Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

CRUISE OF THE " CASTOR's " BOATS. 19
is thus being reduced at the rate of upwards of
] 80,000 a-year, not more than a third of which,
however, reach the chief markets on the
coast,
as numbers are either killed or die of disease
before their march of three or four hundred
miles from the intqi-ior is over. To give some
idea of the number of negroes that are shipped
or exported from the coast annually, the lowest
estimate from Zanzibar territory alone has been
20,000 a-year, allowing the tax to be 11. per
head ;
giving the Sultan an income of 20,000/.
a-year derived from this trade. That this
estimate is far below the actual number exported
is, however, proved by the fact that
the highest tax on any slaves amounts only
to sixteen shillings per head (four dollars);
therefore the Sultan's income of 20,000/., said to
be derived from this tax, would represent 25,000
slaves; but his income in 1867-68 amounted
to about 56,000/., or 270,000 dollars (see
the Hon. C. Vivian's evidence before the
Select
Committee, q. 23). If the former sum of
20,000/. may be taken as representing the
number of slaves exported in 1860 (Majorc
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