The town is irregularly built, the houses being substantially constructed to resist the heat, and perhaps the earthquakes which are occasionally felt from the volcanic eruptions in the north-west end of Madagascar, and the hurricanes which every five or seven years visit the island with great severity. The streets are very narrow; and the houses being all white-washed, the glare is distressing, and the heat, by these two causes, considerably increased, so that the thermometer is always from six to ten degrees higher in the town than on the mainland. There are two or three squares, and in the principal one there is a pillar of hard wood embedded in masonry, to which the negroes are secured when publicly whipped. Some of the houses have the appearance of comfort, and in former times, when the slave-trade was extensively carried on between Mozambique and Brazil, they were luxuriously furnished, having every comfort which affluence could supply, and the debilitating nature of the climate called for. Since the people of Mozambique have been obliged to abandon slavery, nearly all the former occupants have left, and the remainder, tied to the country by compulsory means, lead a miserable existence engendered by their own vices. The Portuguese officials look with the greatest jealousy upon any of the Mozambique people engaged in the slave-trade, for they consider this traffic as belonging entirely to themselves, and a grant from the government of Portugal, as a compensation in lieu of adequate salaries. There is no mistaking the meaning of the smile and shrug of the shoulders with which they reply to any one who ventures to state that the Portuguese government is sincere in its endeavour to suppress the slave-trade. I have been told, by persons in Mozambique, “Yes, the government of Portugal, after ruining us, are sincere in their endeavours to prevent us engaging in the traffic; and they take the best mode to prevent us benefiting by that traffic, for they send out their officers here on paltry salaries, which they well know cannot support life, and make them prevent us engaging in the slave-trade. But the government of the King knows well that the soldiers have not been paid for more than four years, and that many of the officers have not received a vintim, or farthing, from the treasury, for more than two years. How must these men live? By the slave-trade. So that they deprive us of the benefits which were formerly derived from the slave-trade; and to prevent legal commerce, which would supplant the trade in the natives, they throw every obstacle in our way.”
I must say, I observed, while at Mozambique, that this was a very fair statement of the case.
The city of Mozambique is exceedingly dirty, from the filthy habits of the Portuguese; and, without going into particulars, it may be briefly stated that it is the filthiest city in the universe, not even excepting that of Lisbon. For which there is not the shadow of an excuse, as there is an overabundance of slaves without employment; and the town being built on the beach, where the tide has a rise and a fall of, at times, twelve feet, there can be no difficulty in keeping it clean. That indolence which to the modern Portuguese has now become proverbially natural, has here an opportunity for its fullest development, so that the air they breathe, both here and in all the settlements along the coast, is as foul as the immorality in which they live.
The inhabitants of Mozambique are about 7,000 in number. The garrison, consisting of Portuguese soldiers, in all under 200, are principally convicts; some portion of them being convicts who have already passed a term of penal servitude at Goâ, and are sent from that place to serve a further period of punishment at Mozambique for crimes committed at the former settlement.
There are a few Portuguese officials connected with the Custom-house and the Treasury, some half-caste descendants of Portuguese or Canarines from Goâ, and natural children of slave-dealers by native women from India or Africa; such is the society at Mozambique. Add to this, one German merchant and an agent of a house from Marseilles, thirty or forty Banyan traders from Cutch, Goâ, and Bombay; a few Arabs, or, as they are called at Mozambique, Moors, and you have all that portion of the inhabitants of the island who call themselves free. The remaining portion of the inhabitants are slaves, called Négros, or, by the Christian Portuguese, they are more generally styled Gentiles.
The aspect of the town from the anchorage is that of former grandeur crumbling to decay; and, indeed, a more intimate acquaintance realized the impression made on first entering the harbour.
There are generally a few vessels, principally Portuguese, lying in the harbour; and in the healthy season, which is also the trading season here, a great number of dhows from different places on the west coast of India, the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Madagascar, Comoro Islands, Zanzibar, and along the whole east coast of Africa, are attracted here, in the face of Portuguese restrictions on trade, by the enormous profits to be derived by trading at this place. If the slave-trade was done away with once and for ever, legitimate traffic with the whole Indian Ocean and adjoining seas might be indefinitely developed, and realize to Portugal a princely revenue. This might be done by simply removing those persons from Mozambique who are well known to the Portuguese government as being engaged in the slave-trade, and without whose assistance the Portuguese officials, arriving at Mozambique strangers to the country, could not engage in selling the natives. The names of these slave-dealers have been communicated to the Portuguese government, and it is nothing but the influence which they maintain, by bribing largely parties who have access to the ministers, and others who are all-powerful at the Court of Lisbon, which prevents the government of the King from taking so simple a course; viz., the banishment of a few individuals for the benefit of the community. It will be asserted, on the other hand, that this would be a dangerous step to take, as these well-known persons have great influence at Mozambique, where their long residence has given them great influence over the natives, and where they form a local party, which, aided by the climate, the poverty of the Portuguese government, and the treachery of the officials and officers, renders them all-powerful. To this I simply reply, that the Portuguese government, to my certain knowledge, holds in its possession undisputed proofs of the guilt of these slave-dealers; and it is only by a guilty connivance of some members of the government of the King, who are participators in their ill-gotten and infamous gains, that measures have not been taken ere this for preventing, by banishment of those engaged in this traffic at Mozambique, a crime revolting to humanity, and opposed to Christianity and civilization.
The statements made in this narrative of facts, which came to my knowledge while at Mozambique, and which are so notorious that the government of Portugal offers no denial to them, fully justify the charges of complicity made against the government of the King, and show that the efforts made by that government are a continued imposition on the credulity of England and other nations engaged in this great question of the cause of humanity.