Year: 1872

deeper than her vertical sun could burn, rests
on the, name of Africa. Since the earliest
record Of history she has been the breeding
place and hunting ground Of slaves. Her fer
tile valleys, her broad plains and her wooded
hills are the home Of tribes who war upon
each other that the stronger may rob the
weaker of wives and children and sell them to
the grinding and hopeless bondage of slavery.
The villains who carry on this devilish trade
in the Nile region Of Central Africa are mostly
Arabs of Northern Africa who. generally need
ing small money capital, borrow it at enor-
nous interest from the Egyptian officials of all
grades. from Consular and other agents of tho
various Christian Powers and from Christian
traders settled in Egypt So. though this
shameful traffic has incurred the ban of all
nations claiming civilization, we yet find
Christians ranged with Moslems in furnishing
the funds required to start this trade in blood;
this outrage upon all the natural and sacred ties
of family; this speculation in human woe and
suffering Armed through Christian or Mos
lem money with his complement of muskets
the trader moves with the Autumnal north
winds up the mighty and mysterious current
Of the Nile past the junction of its blue and
white branches, in latitude fifteen degrees
north, as will be seen by the admirable map Of
that region on another page, drawn by
HERALD correspondent lately on the spot.
Having previously reconnoitred the territory
through his spies and enumerated the dwellers
In the native villages, he can calculate how
Oh - 10 k1n
number of captives he intends to drag from
their homes to perish by the weary way or to
live on in the horrors and degradation of en-
forced and unpaid servitude. If fight can
be fomented between two neighbor tribes his
diplomacy uses that as an auxiliary which
saves him time and money. If not, he watches
his opportunity, and, attacking the arrow
armed natives with firearms, soon has their
| villages Of straw-built houses in flames
and the terrified inhabitants in his power
Relentless as fate, he yokes the
wretches together in long strings and drives
them to his station in the wilderness in abject
terror, fearful of death should they incur his
displeasure. Tender children. delicate women
and brawny men together cover under his
lash and tremble before his murderous
weapons. Into the desert they go-the well,
the manned, the weak and the infected, all to-
gether-to await the gathering of his compile
ment. Here immense numbers find their
tomb. Falling from wounds, from weakness,
from contracted disease, from breaking hearts,
wrung with the annihilation of all family and
home endearments, the kindly covering sands
hide thousands from the infamous exactions Of
slavery. diligent study of the trade by the
HERALD correspondent discovers that though
the traffic is at last prohibited in Egypt still
twenty-five thousand boys and girls year are
drained by the Upper Nile and its afluents,
and clandestinely become property in Egyptian
territory. To obtain this number he calculates
that often as many as fifty thousand are slain
in the savage hunt, while as many more perish
by the contagion the trade engenders. Add to
this the multitudes that die from broken hearts
and the depressing influences which the traffic
breeds, and we have the appalling total Of
million souls annually sacrificed to this mon
strous Moloch in the Nile region of the dark
Continent.


This abominable commerce in Egypt is
practically under the control of the Christian
Powers, as is that Of the Zanzibar coast, as is
shown by Doctor Livingstone. Their firm
determination to destroy it would force the
exercise of the most thorough repression on
the part of the sagacious Khedive and the
slave-stealers would find their occupation gone
when there should be no market for their
human chattels. Is there any subject which
more loudly demands the best efforts of
Christian statesmen and the combined in
fuence Of all civilized powers than the sup
preston Of this trade in blood? Not day
should go by without earnest work toward
washing our hands from the stain of this
infamous crime. Every man who loves justice
and sympathizes with the heart-beatings of
humanity will read with interest the details of
this curse upon Africa, prepared by the
HERALD correspondent on the Nile. One
noble, lion-hearted Englishman, the Pacha
Baker, Sir Samuel Baker, holding command
under the Khedive, stands now alone on the
Upper Nile, the unfinching foe Of the
trade, as in Equatorial Africa brave
old Doctor Livingstone exposes and de-
fies the traffic by the Zanzibar coast.
Those two men disregard the anger of the
dealers whose enormities they denounce, and
though in constant danger from the malice Of
their adversaries, they resolutely work on for
the rights of man. All who admire devotion
will applaud these heroes. They should be
supported by the entire power of Christian
civilization, and not another year should close
before the slave-catcher should have reaped
his last harvest OF death and living woe. Our
own country, which, by prodigious throes Of
war and slaughter, has been able to free herself
from the disgrace Of domestic slavery, should
be the first to move vigorously in this great
xrorlr Of entirelu stonnino the trade in Africa