The New York herald., 1872-11-02
The East African slave Trade.

We published few days ago vivid picturs
of the atrocities of the traffic in human beings
which disgraces the century and brutalizes
ent on the White Nile. That article estimated
the number of boys and girls annually cap
tured in the Soudan and consigned to life of
servitude at twenty-five thousand, while the
writer showed that to procure that quota prob
ably twice as many are slain and not less than
million lives are each year blighted by this
horrid system Of violence and rapine. Startling
as these statistics appear it is now made prob
able that the computation of the HERALD cor
respondent is far below the appalling truth.
General Kirkham, Commander-in-Chief Of the
military forces of Prince Kassai-who now
styles himself King of Kings in Abyssinia-
recently arrived in London as Envoy from the
Abyssinian throne to the great European
Powers to enlist their aid against the
Khedive of Egypt who, as he asserts,
wishes to conquer the nominally Christian
territory lately ruled by King Theodorus.
This gentleman states the number of slaves
annually carried from the region of the Upper
~
or ninety thousand. He lays the blame of this
trade upon the Egyptian government. He
asserts that the Mohammedan religion makes q
constant supply of slaves necessary, as no true
Mussulman will perform menial labor there
fore it must be done by the poor African cap
tives. Abyssinia, he says, promptly Furnishes
the slave catcher or dealer with death, and so
long as Kassai can hold the neutral border ter
ritory of Bogos, one of the main avenues by
which the slave-hunters seek the market with
their prey, will be closed. This section is now
held by the forces of the Khedive, under tha
command of Munzinger Bey, and the Envoy
claims that Egypt has designs of conquest
upon Abyssinia itself. He states that the
efforts Of Sir Samuel Baker have done much
to check the traffic in slaves BY the way Of the
Nile. He overlooks, apparently, the fact that
Baker Pacha holds his commission from the
Khedive, and that that progressive ruler is
entitled to the credit of the good results of hia
subordinates action. On the Zanzibar coast,
too, stimulated by the light thrown on this
horrible trade by DR.. Livingstone and Mr..
STANLEY, JIG OIItl5u BoVeIumeuU, tnTOu8u lu8
gunboats, keeps such strict watch for slave
dhows that practically the only route now left
to the Turkish markets is easterly, by land
through Nubia, to the ports of the Red Sea;
and by this line the bulk of this living mer>
chandise goes. Probably the i'll will of tho
Abyssinian Envoy towards Egypt tinges his
opinion as to the sentiments of the Khedivo
upon this subject; but there can be no doubt
from all the testimony. that still the slave
hunter fills the fertile basin of the Nile with
bloodshed and misery, and that thousands Of
Africa's children are annually sacrificed to the
insatiate Moloch. AL considerations Of
humanity demand from the civilized
nations combined and persistent effort
to stop the inhuman traffic. Eng
land especially, which fostered African
slavery in her American colonies, is
loudly called upon to take such steps ag
shall show the world her intention, SO far as
possible, by protection to the defcnceless races
of Central and Eastern Africa, to wipe out the
oul wrong her former policy wrought upo1