

return passage to fill with coffee. As the head-quarters of the Yemen

Pashalik, it has reduced Mocha, formerly the great coffee mart, to

insignificance, and the vicinity of Aden, a free port, has drawn off

much of the stream of trade from both these ancient emporia. On the

African coast of the Red Sea, Sawakin, opposite Jeddah, is a mere slave

mart, and Masáwwah, opposite Hodaydah, still trades in pearls, gold

dust, ivory, and mules.

"But if the value of the Red Sea traffic calls, in the present posture

of events, for increased means of protection, the slave-trade has

equal claims to our attention. At Aden energetic efforts have been

made to suppress it. It is, however, still carried on by her country

boats from Sawakin, Tajarrah, Zayla, and the Somali coast; a single

cargo sometimes consisting of two hundred head gathered from the

interior, and exported to Jeddah and the small ports lying north and

south of it. The trade is, I believe, principally in the hands of Arab

merchants at Jeddah and Hodaydah, and resident foreigners, principally

Indian Moslems, who claim our protection in case of disturbances, and

consequently carry on a thriving business. Our present squadron in the

Red Sea consisting of only two sailing-vessels, the country boats in

the African ports have only to wait till they see the ship pass up or

down, and then, knowing the passage--a matter of a day--to be clear,

to lodge the slaves at their destination. During the past year, this

trade was much injured by the revolt of the Arabs against the Turks,

and the constant presence of the _Elphinstone_, whose reported object

was to seize all vessels carrying slaves. The effect was principally

moral. Although the instructions for the guidance of the Commander

enjoined him to carry out the wishes of the Home and Indian Governments

for the suppression of slavery, yet there being no published treaty

between the Imperial Government and the Porte sanctioning to us the

right of search in Turkish bottoms, his interference would not have

been supported by the Ottoman local authorities. It may be well to

state, that after a Firman had been published in the Hejaz and Yemen

abolishing the trade, the Turkish Governments of Jeddah and Hodaydah

declared that the English Commander might do as he pleased, but that

they declined making any written request for his assistance. For its

present increased duties, for the suppression of the slave-trade,

for the protection of British subjects, and for the watching over

Turkish and English interests in the Red Sea, the Aden Squadron is

no longer sufficient. During the last two years it has numbered two

sailing-vessels--the _Elphinstone_, a sloop of war, carrying twelve

32-pounders and two 12-pounders; and the _Mahi_, a schooner armed

with one pivot gun, 32-pounder, and two 12-pounders. Nor would it be

benefited by even a considerable increase of sailing-vessels. It is

well known that, as the prevailing winds inside the sea are favourable

for proceeding upwards from September to April, so on the return,

during those months, they are strongly adverse. A fast ship, like the

_Elphinstone_, requires thirty days on the downward voyage to do the

work of four. Outside the sea, during those months, the current sets

inward from the Indian Ocean, and a ship, in event of very light winds

falling, has been detained a whole week in sight of Aden. From April to

September, on the contrary, the winds set down the Red Sea frequently

with violence, the current inside the sea also turns towards the

Indian Ocean, and outside the south-west monsoon is blowing. Finally,

sailing-ships draw too much water. In the last year the _Elphinstone_

kept the Arabs away from Jeddah till the meanness of the Sherif Abd el

Muttalib had caused his downfall. But her great depth (about from 14'6

to 15 feet) prevented her approaching the shore at Hodaydah near enough

to have injured the insurgents, who, unaware of the fact, delayed

their attack upon the town till famine and a consequent pestilence

dispersed them. With little increase of present expenditure, the Red

Sea might be effectually commanded. Two screw-steamers, small enough to

enter every harbour, and to work steadily amongst the banks on either

shore, and yet large enough to be made useful in conveying English

political officers of rank and native princes, when necessary, would

amply suffice. A vessel of the class of H.M.'s gunboat _Flying Fish_,

drawing at most nine feet of water, and carrying four 32-pounders of 25

cwt. each, as broadside, and two 32-pounders of 25 cwt. each, as pivot

guns, would probably be that selected. The crews would consist of fewer

men than those at present required, and means would easily be devised

for increasing the accommodation of officers and men, and for securing

their health and comfort during cruises that might last two months in a

hot and dangerous climate.

"By means of two such steamers we shall, I believe, be prepared for

any contingencies which may arise in the Red Sea; and if to this

squadron be added an allowance for interpreters and a slave approver

in each harbour--in fact, a few of the precautions practised by the

West African Squadron--the slave-trade in the Red Sea will soon have

received its death-blow, and Eastern Africa its regeneration at our

hands.

"I have, etc., etc.,

"R. F. B,

"Commanding East African Expedition.

"H.E.I.C. Sloop of War _Elphinstone_,

"15th December, 1856."

* * * * *

THE OFFICIAL "JUDICIOUS" (?) REPLY.

No. 961 of 1857.

From H. L. Anderson, Esquire, Secretary to Government, Bombay, to

Captain R. F. Burton, 18th Regiment Bombay N.I.

"Dated the 23rd July, 1857.

"Sir,--With reference to your letter, dated the 15th December, 1856,

to the address of the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society

of London, communicating your views on affairs in the Red Sea, and

commenting on the political measures of the Government of India, I am

directed by the Right Honourable the Governor in Council to state, your

want of discretion, and due respect for the authorities to whom you are

subordinate, has been regarded with displeasure by Government.

"I have the honour to be, Sir,

"Your most obedient Servant,

"(Signed) H. L. ANDERSON,

"Secretary to Government.

"Bombay Castle, 23rd July, 1857."

* * * * *

[Richard received by same post as above letter the account of the

Massacre at Jeddah.]

(Extracts from the _Telegraph Courier_, Overland Summary, Bombay,

August 4, 1858.)

"On the 30th of June, a massacre of nearly all the Christians took

place at Jeddah on the Red Sea. Amongst the victims were Mr. Page, the

British Consul, and the French Consul and his lady. Altogether the

Arabs succeeded in slaughtering about twenty-five.

"H.M. steamship _Cyclops_ was there at the time, and the captain landed

with a boat's crew, and attempted to bring off some of the survivors,

but he was compelled to retreat, not without having killed a number

of the Arabs. The next day, however, he succeeded in rescuing the few

remaining Christians, and conveyed them to Suez.

"Amongst those who were fortunate enough to escape was the daughter of

the French Consul; and this she succeeded in doing through the fidelity

of a native, after she had killed two men with her own hands, and

been severely wounded in the encounter. Telegraphic despatches were

transmitted to England and France, and the _Cyclops_ is waiting orders

at Suez. As it was apprehended that the news from Jeddah might excite

the Arab population of Suez to the commission of similar outrages,

H.B.M.'s Vice-Consul at that place applied to the Pasha of Egypt for

assistance, which was immediately afforded by the landing of five

hundred Turkish soldiers, under the orders of the Pasha of Suez."

* * * * *

"Unyanyembe, Central Africa, 24th June, 1858.

"Sir,--I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your official

letter, No. 961 of 1857, conveying to me the displeasure of the

Government in consequence of my having communicated certain views on

political affairs in the Red Sea to the Royal Geographical Society of

Great Britain.

"The paper in question was as is directly stated, and it was sent for

transmission to the Board of Directors, or the Foreign Office, not for

publication. I beg to express my regret that it should have contained

any passage offensive to the authorities to whom I am subordinate; and

to assure the Right Honourable the Governor in Council that nothing was

further from my intentions than to displease a Government to whose kind

consideration I have been, and am still, so much indebted.

"In conclusion, I have the honour to remind you that I have received no

reply to my official letter, sent from Zanzibar, urging our claims upon

the Somal for the plunder of our property.

"I have the honour to be, Sir,

"Your most obedient Servant,

"RICHARD F. BURTON,

"Commanding East African Expedition.

"To the Secretary to Government, Bombay."

* * * * *

No. 2845 of 1857. Political Department.

From H. L. Anderson, Esq., Secretary to Government of Bombay, to

Captain R. F. Burton, Commanding E. A. Expedition, Zanzibar.

"Dated 13th June, 1857.

"Sir,--I am directed by the Right Honourable the Governor in Council

to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated the 26th April last,

soliciting compensation on behalf of yourself and other members of the

late Somalee Expedition, for losses sustained by you and them.

"2. In reply, I am desired to inform you, that under the opinion

copied in the margin [here reproduced below], expressed by the late

Governor-General of India, the Right Honourable the Governor in Council

cannot accede to the application now preferred.

"I have, etc.,

"(Signed) H. L. ANDERSON,

"Secretary to Government."

[From margin.] "Having regard to the conduct of the Expedition, his

Lordship cannot think that the officers who composed it have any just

claims on the Government for their personal losses."

END OF FIRST CORRESPONDENCE.

[Here begins the Speke and Rigby cabal.]

SECOND CORRESPONDENCE.

1.

"India Office, E.C., November 8th, 1859.

"Sir,--I am directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to

forward for your information, copy of a letter addressed by Captain

Rigby, her Majesty's Consul and Agent at Zanzibar, to the Government of

Bombay, respecting the non-payment of certain persons hired by you to

accompany the Expedition under your command into Equatorial Africa, and

to request that you will furnish me with any observations which you may

have to make upon the statements contained in that letter.

"Sir Charles Wood especially desires to be informed why you took no

steps to bring the services of the men who accompanied you, and your

obligations to them, to the notice of the Bombay Government.

"I am, Sir,

"Your obedient servant,

"(Signed) T. COSMO MELVILL.

"Captain R. Burton."

* * * * *

No. 70 of 1859. Political Department.

From Captain C. P. Rigby, her Majesty's Consul and British Agent,

Zanzibar, to H. L. Anderson, Esquire, Secretary to Government, Bombay.

"Zanzibar, July 15th, 1859.

"Sir,--I have the honour to report, for the information of the Right

Honourable the Governor in Council, the following circumstances

connected with the late East African Expedition under the command of

Captain Burton.

"2. Upon the return of Captain Burton to Zanzibar in March last, from

the interior of Africa, he stated that, from the funds supplied him

by the Royal Geographical Society for the expenses of the Expedition,

he had only a sufficient sum left to defray the passage of himself

and Captain Speke to England, and in consequence the persons who

accompanied the Expedition from here, viz. the Kafila Bashi, the

Belooch sepoys, and the porters, received nothing whatever from him on

their return.

"3. On quitting Zanzibar for the interior of Africa, the Expedition was

accompanied by a party of Belooch soldiers, consisting of a Jemadar

and twelve armed men. I understand they were promised a monthly salary

of five dollars each; they remained with the Expedition for twenty

months, and as they received nothing from Captain Burton beyond a few

dollars each before starting, his Highness the Sultan has generously

distributed amongst them the sum of two thousand three hundred (2300)

dollars.

"4. The head clerk of the Custom House here, a Banian, by name Ramjee,

procured ten men, who accompanied the Expedition as porters. They

were promised five dollars each per mensem, and received pay for six

months, viz. thirty dollars each before starting for the interior. They

were absent for twenty months, during three of which the Banian Ramjee

states that they did not accompany the Expedition. He now claims eleven

months' pay for each of these men, as they have not been paid anything

beyond the advance before starting.

"5. The head clerk also states that, after the Expedition left

Zanzibar, he sent two men to Captain Burton with supplies, one of whom

was absent with the Expedition seventeen months, and received nothing

whatever; the other, he states, was absent fifteen months, and received

six months' pay, the pay for the remaining nine months being still due

to him. Thus his claim amounts to the following sum:--

Dollars.

Ten men for eleven months, at five dollars per man per month 550

One man for seventeen " " " 85

One man for nine " " " 45

Total 680

"6. These men were slaves, belonging to 'deewans,' or petty chiefs, on

the opposite mainland. They travel far into the interior to collect and

carry down ivory to the coast, and are absent frequently for the space of

two or three years. When hired out, the pay they receive is equally

divided between the slave and the master. Captain Speke informs me,

that when these men were hired, it was agreed that one-half of their hire

should be paid to the men, and the other half to Ramjee on account of

their owners. When Ramjee asked Captain Burton for their pay, on his

return here, he declined to give him anything, saying that they had

received thirty dollars each on starting, and that he could have bought

them for a less sum.

"7. The Kafila Bashi, or chief Arab, who accompanied the Expedition,

by name Said bin Salem, was twenty-two months with Captain Burton.

He states that on the first journey to Pangany and Usumbara, he received

fifty (50) dollars from Captain Burton; and that before starting on the

last Expedition, to discover the Great Lake, the late Lieutenant-Colonel

Hamerton presented him with five hundred dollars on behalf of Government

for the maintenance of his family during his absence. He states

that he did not stipulate for any monthly pay, as Colonel Hamerton told

him that if he escorted the gentlemen to the Great Lake in the interior,

and brought them in safety back to Zanzibar, he would be handsomely

rewarded, and both Captain Speke and Mr. Apothecary Frost inform me

that Colonel Hamerton frequently promised Said bin Salem that he

should receive a thousand dollars and a gold watch if the Expedition were

successful.

"8. As it appeared to me that Colonel Hamerton had received no

authority from Government to defray any part of the expenses of this

Expedition, and probably made these promises, thinking that if the

exploration of the unknown interior were successful a great national

object would be attained, and that the chief man who conducted the

Expedition would be liberally rewarded, and as Captain Burton had been

furnished with funds to defray the expenses, I told him that I did not

feel authorized to make any payment without the previous sanction of

Government, and Said bin Salem has therefore received nothing whatever

since his return.

"9. Said bin Salem also states, that on the return of the Expedition

from Lake Tanganyika, seventy (70) natives of the country were engaged

as porters, and accompanied the Expedition for three months; and that

on arriving at a place called 'Kootoo,' a few days' journey from the

sea-coast, Captain Burton wished them to diverge from the correct route

to the coast opposite Zanzibar, to accompany him south to Keelwa; but

they refused to do so, saying that none of their people ever dared to

venture to Keelwa, where the chief slave-trade on the east coast is

carried on. No doubt their fears were well grounded. These men received

nothing in payment for their three months' journey, and, as no white

man had ever penetrated into their country previously, I fear that any

future traveller will meet with much inconvenience in consequence of

these poor people not having been paid.

"10. As I considered that my duty connected with the late Expedition

was limited to affording it all the aid and support in my power, I

have felt very reluctant to interfere with anything connected with

the non-payment of these men; but Said bin Salem and Ramjee having

appealed to me, and Captain Speke, since his departure from Zanzibar,

having written me two private letters, pointing out so forcibly the

claims of these men, the hardships they endured, and the fidelity and

perseverance they showed, conducting them safely through unexplored

countries, and stating also that the agreements with them were entered

into at the British Consulate, and that they considered they were

serving the British Government, that I deem it my duty to bring their

claims to the notice of Government; for I feel that if these men remain

unpaid, after all they have endured in the service of British officers,

our name for good faith in these countries will suffer, and that any

future traveller wishing to further explore the interesting countries

of the interior will find no persons willing to accompany them from

Zanzibar, or the opposite mainland.

"11. As there was no British agent at Zanzibar for thirteen months

after the death of Colonel Hamerton, the Expedition was entirely

dependent on Luddah Damha, the Custom-master here, for money and

supplies. He advanced considerable sums of money without any security,

forwarding all requisite supplies, and, Captain Speke says, afforded

the Expedition every assistance in the most handsome manner. Should

Government, therefore, be pleased to present him with a shawl, or some

small mark of satisfaction, I am confident he is fully deserving of it,

and it would gratify a very worthy man to find that his assistance to

the Expedition is acknowledged.

"I have, etc.,

"(Signed) C. P. RIGBY, Captain,

"H.M.'s Consul and British Agent, Zanzibar."

* * * * *

3.

"East India United Service Club, St. James's Square,

"November 11th, 1859.

"Sir,--I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your official

letter, dated the 8th of November, 1859, forwarding for my information

copy of a letter, addressed by Captain Rigby, her Majesty's Consul and

Agent at Zanzibar, to the Government of Bombay, respecting the non-payment

of certain persons hired by me to accompany the Expedition

under my command into Equatorial Africa, and apprising me that Sir

C. Wood especially desires to be informed why I took no steps to bring

the services of the men who accompanied me, and my obligations to them,

to the notice of the Bombay Government.

"In reply to Sir Charles Wood, I have the honour to state that, as

the men alluded to rendered me no service, and as I felt in no way

obliged to them, I would not report favourably of them. The Kafilah

Bashi, the _Jemadar_, and the Beloch were servants of H.H. Sayyid

Majid, in his pay and under his command. They were not hired by me,

but by the late Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, H.M.'s Consul and H.E.I.C.'s

Agent at Zanzibar, and they marched under the Arab flag. On return to

Zanzibar, I reported them as undeserving of reward to Lieut.-Colonel

Hamerton's successor, Colonel Rigby, and after return to England, when

my accounts were sent in to the Royal Geographical Society, I appended

a memorandum, that as those persons had deserved no reward, no reward

had been applied for.

"Before proceeding to reply to Captain Rigby's letter, paragraph by

paragraph, I would briefly premise with the following remarks:--

"Being ordered to report myself to Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, and having

been placed under his direction, I admitted his friendly interference, and

allowed him to apply to H.H. the Sultan for a guide and an escort.

Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton offered to defray, from public funds, which he

understood to be at his disposal, certain expenses of the Expedition, and

he promised, as reward to the guide and escort, sums of money, to which,

had I been unfettered, I should have objected as exorbitant. But in all

cases the promises made by the late Consul were purely conditional,

depending entirely upon the satisfactory conduct of those employed.

These facts are wholly omitted in Captain Rigby's reports.

"2. Captain Rigby appears to mean that the Kafila Bashi, the Beloch

sepoys, and the porters received nothing whatever on my return to

Zanzibar, in March last, from the interior of Africa because the funds

supplied to me by the Royal Geographical Society for the expenditure

of the Expedition, had been exhausted, besides the sum of one thousand

pounds (£1000) granted by the Foreign Office. I had expended from my

own private resources nearly fourteen hundred pounds (£1400), and I was

ready to expend more had the expenditure been called for. But, though

prepared on these occasions to reward liberally for good service,

I cannot see the necessity, or rather I see the unadvisability, of

offering a premium to notorious misconduct. This was fully explained by

me to Captain Rigby on my return to Zanzibar.

"3. Captain Rigby '_understands_' that the party of Beloch sepoys,

consisting of a _Jemadar_ and twelve armed men, were promised

a monthly salary of five dollars each. This was not the case.

Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton advanced to the _Jemadar_ twenty-five, and

to each sepoy twenty dollars for an outfit; he agreed that I should

provide them with daily rations, and he promised them an ample reward

from the public funds in case of good behaviour. These men deserved

nothing; I ignore their 'fidelity' and 'perseverance,' and I assert

that if I passed safely through an unexplored country, it was in no

wise by their efforts. On hearing of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton's death,

they mutinied in a body. At the Tanganyika Lake they refused to escort

me during the period of navigation, a month of danger and difficulty.

When Captain Speke proposed to explore the Nyanza Lake, they would

not march without a present of a hundred dollars' worth of cloth. On

every possible occasion they clamoured for _bakshish_, which, under

pain of endangering the success of the Expedition, could not always

be withheld. They were often warned by me that they were forfeiting

all hopes of a future reward, and, indeed, they ended by thinking

so themselves. They returned to Zanzibar with a number of slaves,

purchased by them with money procured from the Expedition. I would not

present either guide or escort to the Consul; but I did not think it

my duty to oppose a large reward, said to be 2300 dollars, given to

them by H.H. the Sultan, and I reported his liberality and other acts

of kindness to the Bombay Government on my arrival at Aden. This fact

will, I trust, exonerate me from any charge of wishing to suppress my

obligations.

"4. The Banyan Ramjee, head clerk of the Custom House, did not, as

is stated by Captain Rigby, procure me ten (10) men who accompanied the

Expedition as porters; nor were these men, as is asserted (in par. 6),

'slaves belonging to deewans or petty chiefs on the opposite mainland.'

It is a notorious fact that these men were private slaves, belonging to the

Banyan Ramjee, who hired them to me direct, and received from me as

their pay, for six months, thirty dollars each; a sum for which, as I told

him, he might have bought them in the bazaar. At the end of six months

I was obliged to dismiss these slaves, who, as is usually the case with the

slaves of Indian subjects at Zanzibar, were mutinous in the extreme. At

the same time, I supplied them with cloth, to enable them to rejoin their

patron. On my return from the Tanganyika Lake, they requested leave

to accompany me back to Zanzibar, which I permitted, with the express

warning that they were not to consider themselves re-engaged. The

Banyan, their proprietor, had, in fact, sent them on a trading trip into

the interior under my escort, and I found them the most troublesome of

the party. When Ramjee applied for additional pay, after my return to

Zanzibar, I told him that I had engaged them for six months; that I had

dismissed them at the end of six months, as was left optional to me; and

that he had already received an unusual sum for their services. This

conversation appears in a distorted form and improperly represented in

the concluding sentence of Captain Rigby's 6th paragraph.

"5 and 6. With respect to the two men sent on with supplies after the

Expedition had left Zanzibar, they were not paid, on account of the

prodigious disappearance of the goods entrusted to their charge, as I

am prepared to prove from the original journals in my possession. They

were dismissed with their comrades, and never afterwards, to the best

of my remembrance, did a day's work.

"7 and 8. The Kafilah Bashi received from me for the first journey to

Usumbara fifty (50) dollars. Before my departure in the second Expedition

he was presented by Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton with five hundred (500)

dollars, almost double what he had expected. He was also promised, in

case of good conduct, a gold watch, and an ample reward, which, however,

was to be left to the discretion of his employers. I could not recommend

him through Captain Rigby to the Government for remuneration. His

only object seemed to be that of wasting our resources and of collecting

slaves in return for the heavy presents made to the native chiefs by the

Expedition, and the consequence of his carelessness or dishonesty was,

that the expenditure on the whole march, until we had learnt sufficient to

supervise him, was inordinate. When the Kafilah Bashi at last refused

to accompany Captain Speke to the Nyanza Lake, he was warned that

he also was forfeiting all claim to future reward, and when I mentioned

this circumstance to Captain Rigby at Zanzibar, he then agreed with me

that the 500 dollars originally advanced were sufficient.

"9. With regard to the statement of Said bin Salim concerning the

non-payment of the seventy-three porters, I have to remark that

it was mainly owing to his own fault. The men did not refuse to

accompany me because I wished to diverge from the 'correct route,'

nor was I so unreasonable as to expect them to venture into the jaws

of the slave-trade. Several caravans that had accompanied us on the

down-march, as well as the porters attached to the Expedition, were

persuaded by the slaves of Ramjee (because Zanzibar was a nearer way to

their homes) not to make Kilwa. The pretext of the porters was simply

that they would be obliged to march back for three days. An extra

remuneration was offered to them; they refused it, and left in a body.

Shortly before their departure Captain Speke proposed to pay them for

their services, but being convinced that they might be prevented from

desertion, I did not judge it advisable by paying them, to do what

would be virtually dismissing them. After they had proceeded a few

miles, Said bin Salim was sent to recall them, on conditions which they

would have accepted; he delayed, lost time, and ended by declaring that

he could not travel without his dinner. Another party was instantly

sent; they also loitered on the way, and thus the porters reached the

coast and dispersed. Before their departure I rewarded the Kirangozi,

or chief man of the caravan, who had behaved well in exhorting his

followers to remain with us. I was delayed in a most unhealthy region

for the arrival of some down porters, who consented to carry our goods

to the coast; and to prove to them that money was not my object, I paid

the newly engaged gang as if they had marched the whole way. Their

willingness to accompany me is the best proof that I had not lost the

confidence of the people. Finally, on arrival at the coast, I inquired

concerning those porters who had deserted us, and was informed by the

Diwan and headman of the village that they had returned to their homes

in the interior, after a stay of a few days on the seaboard. This was

a regrettable occurrence, but such events are common on the slave-path

in Eastern Africa, and the established custom of the Arabs and other

merchants, whom I had consulted upon the subject before leaving the

interior, is not to encourage desertion by paying part of the hire, or

by settling for porterage before arriving at the coasts. Of the seven

gangs of porters engaged on this journey, _only one_, an unusually

small proportion, left me without being fully satisfied.

"10. That Said bin Salim, and Ramjee, the Banyan, should have appealed

to Captain Rigby, according to the fashion of Orientals, after my

departure from Zanzibar, for claims which they should have advanced

when I refused to admit them, I am not astonished. But I must express

my extreme surprise that Captain Speke should have written two private

letters, forcibly pointing out the claims of these men to Captain

Rigby, without having communicated the circumstance in any way to me,

the chief of the Expedition. I have been in continued correspondence

with that officer since my departure from Zanzibar, and until this

moment I have been impressed with the conviction that Captain Speke's

opinion as to the claims of the guide and escort above alluded to was

identical with my own.

"11. With respect to the last paragraph of Captain Rigby's letter,

proposing that a shawl or some small mark of satisfaction should be

presented by Government to Ladha Damha, the Custom-master at Zanzibar,

for his assistance to the Expedition, I distinctly deny the gratuitous

assertions that I was entirely dependent on him for money and supplies;

that he advanced considerable sums of money without any security; that

he forwarded all requisite supplies, or, as Captain Speke affirms,

that he afforded the Expedition every assistance in the most handsome

manner. Before quitting Zanzibar for inner Africa, I settled all

accounts with him, and left a small balance in his hands, and I gave,

for all subsequent supplies, an order upon Messrs. Forbes, my agent

in Bombay. He, like the other Hindus at Zanzibar, utterly neglected

me after the death of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton; and Captain Rigby has

probably seen some of the letters of complaint which were sent by me

from the interior. In fact, my principal merit in having conducted

the Expedition to a successful issue is in having contended against

the utter neglect of the Hindus at Zanzibar (who had promised to

Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, in return for his many good offices, their

interest and assistance), and against the carelessness and dishonesty,

the mutinous spirit, and the active opposition of the guide and escort.

"I admit that I was careful that these men should suffer for their

misconduct. On the other hand, I was equally determined that those who

did their duty should be adequately rewarded--a fact which nowhere

appears in Captain Rigby's letter. The Portuguese servants, the negro

gun-carriers, the several African gangs of porters, with their leaders,

and all other claimants, were fully satisfied. The bills drawn in the

interior, from the Arab merchants, were duly paid at Zanzibar, and on

departure I left orders that if anything had been neglected it should

be forwarded to me in Europe. I regret that Captain Rigby, without

thoroughly ascertaining the merits of the case (which he evidently has

not done), should not have permitted me to record any remarks which I

might wish to offer before making it a matter of appeal to the Bombay

Government.

"Finally, I venture to hope that Captain Rigby has forwarded the

complaints of those who have appealed to him without endorsing their

validity; and I trust that these observations upon the statements were

based upon no foundation of fact.

"I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

"R. F. BURTON,

"Bombay Army."

* * * * *

4.

"India Office, E.C., 14th January, 1860.

"Sir,--I am directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council,

to inform you that, having taken into consideration the explanations

afforded by you in your letter of the 11th of November, together with

the information on the same subject furnished by Captain Speke, he is

of opinion that it was your duty, knowing, as you did, that demands for

wages, on the part of certain Belochs and others who accompanied you

into Equatorial Africa, existed against you, not to have left Zanzibar

without bringing these claims before the Consul there, with a view to

their being adjudicated on their own merits, the more especially as

the men had been originally engaged through the intervention or the

influence of the British authorities, whom, therefore, it was your duty

to satisfy before leaving the country. Had this course been followed,

the character of the British Government would not have suffered, and

the adjustment of the dispute would, in all probability, have been

effected at a comparatively small outlay.

"Your letter, and that of Captain Speke, will be forwarded to the

Government of Bombay, with whom it will rest to determine whether you

shall be held pecuniarily responsible for the amount which has been paid

in liquidation of the claims against you.

"I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

"(Signed) J. COSMO MELVILL."

* * * * *

5.

"January, 1860.

"Sir,--I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your official

letter of the 14th of January, 1860.

"In reply, I have the honour to observe that, not having been favoured

with a copy of the information on the same subject furnished to you by

Captain Speke, I am not in a position to understand on what grounds

the Secretary of State for India in Council should have arrived at so

unexpected a decision as regards the alleged non-payment of certain

claims made by certain persons sent with me into the African interior.

"I have the honour to observe that I did not know that demands for

wages existed against me on the part of those persons, and that I

believed I had satisfactorily explained the circumstance of their

dismissal without payment in my official letter of the 11th of

November, 1859.

"Although impaired health and its consequence prevented me from

proceeding in an official form to the adjudication of the supposed

claims in the presence of the Consular authority, I represented the

whole question to Captain Rigby, who, had he then--at that time--deemed

it his duty to interfere, might have insisted upon adjudicating the

affair with me, or with Captain Speke, before we left Zanzibar.

"I have the honour to remark that the character of the British

Government has _not_, and cannot (in my humble opinion) have suffered

in any way by my withholding a purely conditional reward when forfeited

by gross neglect and misconduct; and I venture to suggest that by

encouraging such abuses serious obstacles will be thrown in the way of

future exploration, and that the liberality of the British Government

will be more esteemed by the native than its character for sound sense.

"In conclusion, I venture to express my surprise, that all my labours

and long services in the cause of African Exploration should have

won for me no other reward than the prospect of being mulcted in a

pecuniary liability incurred by my late lamented friend, Lieut.-Colonel

Hamerton, and settled without reference to me by his successor, Captain

Rigby.

"I have the honour, etc., etc.,

"RICHARD F. BURTON,

"Capt. Bombay Army.

"The Under-Secretary of State for India."

* * * * *

6.

"14, St. James's Square, London,

"16th January, 1861.

"Sir,--I have been indebted to the kindness and consideration of my

friend Dr. Shaw, for a sight of your letter addressed to him the 10th

of October last from Zanzibar. I shall not attempt to characterize

it in the terms that best befit it. To do so, indeed, I should be

compelled to resort to language 'vile' and unseemly as your own. Nor

can there be any necessity for this. A person who could act as you

have acted must be held by every one to be beneath the notice of

any honourable man. You have addressed a virulent attack on me, to

a quarter in which you had hoped it would prove deeply injurious to

me; and this not in the discharge of any public duty, but for the

gratification of a long-standing private pique. You sent me no copy of

this attack, you gave me no opportunity of meeting it; the slander was

propagated, as slanders generally are, in secret and behind my back.

You took a method of disseminating it which made the ordinary mode of

dealing with such libels impossible, while your distance from England

puts you in a position to be perfectly secure from any consequence of a

nature personal to yourself. Such being the case, there remains to me

but one manner of treating your letter, and that is with the contempt

it merits. My qualifications as a traveller are, I hope, sufficiently

established to render your criticisms innocuous, and the medals of

the English and French Geographical Societies may console me for the

non-appreciation of my labours by so eminent an authority as yourself.

As regards my method of dealing with the natives, the complete success

of all my explorations, except that which started under the auspices

of Brigadier Coghlan, will perhaps be accepted as a better criterion

of its correctness than the carpings of the wretched sycophants whom

you make to pander to your malignity at Zanzibar. Where the question

between us is one of personal veracity, I can hardly think that your

statements will have much weight with those who are aware of the

cognomen acquired by you at Addiscombe, and which, to judge from your

letter now under notice, I think you most entirely, richly deserve. I

have only to add, in conclusion, that I shall forward a copy of this

letter to Dr. Shaw, as well as to my publishers, and to Government--you

mention your intention of writing to them--and that I shall at all

times, in all companies, even in print if it suits me, use the same

freedom in discussing your character and conduct that you have presumed

to exercise in discussing mine.

"I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

"RICHARD F. BURTON.

"Captain C. P. Rigby."

* * * * *

7.

"India Office, 21st April, 1860.

"Sir,--I am directed by Sir Charles Wood to inform you that your

letter of the 12th ultimo having been considered by him in Council, he

cannot, with reference to the circumstances under which the expedition

into Central Africa under your charge was undertaken, comply with your

request to be reimbursed the amount of expenditure incurred by you over

and above the Government allowance of £1000.

"I am, etc.,

"J. COSMO MELVILL.

"Captain R. Burton, 14, St. James's Square."

* * * * *

8.

[Here there was evidently another letter received during Richard's nine

months' absence in N. America, but I have not yet found it amongst his

papers.]

(In answer to J. Cosmo Melvill's letter.)

"Sir,--I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your official

letter of the 18th of July, 1861, with enclosure.

"I am wholly at a loss to understand what may be the 'circumstances'

('under which the expedition into Central Africa under my charge was

undertaken') that have prevented the Secretary of State for India in

Council complying with my request to be refunded. Captain Speke and

I have received the medals of the Geographical Societies of England and

France for that expedition, and the Royal Geographical Society of London

has officially expressed its opinion of the economy with which it was

conducted by me.

"I can but conclude that the representations, or rather the

misrepresentations of those whose interest it has been to prolong my

absence from Zanzibar, have led to a conclusion by which I feel deeply

aggrieved--namely, the non-recognition of my services by the Secretary

of State for India in Council. And I venture to express a hope that

when the Civil proceedings which are now being instituted by me against

Captain (local Lieut.-Colonel) Rigby, British Consul at Zanzibar,

come on for trial, this correspondence may be adduced to show how

successfully this officer has exerted his malice against me.

"R. F. BURTON."

APPENDIX G.

DESCRIPTION OF AFRICAN CHARACTER--THE RAW

MATERIAL IN 1856-59.

"The East African, like other barbarians, is a strange mixture of good

and evil: by the nature of barbarous society, however, the good element

has not, whilst the evil has, been carefully cultured.

"As a rule, the civilized or highest type of man owns the sway of

intellect, of reason; the semi-civilized--as are still the great

nations of the East--are guided by sentiment and propensity in a degree

incomprehensible to more advanced races; and the barbarian is the slave

of impulse, passion, and instinct, faintly modified by sentiment, but

ignorant of intellectual discipline. He appears, therefore, to the

civilized man a paralogic being,--a mere mass of contradictions; his

ways are not our ways, his reason is not our reason. He deduces effects

from causes which we ignore; he compasses his ends by contrivances

which we cannot comprehend; and his artifices and polity excite, by

their shallowness and 'inconsequence,' our surprise and our contempt.

Like that Hindú race that has puzzled the plain-witted Englishman

for the century closing with the massacres of Delhi and Cawnpore, he

is calculated to perplex those who make conscience an instinct which

elevates man to the highest ground of human intelligence. He is at

once very good-tempered and hard-hearted, combative and cautious;

kind at one moment, cruel, pitiless, and violent at another; sociable

and unaffectionate; superstitious and grossly irreverent; brave and

cowardly, servile and oppressive; obstinate, yet fickle and fond of

changes; with points of honour, but without a trace of honesty in word

or in deed; a lover of life, though addicted to suicide; covetous and

parsimonious, yet thoughtless and improvident; somewhat conscious

of inferiority, withal unimprovable. In fact, he appears an embryo

of the two superior races. He is inferior to the active-minded and

objective, and analytic and perceptive European, and to the ideal and

subjective, the synthetic and reflective Asiatic. He partakes largely

of the worst characteristics of the lower Oriental types--stagnation of

mind, indolence of body, moral deficiency, superstition, and childish

passion; hence the Egyptians aptly termed the Berbers and negroes the

'perverse race of Kush.'

"The main characteristic of this people is the selfishness which the

civilized man strives to conceal, because publishing it would obstruct

its gratification. The barbarian, on the other hand, displays his

inordinate egotism openly and recklessly; his every action discloses

those unworthy traits which in more polished races chiefly appear on

public occasions, when each man thinks solely of self-gratification.

Gratitude with him is not even a sense of prospective favours; he

looks upon a benefit as the weakness of his benefactor and as his own

strength; consequently, he will not recognize even the hand that feeds

him. He will, perhaps, lament for a night the death of a parent or of a

child, but the morrow will find him thoroughly comforted. The name of

hospitality, except for interested motives, is unknown to him. 'What

will you give me?' is his first question. To a stranger entering a

village the worst hut is assigned, and, if he complains, the answer is

that he can find encamping ground outside. Instead of treating him like

a guest, which the Arab Bedouin would hold to be a point of pride, of

honour, his host compels him to pay and prepay every article, otherwise

he might starve in the midst of plenty. Nothing, in fact, renders the

stranger's life safe in this land, except the timid shrinking of the

natives from the 'hot-mouthed weapon' and the necessity of trade, which

induces the chiefs to restrain the atrocities of their subjects. To

travellers the African is, of course, less civil than to merchants,

from whom he expects to gain something. He will refuse a mouthful

of water out of his abundance to a man dying of thirst; utterly

unsympathizing, he will not stretch out a hand to save another's

goods, though worth thousands of dollars. Of his own property, if

a ragged cloth or a lame slave be lost, his violent excitement is

ridiculous to behold. His egotism renders him parsimonious even in

self-gratification; the wretched curs, which he loves as much as his

children, seldom receive a mouthful of food, and the sight of an Arab's

ass feeding on grain elicits a prolonged 'Hi! hi!' of extreme surprise.

He is exceedingly improvident, taking no thought for the morrow--not

from faith, but rather from carelessness as to what may betide him;

yet so greedy of gain is he that he will refuse information about a

country or about the direction of a path without a present of beads. He

also invariably demands prepayment: no one keeps a promise or adheres

to an agreement, and, if credit be demanded for an hour, his answer

would be, 'There is nothing in my hand.' Yet even greed of gain cannot

overcome the levity and laxity of his mind. Despite his best interests,

he will indulge the mania for desertion caused by that mischievous

love of change and whimsical desire for novelty that characterize the

European sailor. Nor can even lucre prevail against the ingrained

indolence of the race--an indolence the more hopeless as it is the

growth of the climate. In these temperate and abundant lands Nature has

cursed mankind with the abundance of her gifts; his wants still await

creation, and he is contented with such necessaries as roots and herbs,

game, and a few handfuls of grain--consequently improvement has no hold

upon him.

"In this stage of society truth is no virtue. The 'mixture of a lie' may

'add to pleasure' amongst Europeans; in Africa it enters where neither

pleasure nor profit can arise from the deception. If a Mnyamwezi guide

informs the traveller that the stage is short, he may make up his mind

for a long and weary march, and _vice versâ_. Of course, falsehood is

used as a defence by the weak and oppressed; but beyond that, the

African desires to be lied to, and one of his proverbs is, ''Tis better

to be deceived than to be undeceived.' The European thus qualifies the

assertion--

'For sure the pleasure is as great

In being cheated as to cheat.'

Like the generality of barbarous races, the East Africans are wilful,

headstrong, and undisciplinable; in point of stubbornness and

restiveness they resemble the lower animals. If they cannot obtain

the very article of barter upon which they have set their mind, they

will carry home things useless to them; any attempt at bargaining

is settled by the seller turning his back, and they ask according

to their wants and wishes, without regard to the value of goods.

Grumbling and dissatisfied, they never do business without a grievance.

Revenge is a ruling passion, as the many rancorous fratricidal wars

that have prevailed between kindred clans, even for a generation,

prove. Retaliation and vengeance are, in fact, their great agents of

moral control. Judged by the test of death, the East African is a

hard-hearted man, who seems to ignore all the charities of father, son,

and brother. A tear is rarely shed, except by the women, for departed

parent, relative, or friend, and the voice of the mourner is seldom

heard in their abodes. It is most painful to witness the complete

inhumanity with which a porter seized with small-pox is allowed by his

friends, comrades, and brethren to fall behind in the jungle, with

several days' life in him. No inducement--even beads--can persuade a

soul to attend him. Every village will drive him from its doors; no

one will risk taking, at any price, death into his bosom. If strong

enough, the sufferer builds a little bough-hut away from the camp, and,

provided with his rations--a pound of grain and a gourdful of water--he

quietly expects his doom,--to feed the hyæna and the raven of the wild.

The people are remarkable for the readiness with which they yield to

fits of sudden fury; on these occasions they will, like children, vent

their rage upon any object, animate or inanimate, that presents itself.

Their temper is characterized by a nervous, futile impatience; under

delay or disappointment they become madmen. In their own country, where

such displays are safe, they are remarkable for a presumptuousness and

a violence of manner which elsewhere disappear. As the Arabs say, there

they are lions, here they become curs. Their squabbling and clamour

pass description; they are never happy except when in dispute. After

a rapid plunge into excitement, the brawlers alternately advance and

recede, pointing the finger of threat, howling and screaming, cursing

and using terms of insult which an inferior ingenuity--not want of

will--causes to fall short of the Asiatic's model vituperation. After

abusing each other to their fill, both 'parties' usually burst into a

loud laugh or a burst of sobs. Their tears lie high: they weep like

Goanese. After a cuff, a man will cover his face with his hands and cry

as if his heart would break. More furious shrews than the women are

nowhere met with. Here it is a great truth that 'the tongues of women

cannot be governed.' They work off excitement by scolding, and they

weep little compared with the men. Both sexes delight in 'argument,'

which here, as elsewhere, means two fools talking foolishly. They

will weary out of patience the most loquacious of the Arabs. This

development is characteristic of the East African race, and '_maneno

marefu!_'--long words!--will occur as a useless reproof half a dozen

times in the course of a single conversation. When drunk, the East

African is easily irritated; with the screams and excited gestures

of a maniac he strides about, frantically flourishing his spear and

agitating his bow, probably with notched arrow; the spear-point and the

arrow-head are often brought perilously near, but rarely allowed to

draw blood. The real combat is by pushing, pulling hair, and slapping

with a will, and a pair thus engaged require to be torn asunder by half

a dozen friends. The settled tribes are, for the most part, feeble

and unwarlike barbarians; even the bravest East African, though, like

all men, a combative entity, has a valour tempered by discretion and

cooled by a high development of cautiousness. His tactics are of the

Fabian order: he loves surprises and safe ambuscades; and in common

frays and forays the loss of one per cent. justifies a _sauve qui

peut_. This people, childlike, is ever in extremes. A man will hang

himself from a rafter in his tent, and kick away from under him the

large wooden mortar upon which he has stood at the beginning of the

operation, with as much _sang-froid_ as an Anglo-Saxon in the gloomy

month of November; yet he regards annihilation, as all savages do, with

loathing and ineffable horror. 'He fears death,' to quote Bacon, 'as

children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children

is increased with tales, so is the other.' The African mind must change

radically before it can 'think upon death, and find it the least of

all evils.' All the thoughts of these negroids are connected with this

life. 'Ah!' they exclaim, 'it is bad to die; to leave off eating and

drinking; to wear a fine cloth!' As in the negro race generally, their

destructiveness is prominent; a slave never breaks a thing without an

instinctive laugh of pleasure; and however careful he may be of his own

life, he does not value that of another, even of a relative, at the

price of a goat. During fires in the town of Zanzibar, the blacks have

been seen adding fuel, and singing and dancing, wild with delight. On

such occasions they are shot down by the Arabs like dogs.

"It is difficult to explain the state of society in which the civilized

'social evil' is not recognized as an evil. In the economy of the

affections and the intercourse between the sexes, reappears that

rude stage of society in which ethics were new to the mind of now

enlightened man. Marriage with these people, as amongst all barbarians,

and even the lower classes of civilized races, is a mere affair of

buying and selling. A man must marry because it is necessary to his

comfort; consequently the woman becomes a marketable commodity. Her

father demands for her as many cows, cloths, and brasswire bracelets

as the suitor can afford. He thus virtually sells her, and she belongs

to the buyer, ranking with his other live stock. The husband may sell

his wife, or, if she be taken from him by another man, he claims her

value, which is ruled by what she would fetch in the slave-market. A

strong inducement to marriage amongst the Africans, as with the poor in

Europe, is the prospective benefit to be derived from an adult family;

a large progeny enriches them. The African, like all barbarians, and,

indeed, semi-civilized people, ignores the dowry by which, inverting

nature's order, the wife buys the husband, instead of the husband

buying the wife. Marriage, which is an epoch amongst Christians, and

an event with Moslems, is with these people an incident of frequent

recurrence. Polygamy is unlimited, and the chiefs pride themselves

upon the number of their wives, varying from twelve to three hundred.

It is no disgrace for an unmarried woman to become a mother of a

family; after marriage there is somewhat less laxity. The mgoni, or

adulterer, if detected, is punishable by a fine of cattle, or, if poor

and weak, he is sold into slavery. Husbands seldom, however, resort

to such severities; the offence, which is considered to be against

vested property, being held to be lighter than petty larceny. Under the

influence of jealousy, murders and mutilations have been committed;

but they are rare and exceptional. Divorce is readily effected by

turning the spouse out of doors, and the children become the father's

property. Attachment to home is powerful in the African race; but it

regards rather the comforts and pleasures of the house, and the unity

of relations and friends, than the fondness of the family. Husband,

wife, and children have through life divided interests, and live

together with scant appearance of affection. Love of offspring can

have but little power amongst a people who have no preventive for

illegitimacy, and whose progeny may be sold at any time. The children

appear undemonstrative and unaffectionate, as those of the Somal. Some

attachment to their mothers breaks out, not in outward indications, but

by surprise, as it were. 'Mamá! mamá!'--'Mother! mother!'--is a common

exclamation in fear or wonder. When childhood is passed, the father

and son become natural enemies, after the manner of wild beasts. Yet

they are a sociable race, and the sudden loss of relatives sometimes,

but rarely, leads from grief to hypochondria and insanity, resulting

from the inability of their minds to bear any unusual strain. It is

probable that a little learning would make them mad, like the Widad,

or priest of the Somal, who, after mastering the reading of the Koran,

becomes unfit for any exertion of judgment or common sense. To this

over-development of sociability must be ascribed the anxiety always

shown to shift, evade, or answer blame. The 'ukosa,' or transgression,

is never accepted; any number of words will be wasted in proving

the worse the better cause. Hence also the favourite phrase, 'Mbáyá

we!'--'Thou art bad!'--a pet mode of reproof which sounds simple and

uneffective to European ears.

"The social position of the women--the unerring test of progress

towards civilization--is not so high in East Africa as amongst the more

highly organized tribes of the South. Few of the country own the rule

of female chiefs. The people, especially the Wanyamwezi, consult their

wives; but the opinion of a brother or a friend usually prevail over

that of a woman.

"The deficiency of the East African in constructive power has already

been remarked. Contented with his haystack or beehive hut, his

hemisphere of boughs, or his hide-acting tent, he hates, and has a

truly savage horror of stone walls. He has the conception of the

'Madeleine,' but he has never been enabled to be delivered of it. Many

Wanyamwezi, when visiting Zanzibar, cannot be prevailed upon to enter a

house.

"The East African is greedy and voracious. He seems, however, to

prefer light and frequent to a few regular and copious meals. Even the

civilized Kisawahili has no terms to express the breakfast, dinner, and

supper of other languages. Like most barbarians, the East African can

exist and work with a small quantity of food; but he is unaccustomed,

and therefore unable, to bear thirst. The daily ration of a porter

is one kubabah (= 1.5 lbs.) of grain. He can, with the assistance of

edible herbs and roots, which he is skilful in discovering in the

least likely places, eke out this allowance for several days, though

generally, upon the barbarian's impulsive principles of mortgaging the

future for the present, he recklessly consumes his stores. With him

the grand end of life is eating. His love of feeding is inferior only

to his propensity for intoxication. He drinks till he can no longer

stand, lies down to sleep, and awakes to drink again. Drinking-bouts

are solemn things, to which the most important business must yield

precedence. They celebrate with beer every event--the traveller's

return, the birth of a child, and the death of an elephant. A labourer

will not work unless beer is provided for him. The highest order

rejoice in drink, and pride themselves upon powers of imbibing. The

proper diet for a king is much beer and little meat. If a Wanyamwezi be

asked, after eating, whether he is hungry, he will reply 'Yea,' meaning

that he is not drunk. Intoxication excuses crime in these lands. The

East African, when in his cups, must issue from his hut to sing, dance,

or quarrel, and the frequent and terrible outrages which occur on these

occasions are passed over on the plea that he has drunk beer. The

favourite hour for drinking is after dawn--a time as distasteful to the

European as agreeable to the African and Asiatic. This might be proved

by a host of quotations from the poets, Arab, Persian, and Hindu. The

civilized man avoids early potations, because they incapacitate him for

necessary labour, and he attempts to relieve the headache caused by

stimulants. The barbarian and the semi-civilized, on the other hand,

prefer them, because they relieve the tedium of his monotonous day; and

they cherish the headache because they can sleep the longer, and, when

they awake, they have something to think of. The habit, once acquired,

is never broken; it attaches itself to the heartstrings of the idle and

unoccupied barbarian.

"In morality, according to the more extended sense of the word, the

East African is markedly deficient. He has no benevolence, but little

veneration--the negro race is ever irreverent--and, though his cranium

rises high in the region of firmness, his futility prevents his being

firm. The outlines of law are faintly traced upon his heart. The

authoritative standard of morality fixed by a revelation is in him

represented by a vague and varying custom, derived traditionally from

his ancestors; he follows in their track for old-sake's sake. The

accusing conscience is unknown to him. His only fear after committing a

treacherous murder is that of being haunted by the angry ghost of the

dead; he robs as one doing a good deed, and he begs as if it were his

calling. His depravity is of the grossest: intrigue fills up all the

moments not devoted to intoxication.

"The want of veneration produces a savage rudeness in the East African.

The body politic consists of two great members--masters and slaves.

Ignoring distinction of society, he treats all men, except his chief,

as his equals. He has no rules for visiting: if the door be open, he

enters a stranger's house uninvited; his harsh, barking voice is ever

the loudest; he is never happy except when hearing himself speak;

his address is imperious, his demeanour is rough and peremptory, and

his look bold. He deposits his unwashed person, in his greasy and

tattered goatskin or cloth, upon rug or bedding, disdaining to stand

for a moment, and he always chooses the best place in the room. When

travelling, he will push forward to secure the most comfortable hut:

the chief of a caravan may sleep in rain or dew, but, if he attempts

to dislodge his porters, they lie down with the settled purpose of

mules--as the Arabs say, they 'have no shame.' The curiosity of these

people is at times most troublesome. A stranger must be stared at;

total apathy is the only remedy: if the victim lose his temper, or

attempt to dislodge them, he will find it like disturbing a swarm of

bees. They will come for miles to 'sow gape-seed:' if the tent-fly

be closed, they will peer and peep from below, complaining loudly

against the occupant, and, if further prevented, they may proceed to

violence. On the road hosts of idlers, especially women, boys, and

girls--will follow the caravan for hours; it is a truly offensive

spectacle--these uncouth figures, running at a 'gymnastic pace,' half

clothed except with grease, with pendant bosoms shaking in the air,

and cries that resemble the howls of beasts more than any effort of

human articulation. This offensive ignorance of the first principles

of social intercourse has been fostered in the races most visited by

the Arabs, whose national tendency, like the Italian and the Greek,

is ever and essentially republican. When strangers first appeared in

the country they were received with respect and deference. They soon,

however, lost this vantage-ground: they sat and chatted with the

people, exchanged pleasantries, and suffered slights, till the Africans

found themselves on an equality with their visitors. The evil has

become inveterate, and no greater contrast can be imagined than that

between the manners of an Indian ryot and an East African Mshenzi.

"In intellect the East African is sterile and incult, apparently

unprogressive and unfit for change. Like the uncivilized generally,

he observes well, but he can deduce nothing profitable from his

perceptions. His intelligence is surprising when compared with that

of an uneducated English peasant; but it has a narrow bound, beyond

which apparently no man may pass. Like the Asiatic, in fact, he is

stationary, but at a much lower level. Devotedly fond of music, his

love of tune has invented nothing but whistling and the whistle:

his instruments are all borrowed from the coast people. He delights

in singing, yet he has no metrical songs: he contents himself with

improvising a few words without sense or rhyme, and repeats them till

they nauseate: the long, drawling recitative generally ends in 'Ah!

ha!' or some such strongly nasalized sound. Like the Somal, he has

tunes appropriated to particular occasions, as the elephant-hunt or

the harvest-home. When mourning, the love of music assumes a peculiar

form: women weeping or sobbing, especially after chastisement, will

break into a protracted threne or dirge, every period of which

concludes with its own particular groan or wail: after venting a

little distress in a natural sound, the long, long improvisation,

in the highest falsetto key, continues as before. As in Europe the

'laughing-song' is an imitation of hilarity somewhat distressing to

the spirits of the audience, so the 'weeping-song' of the African only

tends to risibility. His wonderful loquacity and volubility of tongue

have produced no tales, poetry, nor display of eloquence; though, like

most barbarians, somewhat sententious, he will content himself with

squabbling with his companions, or with repeating some meaningless word

in every different tone of voice during the weary length of a day's

march. His language is highly artificial and musical: the reader will

have observed that the names which occur often consist entirely of

liquids and vowels, that consonants are unknown at the end of a word,

and that they never are double except at the beginning. Yet the idea of

a syllabarium seems not to have occurred to the negroid mind. Finally,

though the East African delights in the dance, and is an excellent

timist--a thousand heels striking the ground simultaneously sound like

one--his performance is as uncouth as perhaps was ever devised by man.

He delights in a joke, which manages him like a Neapolitan; yet his

efforts in wit are of the feeblest that can be conceived.

"'Use savages justly and graciously, with sufficient guard

nevertheless.' They must be held as foes; and the prudent stranger will

never put himself in their power, especially where life is concerned.

The safety of a caravan will often depend upon the barbarian's fear of

beginning the fray: if the onset takes place, the numbers, the fierce

looks, the violent gestures, and the confidence of the assailants upon

their own ground will probably prevail.

"They may be managed as the Indian saw directs, by a judicious mixture

of the _Narm_ and _Garm_--the soft and hot. Thus the old traders

remarked in Guinea, that the best way to treat a black man was to hold

out one hand to shake with him, while the other is doubled ready to

knock him down. In trading with, or even when dwelling amongst these

people, all display of wealth must be avoided. A man who would purchase

the smallest article avoids showing anything beyond its equivalent.

"Much of this moral degradation must be attributed to the working,

through centuries, of the slave-trade: the tribes are no longer as

nature made them; and from their connection with strangers they have

derived nothing but corruption. Though of savage and barbarous type,

they have been varnished with the semi-civilization of trade and

commerce, which sits ridiculously upon their minds as a rich garment

would upon their persons.

"Nature, in these regions really sublime or beautiful, more often

terrible and desolate, with the gloomy forest, the impervious jungle,

the tangled hill, and the dread uniform waste tenanted by deadly

inhabitants, arouses in his mind a sensation of utter feebleness, a

vague and nameless awe. Untaught to recommend himself for protection to

a Superior Being, he addresses himself directly to the objects of his

reverence and awe: he prostrates himself before the sentiment within

him, hoping to propitiate it as he would satisfy a fellow-man. The

grand mysteries of life and death, to him unrevealed and unexplained,

the want of a true interpretation of the admirable phenomena of

creation, and the vagaries and misconceptions of his own degraded

imagination, awaken in him ideas of horror, and people the invisible

world with ghost and goblin, demon and spectrum, the incarnations,

as it were, of his own childish fears. Deepened by the dread of

destruction, ever strong in the barbarian breast, his terror causes him

to look with suspicion upon all around him: 'How,' inquires the dying

African, 'can I alone be ill when others are well, unless I have been

bewitched?'

"Some missionaries have detected in the habit, which prevails

throughout Eastern and Western Africa, of burying slaves with the

deceased, of carrying provisions to graves, and of lighting fires

on cold nights near the last resting-places of the departed, a

continuation of relations between the quick and the dead which points

to a belief in a future state of existence. The wish is father to

that thought: the doctrine of the soul, of immortality, belongs to

a superior order of mind, to a more advanced stage of society. The

belief, as its operations show, is in presentity, materialism, not in

futurity, spiritualism.

"When the savage and the barbarian are asked what has become of the

'old people' (their ancestors), they only smile and reply, 'They are

ended.' It proves the inferior organization of the race. Some races

have decided that man hath a future, since even Indian corn is vivified

and rises again. The East African has created of his fears a ghost

which never attains the perfect form of a soul.

"The East African's _Credenda_ are based upon two main articles. The

first is demonology, or rather, the spectra of the dead; the second,

witchcraft or black magic. Few, and only the tribes adjacent to the

maritime regions, have derived from El Islam a faint conception of the

One Supreme.

"He has not, like the Kafir, a holiday at the epoch of new moon: like

the Moslem, however, on first seeing it, he raises and claps his hands

in token of obeisance. In his Fetish hut upon the ground, or suspended

from the roof, are handfuls of grain and small pots full of beer,

placed there to propitiate the ghosts, and to defend the crops from

injury.

"The African temperament has strong susceptibilities, combined with

what appears to be a weakness of brain, and great excitability of

the nervous system, as is proved by the prevalence of epilepsy,

convulsions, and hysteric disease.

"The negroid is, therefore, peculiarly liable to the epidemical mania

called 'Phantasmata,' which, according to history, has at times of

great mental agitation and popular disturbance broken out in different

parts of Europe, and which, even in this our day, forms the basework of

'revivals.'

"Salim bin Rashíd, a half-caste merchant, well known at Zanzibar,

avers, and his companions bear witness to his words, that on one

occasion, when travelling northwards from Unyanyembe, the possession

occurred to himself. During the night two female slaves, his

companions, of whom one was a child, fell, without apparent cause, into

fits which denote the approach of a spirit. Simultaneously, the master

became as one intoxicated; a dark mass, material, not spiritual,

entered the tent, and he felt himself pulled and pushed by a number of

black figures, whom he had never seen before. He called aloud to his

companions and slaves, who, vainly attempting to enter the tent, threw

it down, and presently found him in a state of stupor, from which he

did not recover till the morning. The same merchant circumstantially

related, and called witnesses to prove, that a small slave-boy, who

was produced on the occasion, had been frequently carried off by

possession even when confined in a windowless room, with a heavy door

carefully bolted and padlocked. Next morning the victim was not found,

although the chamber remained closed. A few days afterwards he was met

in the jungle, wandering absently like an idiot, and with speech too

incoherent to explain what had happened to him.

"For ordeal the people of Usumbara thrust a red-hot hatchet into the

mouth of the accused. Among the south-eastern tribes a heated iron

spike, driven into some tender part of the person, is twice struck

with a log of wood. The Wazaramo dip the hand into boiling water,

the Waganda into seething oil, and the Wazegura prick the ear with

the stiffest bristle of a gnu's tail. The Wakwafi have an ordeal of

meat that chokes the guilty. The Wanyamwezi pound with water between

two stones, and infuse a poisonous bark called 'Mwavi:' it is first

administered by the _Mganga_ to a hen, who, for the nonce, represents

the suspected. If, however, all parties be not satisfied with such

trial, it is duly adhibited to the accused.

"The _Mganga_ (medicine man) aids his tribe by magical arts in wars, by

catching a bee, reciting over it certain incantations, and loosing it

in the direction of the foe, when the insect will instantly summon an

army of its fellows and disperse a host, however numerous. This belief

well illustrates the easy passage of the natural into the supernatural.

The land being full of swarms, and man's body being wholly exposed,

many a caravan has been dispersed like chaff before the wind by a bevy

of swarming bees. Similarly, in South Africa the magician kicks an

ant-hill and starts wasps which put the enemy to flight. And in the

Books of the Hebrews we read that the hornet sent before the children

of Israel against the Amorite was more terrible than sword or bow

(Joshua xxiv.).

"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 Arabs spoil them by 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 or 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.

"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 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 civilized. However trained, they are probably

the worst servants in the world; a slave-household is a model of

discomfort.

"The old definition of a slave still holds good--'an animal that eats

as much and does as little as possible.' A whole gang will barely do

the work of a single servant. 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?' 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 brutishness of negroid nature is brought out by the cheap and

readily attainable pleasures of semi-civilization. Whenever on

moonlight nights the tapping of the tomtom responds to the vile

squeaking of the fife, it is impossible to keep either 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.

"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.

"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 caprices, and

to be ever at heart a treacherous and bloodthirsty barbarian.

"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 patron 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.

"Prices of slaves range from six feet of unbleached domestics, or a few

pounds of grain in time of famine, to seventy dollars, equal to £15.

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 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.

"The average of yearly import into the island of Zanzibar was fourteen

thousand head of slaves, the extremes being nine thousand and twenty

thousand. The loss by mortality and desertion is thirty per cent. per

annum; thus, the whole gang must be renewed between the third and

fourth year.