for 1000_l._ less than it will actually cost me.

_12th July, 1872._--Two men come from Syde bin Habib report fighting as
going on at discreet distances against Mirambo.

Sheikh But, son of Mohamad bin Saleh, is found guilty of stealing a tusk
of 2-1/2 frasilahs from the Lewale. He has gone in disgrace to fight
Mirambo: his father is disconsolate, naturally. Lewale has been
merciful.

When endeavouring to give some account of the slave-trade of East
Africa, it was necessary to keep far within the truth, in order not to
be thought guilty of exaggeration; but in sober seriousness the subject
does not admit of exaggeration. To overdraw its evils is a simple
impossibility. The sights I have seen, though common incidents of the
traffic, are so nauseous that I always strive to drive them from memory.
In the case of most disagreeable recollections I can succeed, in time,
in consigning them to oblivion, but the slaving scenes come back
unbidden, and make me start up at dead of night horrified by their
vividness. To some this may appear weak and unphilosophical, since it is
alleged that the whole human race has passed through the process of
development. We may compare cannibalism to the stone age, and the times
of slavery to the iron and bronze epochs--slavery is as natural a step
in human development as from bronze to iron.

Whilst speaking of the stone age I may add that in Africa I have never
been fortunate enough to find one flint arrowhead or any other flint
implement, though I had my eyes about me as diligently as any of my
neighbours. No roads are made; no lands levelled; no drains digged; no
quarries worked, nor any of the changes made on the earth's surface that
might reveal fragments of the primitive manufacture of stone. Yet but
little could be inferred from the negative evidence, were it not
accompanied by the fact that flint does not exist in any part south of
the equator. Quartz might have been used, but no remains exist, except
the half-worn millstones, and stones about the size of oranges, used for
chipping and making rough the nether millstone. Glazed pipes and
earthenware used in smelting iron, show that iron was smelted in the
remotest ages in Africa. These earthenware vessels, and fragments of
others of a finer texture, were found in the delta of the Zambesi and in
other parts in close association with fossil bones, which, on being
touched by the tongue, showed as complete an absence of animal matter as