Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

APPENDIX. 355
large numbers to Mozambique, whence they
were exported to the Comoro Islands and to
Madagascar, and some of them to Reunion."
928. Sir J. Eaij.] " Slaves of all sexes ?"—
" Of all sexes."
929. Sir B. Anstruther.] " And of all ages ?"—
" In a gang of eighty-four slaves that Dr. Livingstone
and two or three of us liberated, there
may have been seven women of twenty-one
years of age ;
nineteen years
there may have been ten men of
of age, and the rest were boys
and girls of from seventeen down to six or
seven. I must explain that for those KafSrs
the Portuguese collected women and children
only ; it was useless sending them young men
of eighteen or twenty; the Kaffirs wished for
women and children only. The slaves collected
for the French engagees system would be principally
of the age of eighteen to twenty-five,
because they could
be put on the plantations
at once, but in all slave-gangs by far the largest
proportion consists of children. The slave
dealers
prefer children because they are not so
troublesome to drive, they are much easier
caught if they attempt to escape, and they very
soon settle down in their occupations, and they
do not pine as slaves of greater age would."
930. Chairman.'] " Wlien you say children,
what age do you mean ? "— " From seven years of