Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1889-02-14
AFRICA'S SLAVE TRADE.
VIVID ACCOUNT OF A RAID IN
THE OZARK CONTINENT"
How the Natives Are Caught and
Where They Are Taken

as it is now, overrun by the Arab slave.
traders, is terrible. says the New York
| World Mr.. A. H. johnson, the best
known of the English modern explorers
of Africa, has furnished vivid accounts
of the slave horrors in that country.
The trading and raiding are chiefly con
fined to the east central portion of
Africa, and flourish most in the region
south of Lake Tchad and within the
| great bend of the Niger. The gre at
slave markets to-day are in Northern
Africa, Morocco, Tripoli and Fezzan,
and to lesser degree in Tunis and
Algeria, the slaves for these places COM
ing from the Niger, the Binne aud the
Shasi. From the Western Soudan the
slaves are taken across the Sahara to
Morocco or the Tripolitaine. Timbuc-
too, Murzuk, Ghalnmes, Tafelit and the
city of Morocco are the distributing
centres for the north of Africa. The
slaves obtained from the upper basin of
the Nile are sold to the Mahdi, to Egypt,
and are taken across the Red Sea to
Arabia and Persia.
The great bulk of the slaves captured
in the Upper Congo and the equatorial
lakes are bought up 10y Arab, Swahilt
and Hindoo planters ON the Zanzibag
littoral, and these, since they do nor
quit Africa, do not run the risk OF beinld
recaptured and set free by the cruisers.
A small supply crossed the Mozambique
Channel to Madagascar and the Comoro
Islands. The slaves dhows captured by
the British cruisers on the Zanzibar
coast, between Pangani and Cape
Guardafui, are those despatched to the
Persian Gulf to supply Oman, Persia
and Turkey, and it is now supposed that
very few cargoes get through.
The slave trade is. perhaps, rs Mr..
Johnston says, entering upon its final
phase, but it will be years before it is
extinguished. Mr.. Johnston gives n
heartrending description of the way in
which the slave raids are made in Cen
trail Africa, and his account is worthy of
transcription. Every year, he says, the
slave traders and raiders, mainly Mo
hammodans from the north, centre aud
east, penetrate further and further into
the hooks and corners of Negus Africa.
The Arabs, those pitiless man hunters,
suddenly appear with their donkeys,
horses and camels; their long clothes,
their guns, their prayers, their rites, d s.
eases and vices, in regions OF the bow
and arrow and the spear, where the hap
ply negroes have hitherto led an I'M
ruffled, bucolic existence:" Their adj
vent Immediately brings n change in
places formerly described as African par
adises. If the man-hunters fear that
the opposition of n district will be too
great they bride one of the native chiefs 1
to lend them assistance, cause q civil I
war to break out in the land, and while 1
the natives are mutually staying and 1
devastating the willy Arabs collect their |
required number of slaves. "Or," says .
Mr.. Johnston, ''if the native community .
whence they desire to procure their
slaves appears too weak TO resist, a deter
mined onslaught is made. Creeping up
through the long grass, gliding through
the encompassing belt of forest, select
ing, no doubt, n time when most OF the
are absent fishing or hunt
ing, the slave.raiders suddenly pounce
on the doomed village, which they rap
idly encircle. The loud discharge of
their guns paralyzes the inhabitants
with terror, and the panic is doubtless
added to by the firing of the thatched
huts. The few men who attempt nh
Intellectual resistance with their spears
and clubs and bows and arrows are pitt
Iessly shot down.
"The women, the boys and such
youths or young men as are easily over
powered are speedily secured; their
hands are usually tied behind their
backs, and their necks are invested with ..
he heavy forked sticks which the
,lave-raiders have previously cut and
with them on the bucks of their
ionkeys or their slave porters. In adj
lition to these wooden yokes, the slaves
ire frequently tied together by long
visited Llama cords, made OF the tough
lush-creepers. The little children are '
'arely tied except with their heartstrlngs;:
Their attachment to their mothers ana {
he mothers determination not to he t
parted from their children combine to 9
larry them along with the slave-caravan {
RS long. that is t. say, as their poor
title legs can carry them.
'srhe Arabs are not generally cruel to
he children. The children, as young c
md tractnbe ('tameablc) subjects, are, 1
rom self-interest, looked after with S
certain amount of solicitude; and If their /
mothers cannot carry them, and they {
annot keep mp with the caravan, they !
re placed on the backs OF the beasts OF L
,urden. | have in this way seen jun. S
"a Kimemeta, q great slave-trader oil ]
EASTERN Equatorial Africa, transporting r
considerable number of slave children t
o the coast. The very young babies c
re generally left behind unless the
neither when captured has her infant C
lima to her back; and after slave raid "
Ias taken place, amid the smoking, c
,lackened ruins of the house and the S
rampled maize-fields. You may see here 5
nd there among the stiffening corTpses
f the men and the crouching, dazed, IN s.
moaning Old women, Iaei e
be horrors X has scarcely understood, n
abbles to itself as it traces with fore q
niger the widening flow of its fathers 8
lood. or whimpers, in desultory man Q
er. as it vaguely misses its mother. IL
The loss Of life in Africa from the C.