Abraham recognised his uncle among the crowds who came to see us.  On making himself known he found that his mother and two sisters had been sold to the Arabs after he had been enslaved.  The uncle pressed him to remain, and Mataka urged, and so did another uncle, but in vain.  I added my voice, and could have given him goods to keep him afloat a good while, but he invariably replied, “How can I stop where I have no mother and no sister?” The affection seems to go to the maternal side.  I suggested that he might come after he had married a wife, but I fear very much that unless some European would settle, none of these Nassick boys will come to this country.  It would be decidedly better if they were taught agriculture in the simplest form, as the Indian.  Mataka would have liked to put his oxen to use, but Abraham could not help him with that.  He is a smith, or rather a nothing, for unless he could smelt iron he would be entirely without materials to work with.

14th-28th July, 1866.—­One day, calling at Mataka’s, I found as usual a large crowd of idlers, who always respond with a laugh to everything he utters as wit.  He asked, if he went to Bombay what ought he to take to secure some gold?  I replied, “Ivory,” he rejoined, “Would slaves not be a good speculation?” I replied that, “if he took slaves there for sale, they would put him in prison.”  The idea of the great Mataka in “chokee” made him wince, and the laugh turned for once against him.  He said that as all the people from the coast crowd to him, they ought to give him something handsome for being here to supply their wants.  I replied, if he would fill the fine well-watered country we had passed over with people instead of sending them off to Kilwa, he would confer a benefit on visitors, but we had been starved on the way to him; and I then told him what the English would do in road-making in a fine country like this.  This led us to talk of railways, ships, ploughing with oxen—­the last idea struck him most.  I told him that I should have liked some of the Nassick boys to remain and teach this and other things, but they might be afraid to venture lest they should be sold again.  The men who listened never heard such decided protests against selling each other into slavery before!

The idea of guilt probably floated but vaguely in their minds, but the loss of life we have witnessed (in the guilt of which the sellers as well as the buyers participate) comes home very forcibly to their minds.

Mataka has been an active hand in slave wars himself, though now he wishes to settle down in quiet.  The Waiyau generally are still the most active agents the slave-traders have.  The caravan leaders from Kilwa arrive at a Waiyau village, show the goods they have brought, are treated liberally by the elders, and told to wait and enjoy themselves, slaves enough to purchase all will be procured:  then a foray is made against the Manganja, who have few or no guns.  The Waiyau who come against them are abundantly supplied with both by their coast guests.  Several of the low coast Arabs, who differ in nothing from the Waiyau, usually accompany the foray, and do business on their own account:  this is the usual way in which a safari is furnished with slaves.