Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1889-07-12
THE ARAB SLAVERS.


blacks quietly picked up ON the African coast
and run up the Red sea, while it is no secret
that hundreds of slaves are marched across
the Soudan country and openly sold on the
north coast. When every other nationality
had been forced to quit the nefarious traffic
in human flesh, the Arabs took hold and for
ten years they defied the power of the alli-
ance When l was first sent out to the east
coast as a midshipman on H. M. S. Rover,
every Christian nation was assisting to pre-
vent the traffic, but it goes without dispute
that England was the only nation enter
ing heartily into the work. She has done
more on sea and land to break up ownership
in human flesh than all the rest of the world
combined. In only one or two instances on
our station did the Rover receive anything
like hearty support from the vessels OF other
nations, and in half score of cases the crews
of merchant vessels gave us information cal
culated to assist our enemies.
The Arab craft were not always COM
manded by Arabs. Renegade Americans,
Frenchmen, Spaniards, and men of other ma
tionalities were interested, and it was these
men who gave us the most trouble. They
were old hands in the business, up to all the
tricks and lodges. and they gave us many a
useless chase and played us many sharp
game. The favorite slave craft was the
dhow, of light draught, great spread of can
vas, easily managed and fast sailer in any
sort of breeze but various syndicates had
purchased briggs schooners and small ships,
and they were flying all sorts of colors and
protesting all sorts of occupations. They
came down the east coast from Juba to So
fala, a distance of thousand miles, measured
by the trend of the coast. For two years
l. Fl, o%olo,.
long line, and it did not require much sharp
ness to get out a contraband cargo.
The mouth of every river on that coast has
from two to five outlets, and many of them
spray out into long inlets and false channels,
traversing miles of swamp or low land, and
twenty cruisers could not have kept the coast
under strict guard The Rover was fast
sailing brig, but she should have been
steamer to carry out the programme laid
down for her.
One day just as we were ready to sail from
Masimba, after making some needed repairs,
an American merchantmen came in with
three blacks aboard. They had been picked
up off a raft at sea a hundred miles down the
coast. The Yankee captain brought them
aboard and turned them over with the obser-
walton:
"I'm a-standing neutral on this blackbird
question, captain 1t seems wrong to drag
these nggers off and make slaves of 'em, but
our constitution permits slavery. I never
owned one and never shall. but we've got to
have slaves or we can't have cotton and
sugar. These poor devils have no doubt got
a story to tell. Maybe it will furnish
pointer for you and maybe it won't. Pm
a-standing neutral, as I said before. If you
can get anything out of them go ahead"
We had two or three interpreters aboard,
and it wasn't long before we learned that
brig called the Lion had put in at the mouth
of the Zinga, seventy miles down the coast,
and was loading cargo. The three men
had escaped from a barracoon three miles
from the coast reached the water and built
a raft, and, although realizing that there
was not one chance in a hundred for their
lives if they drifted out to sea, they took it,
and had been afloat two days and two nights
when picked up. The brig had not begun to
load cargo when they escaped Indeed, the
barracoon held only about eighty captives,
while she wanted two hundred or over, and
it would be four or five days before her COM
plement was ready.
The brig referred to professed to be mer-
chairman. We had overhauled and boarded
her twice without finding anything suspi-
cious, but yet we had been told several times
that she was one of the luckiest crafts in the
slave trade. Here was golden opportunity,
and the story of the blacks was hardly COM
pleted before the Rover had made sail. We
were in luck in carrying fine breeze with
us for fifty miles down the coast, then we got
cats paws and Gains, squall Or two, and it
was evening of the second day before we
rounded the point and looked into the blight,
Of hon c;I do u.s. ol 80
the Zinga. This blight was seven or eight
miles long by varying width, being shaped
like a pear with the large end toward the
sea. We still had light breeze to work I'M
der, and boat was sent ahead to take sound
ings, and we moved up the blight about two
miles. Then we anchored to wait for another
day.
About II o'clock at night the tide began to
run out, and with it came land breeze, but
the latter blew itself out in half an hour, and
Just as two boats had been ordered down to
take their stations where they could intercept
and board the SLAYER if she should come out.
She might have completed her cargo and
might not, but having run in under our very
nose, as it were, her crew would be anxious
to get the blacks aboard and be off at the
earliest moment. AS the wind died away the
boats were recalled, and half an hour later
light fog settled down ON the water and cir
cumscribed our vision to distance of fifty
feet. Orders were given for strict silence
aboard, and during the rest of the night
small boat might have pulled all around us
and heard nothing to indicate our presence.
When morning came the men were turned up
and with the least possible noise, and we wait
ed for the sun to disperse the fog before pip
ing to breakfast.
In that fog we were ghostly ship and
ghostly crew, but after half an hours wait
ing the fog began to break up into queer
shaped tongues and riffs and drift away, and
all of sudden it vanished and left us clear
vision. A wild yell broke from every en-
listed man aboard, for there, hardly musket
shot away, almost stationary on the dead
tide, was the Lion, the brig we were in
search of. She had left her moorings with
the wind and tide, but the former had failed
her, and the fog coming on had obliged her
to anchor for the night. She had been with
in mile and q half of us all night, and had
lifted her anchor in the early morning to
drift down with the last of the tide and be
ready to make her ofiing with the first of the
land breeze.
The yell of surprise and satisfaction from
our decks was echoed by one of establishment
and hate from the SLAYER. Orders were given
to drop our boats and board her, but at the
same moment her yawl dropped into the
water, and captain and crew tumbled into it
to escape us. There was little delay in get
ting away, one of her men stopping behind
for moment, but when the yawl headed up
the blight, it was at such pace as to dis
courage U.s. We had two boats down, but it
was the other one which pursued the yawl,
while was ordered to board the SLAYER and
take possession. We pulled straight for her,
but before we got alongside pandemonium
broke loose. The fellow who fingered behind
had knocked the fastenings off the gratings
which covered the two matches in her decks,
and the blacks swarmed up and over the brig
like SO many hornets.
Those dusky fellows were submissive enough
when overawed, but as they came on deck to
find themselves in possession they got rid of
their light chains, and menaced US from
every foot of the rail. They could not under
stand what had occurred, and all ships and
all crews were alike TO them. They seized