Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

APPENDIX. 333
attracted to those lovely and salubrious islands,
and the expense of keeping up a small vessel
would be in part or entirely covered by freight
and passage."
597. " You would look to the increase of commercial
intercourse as having considerable effect
in diminishing the interest which the natives
have in the slave-trade ? " I would ; it is impossible
to calculate what the trade of that coast
might become in a few years if the slave-trade
were once abolished."
598. " In what way does the existence of the
slave-trade prevent the growth of a legitimate
commercial trade
— ?" " The great export of ablebodied
labourers from the country deters free
labourers from coming to settle at Zanzibar or
along the coast, because they know that as long
as the slave-trade is going on they are not safe
for a day."
608. Lord F. Cavendish.'] " You have read the
Eeport of the Slave Trade Committee of 1869,
which sat at the Foreign Office?"—"Yes."
609. " What do you think of the terms of the
treaty which it recommends should "— be negotiated
with the Sultan of Zanzibar ? " I do not thinh
any treaty loould have the slightest effect; treaties
with Arabs are mere ivaste paper. ^^
610. " You think we should get rid of our
—
present treaty ?" "We can easily do it, by say-