At the end of each month, the planter must appear with his labourer before the Protector of Immigrants, in whose presence the wages are paid, and the signature of the Protector of Immigrants in the immigrant’s book is a receipt for the free labourer’s wages.
Should the master neglect this, and pay the labourer at his own house, or out of the presence of the Protector of Immigrants, the transaction is illegal, and he can be compelled to pay the wages a second time. I have heard of a case in point, where a free labourer had been receiving his wages for more than two years, without being paid in the presence of the Protector of Immigrants. He was induced to demand the wages to be paid over again for that period, and, I am told, the law was enforced.
At the end of five years the negro must be returned to his own country, at the expense of the original importer; but this very rarely happens, excepting in the case of the Malagasy, who are obtained in St. Augustine Bay, at the south-west end of Madagascar. Those who elect to remain in Réunion generally take service by the month, and obtain wages from fourteen to sixteen shillings per month and their food. Mechanics, such as carpenters, masons, and blacksmiths, receive higher wages.
Some of the French vessels engaged in this traffic proceed to Nossi-bé, the French settlement off the north-west end of Madagascar, and put themselves in communication with the Arab merchants or Antealoats, in Majunga Bay. An Arab belonging to Zanzibar, named Kallifan, is generally employed.
The vessel remains anchored at Nossi-bé whilst the Arabs send their dhows to the coast of Africa to obtain the slaves who are landed on a given point on the coast of Madagascar.
These dhows are from twenty to fifty tons burthen, generally without decks, and as the Arabs know well that they are liable to be seized, even when empty, by the British ships of war engaged in the suppression of the slave-trade, if they have mats, provisions, or any extra cooking apparatus on board, they take nothing more than what is absolutely necessary for their own crews. No provision is made for the comfort of the expected living cargo.
The slaves forming the cargoes of these dhows are obtained by purchase or by theft—to the Arab it is a matter of indifference how he obtains them—by purchase, by fraud, or by force. When the cargo is complete, the slaves are tied hand and foot, and then placed on board the dhow.
During the voyage to the rendezvous they receive just sufficient uncooked rice or beans, with a little water, to keep them alive, and are left, day and night, without any covering whatever, bound hand and foot, not being even released to attend to the calls of nature. The interior of the dhow therefore becomes a putrid mass of living corruption; numbers of the slaves dying from fever, dysentery, and small-pox, engendered by the pestilential atmosphere within the hold of the slave dhow.
Their destination is generally some port not likely to be visited by Her Majesty’s cruisers; and, arrived there, the only improvement in their condition is a full allowance of water. Should it happen that by stress of weather, or any other cause, the French ship that is to take them is retarded in her arrival, their sufferings are much increased; and when these poor creatures do at last get on board the French ship, the sudden change to an ample diet produces sickness, and sometimes death.
The captain of a French trading vessel stated that, on one occasion when he landed at Europa Island, at the southern end of the Mozambique Channel, to obtain some turtle, he found upwards of a hundred negroes lying on the beach, without any protection against the sun, wind, or rain; they were guarded by some armed Arabs, and were waiting the arrival of a vessel to take them to Réunion. Their provisions were nearly exhausted; and if by any accident the vessel whose cargo they were intended to form should be retarded in her arrival at Europa Island, it is easy to conceive what their fate would be.