Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

APPENDIX. 327
exertions on tlie part of our cruisers, the trade
could be prevented, looking at tlie large profit
there is on the slaves ?" — " I have not the slightest
doubt that within five years it could be entirely
stopped ; but to stop it, we want what we have
never yet had, viz. system ;
one year you get an
active officer on the coast, who enters into the
spirit of the thing, and checks the trade a good
deal; then he goes away, and another man
comes with quite different opinions ;
or you get
a captain of a cruiser who takes the advice of
the Consul and pulls with him, and he does a
great deal of good ;
and then, perhaps just as he
has become acquainted with the secrets of the
trade, and begins to know where the slaves
are
shipped, and where the dhows put in for water,
and can distinguish between a legitimate trader
and a slave dhow, which it takes a long time to
do, he is ordered away and never goes back
again."
590. " Is Zanzibar itself unhealthy ?
"— " The
town is not, but it is almost certain death for
any white man to sleep in the plantation. Some
years ago the commodore went with several
officers and a boat's crew to one of the Sultan's
country houses in the interior of the island, a
distance of about fifteen miles ; they only slept
one night in the interior, and a few days afterwards
the only one of the whole party ahve was