THE BANE OF AFRICA

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 18, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 11.

THE BANE OF AFRICA.

The sore afflictions of Africa are the slave traffic and the rum traffic. Wherever the former is lessened the latter seems to be increased, and it is not easy to say which is the more destructive. There are three slave markets outside of Africa which make the business of the Arab slave hunters profitable in certain parts of Africa, namely, Zanzibar, Arabia and Egypt. In Egypt they are in demand as household slaves. Slaves are smuggled into Zanzibar, notwithstanding the prohibition. It is estimated that 6,000 slaves are taken from the mainland to the island every year. About 11,000 more go to Arabia. The slave catchers destroy, it is said, about three lives for every slave they succeed in transporting, so that the annual loss of life from this cause is enormous. Many of the porters who go with caravans are slaves who are required to give their owners half of what they receive. The mortality among these porters is, from various causes, very great, amounting, it is estimated, to about thirty per cent. on long trips. A great blow to the traffic was dealt in the British Central African Protectorate by the military expedition sent against the Arabs in the Lake Region in 1895. Where slave centers formerly existed, British forts are now found, and the great Zambesi slave route is closed. Unspeakably horrible are the accounts which constantly come from the east coast of the cruelties practised by slave owners.—N. Y. Independent.