The Penang Pirate Part 5

"Yes, I served over a year in the _London_ at Zanzibar before being drafted off to one of the cruisers on the station. Beastly unhealthy place that Zanzibar--all fevers and agues and malaria in the wet season, and as hot as a place you've heard of, sir, when the sou'-west monsoon blows off the African sh.o.r.e. I was there when Sir Bartle Frere came to interview the old sultan to try and make him sign a treaty to put down the slave-trade; but it was all no go--the old sultan was too wide-awake for that, and, indeed, treaty or no treaty, we can never quite stop the dealing in slaves between the Arabs on the one hand and the clove- growers on the other."

"No?" said I interrogatively, wondering what the harmless clove, which forms such an important unit in the "sugar and spice and all things nice" combination of culinary seasoning, could possibly have to do with the slave-trade of East Africa.

"No, sir," he answered emphatically, with the air of a man who well knew what he was talking about and was certain of his facts, "it can't be done. You see, at certain times of the year, about a month after the rainy season ends, in September, the cloves ripen, and it takes a good many hands to pick 'em all and gather them in. Did you ever see them growing, sir?"

"I can't say I ever have," I responded, "although, of course, I've read about them."

"Well, sir, the cloves grow on tall, biggish-sized trees--"

"Dear me!" I said, interrupting him, "why, I thought they were the fruit of some little shrub like currants and capers."

"Oh, no! They grow on trees, and some of a goodish height too. The cloves are the bud or blossom of the tree before the flower comes; and they must be picked early in time, or else they're not fit for anything.

Their name, 'cloves'--I don't know whether you are aware on it, sir--is from the little things resembling a small nail--_clavo_, as it's called in the Spanish."

"I didn't know that," I said.

"That's it, then," he replied, proceeding with his explanation. "Now, of course you can see that the cloves must be got off the trees before the blossom ripens too much, but as the sun is so terribly hot and such a miasma comes up from the places where the trees grow only n.i.g.g.e.rs can stand the exposure; and so it is that slave labour is wanted, for no whites could undertake the job, and the Arab merchants, you may be sure, wouldn't do it themselves, in spite of the large demand for cloves in the European markets--that is, so long as they can get slaves to do it for 'em."

"How do they gather them?" I asked.

"Why, they have queer-shaped ladders, just of the same sort as those little things they put in pots of garden musk to train the plants on, broad at one end and narrow at the other--something like a triangular grating--so that a lot of the n.i.g.g.e.rs can stand on it at a time and pick away from the same tree, on which, perhaps, there are millions of buds to be taken off in less than no time. When they are all gathered they're spread out in the sun and dried, and then sent off in bags to whoever wants 'em."

"And where are they princ.i.p.ally grown?" said I.

"Why, Pemba. That's an island up above Zanzibar, about sixty miles from the coast, though they're very good cloves grown on Zanzibar Island too; but Pemba is the chief place, and it is to there that the chief runs of slaves are made by the Arab dhows. That is why the _London_ was so long stationed thereabouts: it was in order to intercept these craft and stop the traffic."

"I suppose you've seen some service chasing the dhows yourself, eh?" I said, thinking this a good opening for getting him back to his yarn, as he seemed inclined to end the conversation at this point, hinting that he had an appointment "in the yard"--meaning Portsmouth dockyard--and that it was getting on late, and they would soon be closing up.

"Oh yes, sir! I served my time dhow-chasing when I was in the _London_; and saw a few sights, too, in the different craft we overhauled that would ha' made your blood boil against slavery. One dhow, I remember, we captured with nearly a hundred on board, all crammed into a s.p.a.ce that you couldn't have thought would have held half that number of human beings, for it was a small dhow, of probably not more than forty tons at the outside. On the ballast at the bottom of the vessel were huddled up twenty-three women, some with infants in their arms. They were literally doubled up, sir, as they could not stand from the position they were in, as right over them was placed a bamboo deck not three feet above the keel of the boat, on which forty men were jammed together in the same way. This was not all, either, for, right above the men, right on to their heads almost as they squatted down, was another deck of bamboo, on which were over fifty children of all ages. The whole lot, too, when we boarded the dhow, were in the last stages of starvation and dysentery, not to speak of what they must have suffered from the cramped position in which they were confined and the want of air. They smelled something awful when we unkiverd them; it was enough to knock down a horse."

"It was horrible," I said in sympathy.

"No doubt it were all that," replied my friend the pensioner. "But from what I saw out there I do believe the very attempts our government make to put down the slave-trade only increases the evils of the poor wretches we are trying to liberate."

"How is that?" I asked.

"Why, you see, when the traffic used to be permitted, as it was once for a period of eight months in the year, just as you have at home a set time for shooting game, the slaves used to be carried in large dhows, more comfortably, and well supplied with food and water in their pa.s.sage from the mainland to Pemba and Zanzibar; but when our cruisers began to look out for them and stopped the trade, no matter whether it was in the dry season or not, then the Arabs would pack 'em up in small craft that could lie hid in the creeks or shallows of the coast and smuggle the n.i.g.g.e.rs in during the night-time, for these Arabs are just like cats, and can see in the dark when our men couldn't perceive their hands afore their face. Once upon a time, when I first went on the station, we used to capture good big dhows that were of a hundred and eighty tons burden and upwards; now our men only get hold of little Mtpe dhows that are hardly worth taking--I suppose you know, sir, as how we get a bounty or prize-money, according to the size of the vessels and the number of slaves we liberate?"

"Yes," said I, "I'm aware of that, as I have noticed advertis.e.m.e.nts in the _London Gazette_ about the distribution of the bounty for such and such slave-dhows 'captured by the boats of HMS _London_' or some other cruiser named. How are these dhows built?"

"Of a sort of close hard wood like African oak, but harder than our English timber of the same nature. The planks of the small Mtpe dhows are sewn together with a thread-like stuff they get from the reeds in the lagoons. They are built broad and shallow, with a keel deepening towards the stern, almost like a wedge, so that they can turn quickly.

They're good sea-boats, too, and can sail almost up into the wind's eye, with their large lateen sails, which are cut something like an old- fashioned leg of mutton, or short tack lug. The stem of them rises high out of the water, having a p.o.o.p on it, which is thatched over with matting and banana leaves; and altogether they don't look unlike a Chinese junk. Some of the bigger dhows, which are used as war craft by the Arab chiefs of Lamoi and Mozambique, are fine craft, and carry six and twelve bra.s.s guns sometimes, like the old carronades of the service."

"They sail well, you say?" I inquired.

"Don't they, that's all! Why, none of our quickest steam-pinnaces can overhaul them when they're going on a wind, for even with the lightest breeze their sails, being made of twilled calico and light, waft them along as if by magic. There are twenty that escape us for every one we catch, as, in the busy season, the caravans from the interior bring the slaves down to the coast wholesale. The Portuguese and Arabs are the chaps that manage the business; and once the slaves are aboard the dhows, they sneak along the land until night-time, when, if the wind blows fair for them, they're off and away to Pemba, or further up towards the Arabian coast, where our boats can whistle for them for all the chance they have of overhauling them!"

"What becomes of the slaves that are liberated when the dhows are captured?" said I.

"Oh, the boys are sent to the Boy's Mission Schools at Zanzibar, and the girls to the Female Mission there also; while the men folk, at least all the able-bodied and strong ones that are not too old, are enlisted into the sultan's army--the Sultan of Zanzibar, I mean, the Seyyid Burgash that was. When I was there, the commander of his army was a lieutenant of our navy who had been 'lent' by government for the purpose for three years, and now he has left the service altogether and is known as 'General Matthews' on the east coast. A right smart chap he is too, for he drilled the n.i.g.g.e.rs as well as if he were a born sojer instead of a sailor!"

"Do the slaves like this business?" I asked, thinking that their "freedom" seemed rather questionable; and then, too, consider the cost both in men and money it is to England every year.

"Well, I don't believe they do," answered the ex-man-o'-war's-man--"I've heard some of them say that they were quite contented to work on the clove plantations, and preferred that to loafing about the streets of Zanzibar, where hundreds of them are to be seen every day, with nothing to do and very little to eat, unless they take to thieving!"

"What sort of a place is Zanzibar?" said I now.

"Well, sir," replied the pensioner, "like all them oriental towns I have ever seen in the Levant and elsewhere, it looks ever so much better as seen from the sea than it does at close quarters. Coming into the harbour from the southwards, as I've entered it many a time when returning from a trip down to the Mozambique, your vessel has to wind slowly along through numerous little coral islands, which are, however, grown with stunted trees and bush quite close down to the water."

"That must be lovely!" I remarked.

"Aye, aye, so it is," said my friend; "but the navigation is awfully difficult, not to say dangerous, even with a man in the chains heaving the lead and singing out the depth every moment, for the soundings shoot from the 'deep nine' to the 'short five,' and less nor that too, before you know where you are! Howsomdever, once you've got inside and cast anchor, it's as pretty a roadstead as I ever clapped eyes on--as pretty as Rio in South America, which I daresay you've heard of?"

"Yes, and seen too," I said in response.

"Have you, sir?" replied the ex-man-o'-war's-man--"then all I can say is that you've seen the handsomest harbour in the world! But, still, Zanzibar ain't far behind it. The front of the town, which faces the anchorage, looks quite imposing like. The water of the bay is clear too, so that you can see the bottom down to any depth; and the white sandy beach fringing it round is just like snow against the dark background of palm-trees and green foliage. Along the beach are the warehouses and residences of the English-speaking merchants, the grand mansions of the richer sort of citizens, and the offices of the different foreign consuls--each with its own national flag fluttering gaily from the top, the British Union Jack and the Yankee Stars and Stripes being very prominent; while, in the very centre of the lot, is the palace of the sultan, a fine concern. From the top of this flies the red ensign of Arabia, and around it may be seen sentries in a sort of zouave uniform, selected from that very slave army I told you of just now."

"What struck you as most peculiar about the place?" I asked.

"Well, I'm hanged if it weren't the n.i.g.g.e.rs, sir!" said my informant.

"You see there the most extraordinary number of little darkies you ever saw in your life, all with nothing on 'em, no more than Adam--not even a fig-leaf! The next thing to strike you, if a stranger, would be the heat, for it is far hotter, strange to say, ash.o.r.e there than it is aboard your own ship. Some of the houses are curious to look at, for they have neither windows nor doors; for the best dwellings are built round an open court, and the windows, or air-holes as they might more properly be called, open on to that. Instead of being light and built of some flimsy stuff, as you might expect, the houses are all put up 'on the heat-resisting principle,' as I heard an engineer describe them-- just like the Irishman that wore his Connemara frieze coat in summer to keep out the sun, as he said, in the same way as he put it on in winter to keep out the cold!"

"Indeed!" I said.

"Yes, sir," continued my friend; "the walls of all the large houses at Zanzibar are many feet thick of solid stone masonry; and even the floors and part.i.tions dividing the rooms are of several thicknesses too, all made of wood and stone and lime, the wood being covered over with mortar. The roof is the best part of them, however. It is made quite flat, and it is the princ.i.p.al spot for the family to go of an evening when the sun has gone down and the night-breeze begins to blow. The Arabs and Pa.r.s.ees go on top in the mornings too, at sunrise, to say their prayers, spreading out a bit of sacred carpet over the stone flagging that forms the floor of the roof."

"Are there many shops?" I next inquired.

"Bless you, the town's crammed full of them! but they're only open sheds, in the centre of which some Hindoo or Banian merchant is to be seen squatting all day long, chewing hashish or smoking his hubble- bubble, as if he hadn't a stroke of business to do, and didn't care about doing it either if he got the chance!"

"I suppose they have goods to sell, though, eh!" I said.

"Oh, yes, shawls and sandals and silks and such like; while in the eatable line you can get coffee and sherbet, and arrack too, or what they call English rum, besides pine-apples and mangoes, oranges, citrons, guavas, green cocoa-nuts, and every fruit you could think of, as well as cakes and sweetmeats. The streets in the town are very narrow and are crowded with these sorts of shops or rather stalls, for they're just like the places you see old apple-women rig up at the corners in London; but the bazaars are the best spots to look at-- they're just like those in India, and some that I've seen too in Constantinople. Lor' sakes! why, they're crowded with Arabs and Hindoos, Persians, Africans, Somali Arabs, and every sort of coloured native you can imagine, sir, from the lightest coffee-tinted mulatto down to the jettiest black of the pure n.i.g.g.e.r brought originally from the interior as a slave.

"The funniest thing, too, about these bazaars is to see the different trades or handicraftsmen at work, the goldsmiths making rings by hammering and beating the metal, the jewellers stringing pearls together for necklaces and bracelets, the toy-makers rigging up the queerest curios you ever saw, and the sandal-makers cutting out shoes of leather; but the biggest treat of all is to watch a Pa.r.s.ee school and see how the master instructs the little shavers. The children, to the number of fifty or more, all squat on the floor of the school-room, which is a large open shed on a raised platform, each holding in one hand the blade-bone taken from the shoulder of a camel to serve as a slate, on which they make marks with a pencil-like brush. They are pretty little trots, the children; and are mostly all smartly dressed in little jackets and trousers of various coloured silks, green, yellow, and red, with turbans on top of their heads, just like their fathers, to complete the picture."

"The end of the rainy season, you say, is the best time for catching the dhows?" I asked now, to bring my friend back to the main point of all my interrogatories.

"Yes, there's the greatest demand then for the slaves; besides which the south-west monsoon sets in at that time, and is favourable for their crossing from the mainland."

"Do they ever show fight?" I inquired.

"Bather!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed my informant; "they're about as treacherous a lot as you could ever come across, them Arabs; for, I tell you what, they'll sometimes let a boat's crew overhaul 'em, and come up alongside as if everything was ship-shape and clear sailing--that is to say, sir, that they have nothing contraband aboard and could show a clean bill o'

lading; when, drat 'em, they'll turn round on you like a parcel o'

tigers with their sharp knives and spears. It was in this way my poor skipper, Capt'in Brownrigg, was killed in December '81--just at Christmas time, when I were out there."

"That was a sad thing," said I sympathisingly.