ANGLO-TURKISH CONVENTION FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF THE SLAVE-TRADE.
The Queen of England announced at the opening of the last session of Parliament, Feb. 5th, “That a convention for the suppression of the slave-trade has been concluded between my Government and that of his Imperial Majesty the Sultan.” This was very gratifying to all who had so long waited the signing of the oft-promised and oft-delayed treaty with Turkey. On the 9th of February, it was said by the Under-Secretary of State that the treaty had been signed but not ratified, and would soon be laid upon the table of the House of Commons. In the meantime, what purports to be a copy of the treaty has been published.
An examination of its several articles creates grave fears that astute Turkish diplomacy has been too much for Sir Henry Layard in this matter. It is all very well for English cruisers to have the right to search suspected ships, sailing under the Turkish flag, for slaves; but their officers cannot touch African slave seamen, and it will be easy to so make out a ship’s papers that she can carry many more men than she needs, and she can change her crew every voyage. All slaves seized, another article provides, shall be turned over to Ottoman authorities for the purpose of proclaiming them free, which, we fear, will prove as effectual in accomplishing that result, as throwing the turtle into the water by the simpleton was effectual in drowning it.
When England made treaties with other slave-holding nations for the suppression of the slave-trade, she provided that captured slaves should be tried before a mixed Commission in which British officers sat. In this treaty they take their chances for freedom before an Ottoman Court.
In this connection we regret to announce that Pacha Gordon has resigned, and his resignation has been accepted; and thus Central Africa loses its noble Christian ruler. He went out in 1874 as Governor General of Soudan, “to establish a regular government, to create facilities for commerce, and to destroy the slave-trade in the province entrusted to him,” and his resignation will bring dismay to all who have the cause of humanity at heart. It was at first reported that Ismail Eyoub Pacha had been appointed to take his place, who, while not Gordon Pacha, was, it is said, as good a man for the post as could be found in Egypt. But the Anti-Slavery Reporter now says, “it is officially announced that the actual successor is one Raouf Bey, of evil memory.”
This Raouf Bey is spoken of by Sir Samuel Baker in his “Ismailia” as the bosom friend of Abou Saood, whom he describes “as the incarnation of the slave-trade, and the greatest slave-dealer on the White Nile.” Colonel Gordon thinks it certain that the slave-dealers will at once resume their operations, and will be unmolested by the new Governor. He estimates that at least 30,000 slaves have annually, for the past twelve years, been brought down from the Bahr Gazelle and Darfur; and Vice-Consul Wylde believes that not less than 50,000 annually cross the Red Sea, who are taken to Egypt, Turkey, and other Mohammedan countries. And now, it seems, the Anglo-Turkish Convention provides that slaves captured by the English shall be handed over to the Ottoman authorities to be by them declared free, and a noted slave-hunter displaces the Christian suppressor of that hellish traffic in the governorship of the slave-hunting grounds.
MR. H. M. STANLEY ON THE CONGO.
[From the Field, March 12.]
As the recent movements of this well known African explorer have not been given in detail, the following translation of a letter written by Father Carrie, head of the Congo Mission, dated Landana, December 3, 1879, and published in Les Missions Catholiques (No. 559), may not be without interest.
Father Carrie says: “Having just returned from a voyage through the whole navigable portion of the Lower Congo, I take the first opportunity of sending you the following particulars concerning Mr. Stanley and his explorations. The party of the great explorer is somewhat numerous. It consists, besides the leader, of a superintendent, an engineer, a sea captain, several mechanics, carpenters, etc., in all, twenty whites of different nationalities—Belgians, Americans, English, Italians, and Danes. A French naturalist, M. Protche, just come to Landana from Paris, and an old member of the German expedition to Chinchoxo, near Landana, are also about to join The ‘Society for the Investigation of the Upper Congo,’ as this expedition terms itself.
“The blacks of the party consist of about one hundred men, Arabs and natives from Sierra Leone and the Congo. The stores are very considerable, comprising especially five small steamers and some auxiliary craft, engines and trucks for land carriage, wooden houses ready for erection, &c.
“Mr. Stanley, as I am informed by Mr. Greshoff, proposes to go up the Congo to the Lualaba, where he hopes to meet his Arab friend Tibu-tin. He will then explore the Western part of the Congo as well as the countries near both of its banks, and will endeavor at the same time to bring the ivory-trade to Emboma. When we arrived at Vivi (four or five miles below the first cataract of the Yellala Falls), Mr. Stanley was on his way across the mountains in the direction of the great village of the same name, doubtless studying the start for his route to the interior. M. Van Schandel, chief engineer of the expedition, told us that the celebrated traveller habitually started on such excursions without warning any one of his going or returning. Soon, however, Mr. Stanley himself was announced; he returned tired to death and covered with dust and perspiration.
“While waiting for the end of the rainy season, he is engaged in firmly establishing his first station—the base of all his future operations—and in maturing his plans for overcoming the gigantic difficulties in his way.
“It is, indeed, a startling enterprise to traverse some two hundred miles of precipitous, rocky mountains, piled up—so to speak—one on the other, and almost without any intermediate passage, not only with a numerous party, but a considerable weight of baggage, wooden houses, trucks and steam vessels, which must be hoisted over heights of from 1,000 to 1,300 feet, with extremely abrupt rises; and this not once, or twenty, or a hundred times, but on thousands of occasions.
“Happen what may, it will require some years’ work to reach the end of this terrible chain of mountains at Stanley Pool, where the second station is to be established.”
Making every allowance for the fears of the worthy ecclesiastic whose letter we have here given, it is sufficiently evident that Mr. Stanley has his work cut out in executing the Belgian international programme. He will, apparently, have a land journey of three hundred miles before he can make use of the river, and he himself considers that it will take three years to carry out the project successfully.