Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

THE CRUISE OF THE "DAPHNE." 141
and Sultan that these chiefs are invested with,
put a serious aspect on the idea of usurping
authority over them, much less of taking possession
of their dominions, but we confess we
cannot see the difference between them and the
chief of a Chinese piratical gang; the one
attacks and robs vessels with a few white men
in them, and in some instances commits murder
too; the others attack and rob towns and
villages, not only of property, but of souls and
bodies, of
friends, relations, and all hope in the
future, and commit murder to an infinitely
greater extent, in causing the deaths of three
fourths of the number of natives affected by it,
and in many cases by the hands of the dealers
themselves. What difierence is there ? Why
in the former case, we hang the culprits or
rather deliver them over to be executed, which
they invariably are, and so limit the extent of
the evil, while in the latter we allow the offenders
to enter into a treaty with us, promising that
they will not kidnap slaves again
excepting in a
limited degree. Is not that a difierence ? If
the penalty were the same in the latter as in the