Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

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PORTUGUESE POSSESSIONS. 275
to become English, property, I believe it would be
worse than any other place for them, as it must
of necessity remain populated by its present
inhabitants, wbo would prevent the moral
improvement of the negroes who would in a
great measure remain in their employ; moreover,
they would always be liable to be stolen
or enticed away in the dhows, and thus find
their way into slavery; besides which, the
extreme unhealthiness of this low island, and
overpopulated, pestilential town, renders it uninhabitable
for any large number of Europeans,
and many otber objections ^
miglit be cited.
* Extract from Bishop Ryan's Letter :
" The beneficial results obtained by the labours of the
Church Missionary Society on the western coasts supply
the strongest encouragement for the application of the same
benevolent principles and methods of action on the east.
" The proposal to make Zanzibar the depot is one which
I would respectfully but earnestly deprecate for the following
reasons. In the first place, because of the impracticability
of upholding an institution containing liberated negroes
in the midst of a population of slaves of the same race, brought
inmost instances from the same localities.
Secondly, from the
difiiculty which would be raised in the way of all efforts to
evangelize those whose rescue by a Christian nation involves
the obligation to endeavour to impart to them the knowledge
of Christianity. Thirdly, because the establishment of a