R. M. Ballantyne

“ There was the same sudden gaze of horror on realising the true position of affairs,—the same sharp shriek and frantic struggle to escape from the grasp of those who held him back from following his father,—the same loud cry of agony on finding that his efforts were vain, and then, the wide-open mouth, the close-shut eyes, and the awful, prolonged silence—suggestive of fits—that betokens the concentration of mind, heart, and lungs into that tremendous roar of unutterable significance which appears to be the safety-valve of the human family, black and white, at that tender period of life. ”

“ And no wonder that Disco was surprised; no wonder that his friend Harold Seadrift shared in his astonishment and delight, for they were at once, and for the first time in their lives, plunged into the very heart of jungle life in equatorial Africa! Those who have never wandered far from the comparatively tame regions of our temperate zone, can form but a faint conception of what it is to ramble in the tropics, and therefore can scarcely be expected to sympathise fully with the mental condition of our heroes as they ascended the Zambesi. ”

“ As the negro chief stirred up his wrath by thus recounting his wrongs, and advanced a step, Harold begged Disco, in a low, urgent voice, not to raise his pistol. Then looking the savage full in the face, without showing a trace of anxiety, he said— “You are wrong. We are indeed Englishmen, and you know that the English detest slavery, and would, if they could, put a stop to it altogether.”
“Yes, I know that,” said the chief. “We have seen one Englishman here, and he has made us to know that not all men with white faces are devils—like the Portuguese and Arabs. ”

“ The camp is almost quiet, the stars are twinkling brightly overhead, the fires are glimmering fitfully below. The natives, having taken the edge off their appetites, have stretched their dusky forms on their sleeping-mats, and laid their woolly heads on their little wooden pillows. The only persons moving are Harold Seadrift and Disco Lillihammer—the first being busy making notes in a small book, the second being equally busy in manufacturing cloudlets from his unfailing pipe, gazing the while with much interest at his note-making companion. ”

“ When Disco saw handsome negro men and good-looking girls put up for public sale,—their mouths rudely opened, and their teeth examined by cool, calculating Arabs, just as if they had been domestic cattle—his spirit boiled within him, his fingers tingled, and he felt a terrible inclination to make a wild attack, single-handed, on the entire population of Zanzibar, though he might perish in the execution of vengeance and the relief of his feelings! ”

“ Are you not ashamed of yourself? A pretty chief, truly; you are like the scavenger-beetle, and think of yourself only; you have not the heart of a chief. Why don’t you kill your own beef? You must have a stone in your chest, and no heart at all.”
“That’s werry flowery lingo, but it don’t seem to convince him,” said Disco, with a quiet smile, as the lion, which had been growling continuously over its meal all the time, wound up Chimbolo’s speech with another terrific roar. ”

“ Will you take me with you to the shores of the great salt lake?” said Kambira, in a low, pathetic tone, “will you make me your servant, your slave?”
“Most gladly will I take you with me as a friend,” returned Harold. “I need not ask why you wish to go,” he added,—“you go to seek Azinté?”
“Yes,” cried the chief, springing up wildly and drawing himself up to his full height, “I go to seek Azinté. Ho! up men! up! Ye have feasted enough and slept enough for one night. Who knows but the slavers may be at our huts while we lie idly here? Up! Let us go!” ”

“ Well, Azinté, my poor girl,” said Disco, with a fresh outburst of feeling, as he clenched his horny right hand and dashed it into the palm of his left, “if I only knew how to set you free just now, my dear, I’d do it—ay, if I was to be roasted alive for so doin’. I would!”
“You’ll never set anybody free in this world,” said Harold Seadrift, with some severity, “if you go on talking and acting as you have done to-day. If these men had not, by good fortune, been ignorant of our language, it’s my opinion that they would have blown our brains out before this time. ”

“ One fellow, as black as a coal, as lithe as an eel, and as long—according to Disco’s standard—as a fathom of pump-water, having come upon a herd of buffalo unseen by them, and being armed with a small bow and quiver of arrows, suddenly dropped on all-fours and began to glide through the long grass. ”

“ As they drew nearer, it was observable that the girl had a brass ring round her neck, to which a rope was attached.
“A slave!” exclaimed Disco vehemently, while the blood rushed to his face; “let’s set her free!”
The indignant seaman had half sprung to his legs before Harold seized and pulled him forcibly back.
“Be quiet man,” said Harold quickly. “If we could free her by fighting, I would help you, but we can’t. Evidently we have got into a nest of slavers. Rashness will only bring about our own death. Be wise; bide your time, and we may live to do some good yet.” ”

“ The negroes looked at each other and laughed. They were accustomed to monkeys, and took little notice of them, but they were mightily tickled by Disco’s amusement, for he had laid down his knife and fork, and shook a good deal with internal chuckling, as he gazed upwards.
“One would suppose, now,” he said softly, “that it had recently seen its father and mother, and all its brothers and sisters, removed by a violent death, or sold into slavery.”
“Ha! they never see that,” said Harold; “the brutes may fight and kill, but they never enslave each other. ”

“ Sir Samuel Baker’s mission is a blow aimed at that; but nothing, that we know of, is being done in regard to Portuguese wickedness. If the people of this country could only realise the frightful state of things that exists in the African Portuguese territory, and knew how many thousand bodies shall be racked with torture, and souls be launched into eternity during these five years, they would indignantly insist that Portugal should be compelled to stop it at once. If it is righteous to constrain the Sultan of Zanzibar, is it not equally so to compel the King of Portugal? ”

“ Yoosoof’s venture was therefore but a drop in the vast river of blood which is drained annually from poor Africa’s veins—blood which flows at the present time as copiously and constantly as it ever did in the days of old—blood which cries aloud to God for vengeance, and for the flow of which we, as a nation, are far from blameless. ”

“ When, therefore, Antonio mentioned Bishop Mackenzie and Dr Livingstone, a gleam of intelligent interest lit up Kambira’s swarthy countenance, and he was about to speak, but suddenly checked himself, and a stern frown chased the gleam away.
“The Manganja,” he said, after a few moments’ silence, during which poor Antonio eyed him with some distrust, “know well that these men of God were not of the same country as the Arab and the Portuguese; that they hated slavery and loved the Manganja, and that the graves of some of them are with us now; but we know also that some white men are great liars. ”

“ But nearly everything in this life has its bright lights and half-tints, as well as its deep shadows. During the same flight of time, humane individuals have continued to urge on the good cause of the total abolition of slavery, and Christian missionaries have continued, despite the difficulties of slave-trade, climate, and human apathy, to sow here and there on the coasts the precious seed of Gospel truth, which we trust shall yet be sown broad-cast by native hands, throughout the length and breadth of that mighty land. ”

“ And no wonder, for it is one of the main arteries through which the blood of Africa flows, like the water of natural rivers, to the sea. The slave-gangs are perpetually passing eastward through it—perpetually dropping four-fifths of their numbers on it as they go. Dr Livingstone estimates that, in some cases, not more than one-tenth of the slaves captured reach the sea-coast alive. It is therefore rather under than over-stating the case to say that out of every hundred starting from the interior, eighty perish on the road. ”

“ No; our savage chief does not roar, or glare, or chatter, or devour his food in its blood like the giant of the famous Jack. He carries himself like a man, and a remarkably handsome man too, with his body firm and upright, and his head bent a little forward, with his eyes fixed on the ground, as if in meditation, while he walks along. ”

“ Before proceeding to the Seychelles, the ‘Firefly’ touched at the island of Zanzibar, and there landed our hero Harold Seadrift and his comrade in misfortune, Disco Lillihammer.
Here, one brilliant afternoon, the two friends sat down under a palm-tree to hold what Disco called a palaver. The spot commanded a fine view of the town and harbour of Zanzibar.
We repeat that the afternoon was brilliant, but it is right to add that it required an African body and mind fully to appreciate the pleasures of it. The sun’s rays were blistering, the heat was intense, and the air was stifling. ”

“ It is, however, but justice to ourselves to say, that our Government entered into the treaty with the view of checking, limiting, and mitigating the evils of the slave-trade. We have erred in recognising any form of slavery, no matter how humane our object was—one proof of which is that we have, by our interference, unintentionally increased the evils of slavery instead of abating them. ”

“ I can scarcely believe the evidence of my own eyes and ears when they tell me that you have been guilty of this.”
“Come,” returned Senhor Gamba, softening into a smile, “you English cannot understand our case in this land. Because you do not keep slaves, you take the philanthropic, the religious view of the question. We who do keep slaves have a totally different experience. You cannot understand, you cannot sympathise with us.”
“No, truly, we can not understand you,” said Harold earnestly, “and God forbid that we should ever sympathise with you in this matter. ”

“ It is probable that if they had been in their ordinary health and vigour they would have made a violent attempt to rescue the slaves, even at the cost of their own lives. But severe and prolonged illness often unhinges the mind as well as the body, and renders the spirit all but impotent.
One sultry evening the sad procession came to a long stretch of swamp, and prepared to cross it. Although already thinned by death, the slave-gang was large. It numbered several hundreds, and was led by Marizano; Yoosoof having started some days in advance in charge of a similar gang. ”

“ Some attacked the head, others the flanks, jumping over the animal or standing on it the better to expedite their operations; some ever and anon ran off screaming with masses of bloody meat, threw it on the grass and went back for more, while others, after cutting the carcase open, jumped inside and wallowed about in their eagerness to reach and cut out the precious fat—all talking and shouting at the utmost pitch of their voices.
“Well, now,” said Disco to Harold, with a grin of amusement, “the likes o’ that I never did see nowheres. Cuttin’ up a Greenland whale is nothin’ to it.” ”

“ The Arabs were doubly overwhelmed, for besides getting the sail down on their heads, they were astonished and stunned by the shriek, smoke, and flame of the war-rocket. The gun-cutter coming up at the moment the two boats ranged alongside of the slaver, and boarded together.
As we have said, the crew and passengers, numbering thirty-four, were armed to the teeth, and they had stood by the halyards during the chase with drawn creases, swearing to kill any one who should attempt to shorten sail. ”

“ Uttering a yell of alarm—for he entertained an almost superstitious dread of serpents—he fired blindly upwards, and dashed to one side so violently that he tumbled himself and Harold into a bush of wait-a-bit thorns, out of which the laughing natives found it difficult to extract them.
“What is the matter, man?” said Harold somewhat testily.
“Have a care! look! Avast! A bite’ll be death, an’ no mistake!” cried Disco, pointing to the reptiles.
Harold fired at once and brought them both down, and the natives, attacking them with sticks, soon killed them.
“No fear,” said Antonio, with a chuckle. ”

“ At first the man was brusque in his manner, and inclined to be sulky, for a long course of cruelty had filled him with an intense hatred of white men. Indeed, an embittered and desperate spirit had begun to induce callous indifference to all men, whether white or black. But kind treatment, to which he was evidently unaccustomed, and generous diet, which was obviously new to him, had a softening influence, and when Harold poured a small glass of rum into his tea, and Antonio added a lump of sugar, and Disco pressed him tenderly to drink it off—which he did—the effect was very decided ”

“ He crept stealthily round to the back of the tree against which the faithless man leaned, and reached gently round until his mouth was close to Antonio’s cheek, then, collecting all the air that his vast lungs were capable of containing, he poured into Antonio’s ear a cumulative roar that threw the camp and the denizens of the wilderness far and near into confusion, and almost drove the whole marrow in Antonio’s body out at his heels. The stricken man sprang up as if earth had shot him forth, uttered a yell of terror such as seldom greets the ear, and rushed blindly forward. ”

“ But I have not time to palaver here. Who are you, and where are you going?”
“We are Englishmen, travelling to see the country,” replied Harold.
The chief looked doubtfully at him, and seemed to waver, then suddenly making up his mind, he frowned and said sternly— “No; that is a lie. You are Portuguese scoundrels. You shall all die. You have robbed us of our liberty, our wives, our children, our homes; you have chained, and tortured, and flogged us!”—he gnashed his teeth at this point, and his followers grew excited. “Now we have got free, and you are caught. ”

“ Antonio was right. In a short time afterwards a sharp yell was heard, and, on running to the trap, they found a hyena in its death-agonies. It had leaped at the meat, missed it, and had come down on the spear and impaled itself.
“Well, of all the fellers I ever know’d for dodges,” said Disco, on reseating himself at the fire, “the men in these latitudes are the cleverest.” ”

“ Harold thought he would venture another question:—
“In what sort of goods do you trade?”
“Ivory. Some be white, an’ some be what your contrymans do call black.”
“Black!” exclaimed Harold, in surprise.
“Yees, black,” replied the trader. “White ivory do come from the elephant—hims tusk; Black Ivory do come,”—he smiled slightly at this point—“from the land everywheres. It bees our chef artikil of trade.” ”

“ If you had taken my advice you would have cast them both to the hyenas long ago.”
“You are a bad judge of human flesh, Moosa,” said Yoosoof, quietly; “more than once you have allowed your passion to rob me of a valuable piece of goods. This man will fetch a good price in Persia, and so will his son. I know that the child is his son, though the fool thinks no one knows that but himself, and rather prides himself on the clever way in which he has continued to keep his whelp beside him on the journey down. Bah! what can one expect from such cattle? Don’t separate them, Moosa. ”

“ You might have more respect for Englishmen who have come to see your land, and never did you any harm. We are travelling peaceably through the country; we never kill anybody, and never steal anything; the buffalo-meat is ours, not yours, and it ill becomes a great chief like you to be prowling about in the dark, like a hyena, trying to steal the meat of strangers. Surely you can hunt for yourself—there is plenty of meat in the forest.” (See Livingstone’s Zambesi and its Tributaries, page 160.) ”