Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

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PORTUGUESE POSSESSIONS. 231
impossible. Ask any of the ten thousand
negroes, that crowd the streets of Mozambique,
where they come from, what they are, and how
they got there, and the reply is the same as
that of the slaves captured on board the dhows :
—Stolen, dragged from their homes and families,
sold and bought, sold and bought again, and
brought from the
markets on the mainland to
this place, where they are worse oflF than they
ever were before.
On the 6th September, we boarded such a
Portuguese schooner as is referred to above,
bound from Quilimane river, south, to Mozambique
harbour, with several slaves on board
amongst them were four Monginda children,
from five to ten years of age, whom a Banyan *
of Mozambique, who was on board, claimed and
showed passports for, under the name of " free
negroes," signed by the Portuguese authority
at Quilimane. These children could speak no
language intelligible, either to our interpreter
or to the Portuguese or Banyans on board the
* A BritiBh subject.