Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

PORTUGUESE POSSESSIONS. 277
Ins own slaves being stolen, kidnapped by
hundreds annually, by the northern Arabs ;
and,
however willing he might be, he is unable to
give such guarantee, and further he is a cunning
Arab and is not to be trusted ; he might sell
dozens of them, and declare that they had been
stolen by the northern Arabs, and no doubt
when the number of such freed negroes became
great, and the price of a slave in the Persian
Gulf raised, as it would be, to three or four times
the present rate by the suppression of the slavetrade,
the temptation would be too great for
many of the Zanzibar Arabs to withstand ; but
above all this, I assert that such freedom in
Zanzibar under the Arabs, if the term could bo
applied, would be far worse for the negro than
his being carried to the markets at the northern
limits of slavery, where I believe, though in
bondage, they find permanent and, for them as
compared with anything at Zanzibar, comfortable
homes and better masters, and being, as
already stated, at the extreme limit of the
slavery mart, they would not be likely to find
their way into any slave-market again.