Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

228 DHOW-CHASING.
The slave-trade is the principal traffic, even
now, in the Mozambique Channel, and very
strong measures will be required to stop it.
It is not difficult to arrive at the cause of
such a conclusion, as that quoted above, being
arrived at by the Committee. There was no
one examined,—indeed, there was no one to be
examined,^—who had ever had the opportunity
'
Extract from Letter of Brigadier Coghlan's, relating to
the slave-trade on the East Coast of Africa :
" 7. Difficult as it is, owing to the absence of any British
agents on the coast, to secure accurate information of the
full extent to which this nefarious traffic prevails within the
Portuguese settlements, the foregoing facts are sufficient to
prove that it has long been carried on without risk, and
that, emboldened by impunity, its agents have within the
last few years greatly increased their slave transactions in
those parts.
" 8. Further, it is equally certain, considering the penalties
attached by the Portuguese Government to any participation
in the foreign slave-trade, that such transactions could not
be carried on in their African territories without the countenance
of the local authorities. Their connivance is fully
known to all the Arab and other traders on the coast, and
I found the concuiTent testimony in perfect accord with the
statement of Colonel Rigby, that at the Portuguese '
settlements
the slave-trade is carried on in the most shameless
manner, all the Portuguese authorities aiding and abetting
it,
and dividing their nefarious gains.'
" 9. Moreover, by all accounts, the cruelties of the traffic