46
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE SELECT COMMITTEE
Maj. Gen. he thought if his brother rebelled he would want
C. P. Righy. their assistance, and he paid them every year
40,000 dollars as bribes in point of fact. The
20 July present Sultan, having a friendly brother at
1871. Muscat, will be under no obligation of that sort.
586. As I understand, the only means which
you suggest, with a view of suppressing the slave
trade on the east coast of Africa, are, increased
activity on the port of our squadron, and requiring
the Sultan to enter into a new treaty
with us so as to put a stop to the internal slave
trade?—Yes ; the chief point with regard to the
squadron is to have an experienced naval officer
in a permanent appointment there, who should
have a command or supervision over the whole
east coast, embracing the Mozambique and Madagascar
coast, where there is a very large and
increasing slave trade going on now. He should
not be always required to reside at any one place,
but to go about in the cruisers. In a short time
he would have a thorough knowledge of where
the slave trade was carried on in all its branches,
and as each new cruiser came on to the ground,
the commander would not be perfectly in the
dark as he has been hitherto, sometimes taking
vessels that are not slavers. All that would be
avoided, and the mere fact of having an officer
there acquainted with the coast and able to give
instructions to the officers coming out, would certainly
save the expense of two vessels there.
587. Do you know anything of the expense
which is now incurred in the support of liberated
slaves ?—I have no recent knowledge upon that
point. When I was at Zanzibar I emancipated
about 6,000 slaves who had been held in slavery
by British Indian subjects. I never had the
slightest trouble in providing for them, and they
never cost the Government a shilling.
588. Did you obtain labour for them, or did
they find it for themselves?—They found it for
themselves. There was always a great demand
for labour, not only in the plantations, but in the
service of American and German and French
houses. There is a great trade in cowries, which
employs a great many people ; then labourers are
required in sifting and washing the gum copal,
and in husking the cocoa-nuts ; it constantly occurred
that I discovered slaves in the employment
of those foreign merchants whose masters
were British subjects. I sent for them and had
them emancipated by the Arab judge, and they
took their certificates of emancipation and went
back to their work, the only difference being that
instead of handing over all the pay to their
masters, they kept the pay themselves.
589. Do you attach importance to having consuls
or vice consuls at other ports on the coast
besides Zanzibar itself?—I do not think it would
be possible. I know Mr. Churchill has recommended
that, but I do not think you would get a
respectable class of men to undertake the office ;
and if you could get them I do not think, on the
average the men would live three months, the
climate is so very unhealthy. I never knew a
white man go there yet without getting one of
the deadly fevers. I was on the coast myself,
and I very nearly died. I caught a fever that
lasted for eight months.
590. Is Zanzibar itself unhealthy ?—The town
is not, but it is almost certain death for any white
man to sleep in the plantation. Some years ago
the commodore went with several officers and a
boat’s crew to one of the Sultan’s country houses
in the interior of the island, a distance of about
] 5 miles ; they only slept one night in the interior,
and a few days afterwards the only one of the
whole party alive was one who had slept in the
boat, the vegetation is so dense and rank.
591. Do the natives suffer from the climate ?—
Not in the same degree, the Arabs do, very
much ; I think very few Arabs of pure race
reach manhood.
592. Have you kept up your acquaintance with
what has been going on in Zanzibar since 1861,
when you left?—Yes; I have been in constant
correspondence wilh people out there, Mr.
Churchill and Dr. Kirk, and natives. I happen
to have received last Monday some very interesting
letters, one of which was from the customs
master complaining bitterly of the want of postal
communication.
593. Was your attention directed to that subject
while you were there ?—It was a constant
subject of correspondence with me the whole
time I was there.
594. Was there not at one time a suggestion
made that tenders should be advertised for for a
subsidised line of steamers ?—I made a report on
the matter to the Government of Bombay. I
had constantly represented the desirability of
having a subsidised line, and when I came home
on leave I had an interview with Sir Charles
Wood, who was then the Minister for India, but
nothing was done. When I went back to India
I found that the subject had been noticed by the
Bombay Chamber of Commerce in consequence
of a good deal of trade which used to find its
way to Bombay being intercepted by foreign
merchants, and taken to Zanzibar ; for instance,
Germans and Americans now send their ships to
Muscat and to Bussorah for gums and hides, and
to the coast of Mekrau for wool, tliereby cutting
off very nearly all the w ool trade and the gum
and hide trade from Kurrachee and Bombay ; that
is all brought to Zanzibar, and sent away in German
and American ships.
595. Lord jP. Cavendish.'] Bound the Cape ?—-Yes,
since the opening of the Suez Canal, another
change has taken place, and I think a good deal
of trade is coming back to this country.
596. Chairman.] Is that diversion of trade to
which you have referred, attributable in any way
to the want of postal communication ?—I consider
it entirely due to that; perhaps I may be allowed
to read a few remarks from the report which I
made to the Government at the time, which express
my views at the present moment. The
Government of Bombay had been in communication
with the Postmaster General upon this
subject, and happening to be at Bombay at the
time on my way to England, they referred the
matter to me ; and this is my memorandum, dated
the 3rd March 1867 : “During my residence at
Zanzibar, I had many occasions of observing hoW
very desirable a regular postal communication
would be between that port and Bombay; and on
my return to England, I brought this subject to
the consideration of Sir Charles Wood, then
Secretary of State for India, pointing out hoW
the rapidly increasing commerce of Zanzibar was
being monopolised by foreigners, and the trade
ot Aden, Muscat, Bussorah, and the coast of
Mekran being gradually diverted from Kurrachee
and Bombay into foreign bottoms, owing to the
German and American merchants at Zanzibar
intercepting it, and carrying the coffee, gums,
hides, &c., from Aden and Mocha ; the dates,
hides, &c., from Muscat, and the wool from
Mekran,
