ich is stimulated, be it
remembered always, by the slave purchasers of Cuba and elsewhere. The
many skeletons we have seen, amongst rocks and woods, by the little
pools, and along the paths of the wilderness, attest the awful sacrifice
of human life, which must be attributed, directly or indirectly, to this
trade of hell. We would ask our countrymen to believe us when we say, as
we conscientiously can, that it is our deliberate opinion, from what we
know and have seen, that not one-fifth of the victims of the slave-trade
ever become slaves. Taking the Shire Valley as an average, we should say
not even one-tenth arrive at their destination. As the system,
therefore, involves such an awful waste of human life,--or shall we say
of human labour?--and moreover tends directly to perpetuate the barbarism
of those who remain in the country, the argument for the continuance of
this wasteful course because, forsooth, a fraction of the enslaved may
find good masters, seems of no great value. This reasoning, if not the
result of ignorance, may be of maudlin philanthropy. A small armed
steamer on Lake Nyassa could easily, by exercising a control, and
furnishing goods in exchange for ivory and other products, break the neck
of this infamous traffic in that quarter; for nearly all must cross the
Lake or the Upper Shire.

Our exploration of the Lake extended from the 2nd September to the 27th
October, 1861; and, having expended or lost most of the goods we had
brought, it was necessary to go back to the ship. When near the southern
end, on our return, we were told that a very large slave-party had just
crossed to the eastern side. We heard the fire of three guns in the
evening, and judged by the report that they must be at least
six-pounders. They were said to belong to an Ajawa chief named Mukata.

In descending the Shire, we found concealed in the broad belt of papyrus
round the lakelet Pamalombe, into which the river expands, a number of
Manganja families who had been driven from their homes by the Ajawa
raids. So thickly did the papyrus grow, that when beat down it supported
their small temporary huts, though when they walked from one hut to
another, it heaved and bent beneath their feet as thin ice does at home.

A dense and impenetrable forest of the papyrus was left standing between
them and the land, and no one passing by on the same side would ever have
suspected that human beings lived there. They came to this spo