Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

PORTUGUESE POSSESSIONS. 287
liberated Africans, having for its further object
the development of the trade of the country,
communication with the interior, and the surveying
and exploration of it. To this station
might be conveyed at once, the last two thousand
of hberated Africans, including as many
as can be found of those landed at Aden and
Bombay ; ^
and with the aid of these, the formation
of a main road might at once be made to
Lake Tanganyka, over the best known tracts.
At intervals
of ten or twelve miles, as the road
progressed, should be estabhshed intrenched
" Sir Bartle Frere, in his evidence before the Select Committee
(457), says, in answer to the question— " How are
liberated slaves disposed of at Bombay or Aden ?" — " When
there were very few of them, about twenty years ago, they
were made over to the police of Bombay, and the chief
magistrate of police was charged with the duty of finding
employment for them ; . . . after a while a very large
number of children were brought, they quite exceeded the
power of natural absorption [Does this term mean absorption
by'jthe Hindoo races, &c., to learn idolatry ?]
or any means at
the command of the police.
There were some very painful
cases, some of the men were kidnapped, and some of the
women were found in a state of prostitution in the bazaars,
and the Government at the time took the advice of the
Missionary Societies, and the Missionaiy Societies took some
of the children. . .
."