The New Dominion

The African Slave Trade.

An officer on board the sailing schooner Undine, Lieutenant and Commander Henry McA. Cutfield, employed in suppressing the slave trade in Mozambique Channel, writing under date July 16, says:

We are having a lively time, I can assure you, with 103 poor, miserable, half-starved wretches on board, eighty of them women and children, and for the most part children from eighteen months to ten years old, and one only four days old. The dhow that they came to Johanna in was sixty-three tons, so they were packed like sardines. She was caught by our boat that was left behind for ninety-six days, and I am sorry to say one of our poor fellows died of fever in her. These slaves were kidnapped, about two hundred miles south of Mozambique, brought down to the coast, and shipped off to Johanna as a speculation, as the sugar crop is just coming on. Some of the children have been taken care of by the women. Two little chaps the men look after are housed in a biscuit box, and they cry lustily if taken out of it. They eat all day and nearly all night. One old woman became insane after she was taken out of the dhow, and she has a baby with her. The poor old woman is tied down to prevent her going overboard in a fit, of which she has had several. Every morning all are stripped and the fire-hose played on them indiscriminately, and don't they want it! The smell is something too bad to be talked about. Luckily we have beautiful weather this trip, and a strong, fair wind. Some would be certain to die if we had a spell of bad weather, as we have only the upper deck for them to lie on. The night we took them on board they were so cramped and weak that only about twenty could walk. The rest were passed in one after the other, and then stowed in rows for the night. One hundred and twenty pounds of rice, treacle and sweet potatoes were cooked at once. When they saw it they went hands and feet into it, and fought and bit, and each did everything that could be done to get a little more than another. It was really a most distressing sight. We should, I think, capture three times as many if we had some more boats and a steam cutter, as there is not a shadow of doubt that large numbers are run here every year, and especially about this time.—Pall Mall Gazette.