Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

156 DHOW-CHASING.
occasion of their serving on that coast had
drawn the
hne correctly and distinctly, with a
common- sense interpretation of their instructions.
As an illustration of this difference
between domestic slaves and others, I shall
mention the case of two of the first dhows we
boarded after leaving Zanzibar. On the 21st
we steamed out of that port, through the north
channel for Bombay, until clear of observation
from the shore, and when about thirty miles
off
the coast, steered a course parallel to it, until
we passed the latitude of Lamoo. We then
closed the coast, and anchored on the night of
the 24th off Brava. On the afternoon of the
25th we weighed and chased a
dhow, and on
boarding her we found it was a Zanzibar vessel.
She had on board a crew of about a dozen
negroes, domestic slaves, and a sister of the
Sultan, who had three slaves with her—a man,
and two women ;
these were servants, or domestic
slaves in the literal sense of the term. On the
26th, we, however, boarded a vessel off the
same part of the coast, a legal trader, which
besides her crew of domestic slaves, had two
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