Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

374 APPENDIX.
plainer we make tilings for tlio Arabs tlie
better;
of confusion ;
hitherto there has been a vast amount
they do not know what we mean,
and I candidly confess that such transactions
as those I spoke of, in which Englishmen have
had to do with the slave-trade, give them cause
to complain of us, and give rise to complications.
I have seen a French ship lying at the
island of Johanna, crammed with slaves, with
one of our men-of-war within a cable's length
of her, and the poor creatures jumping overboard
and swimming to us to protect them;
and the Arabs would say to us, there is a
Frenchman there full of slaves, if it was one of
our ships you would burn her directly ;
why do
not you go and take her? All these things
lead to complications,
and the sooner they are
simplified by action pzw^ et simjjle the better."
972. Mr. Gilpin.'] " Have you yourself seen the
dhows going down the river laden with slaves ?"
— " Not dhows, but canoes. I have seen twenty
or more in a day, laden with slaves, going down
the river Shire into the Portuguese dominions."
973. SirE.Anstrutlier.'] " When was that ? "—
" In 1864"
974. " As to the healthiness of the coast, does
not it depend principally upon the habits of the
European settlers there ;
would not a man who
was tolerably sober and correct in his habits