How I found Livingstone : $b Travels, adventures, and discoveres in Central Africa, including an account of four months' residence with Dr. Livingstone — John Shaqi
How I found Livingstone : $b Travels, adventures, and discoveres in Central Africa, including an account of four months' residence with Dr. LivingstoneStanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
History
How I found Livingstone : $b Travels, adventures, and discoveres in Central Africa, including an account of four months' residence with Dr. Livingstone
Stanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Livingstone, David, 1813-1873
We will suppose, for the sake of illustrating how trade with the
interior is managed, that the Arab conveys by his caravan $5,000's worth
of goods into the interior. At Unyanyembe the goods are worth $10,000;
at Ujiji, they are worth $15,000: they have trebled in price. Five doti,
or $7.50, will purchase a slave in the markets of Ujiji that will fetch
in Zanzibar $30. Ordinary menslaves may be purchased for $6 which would
sell for $25 on the coast. We will say he purchases slaves to the full
extent of his means--after deducting $1,500 expenses of carriage to
Ujiji and back--viz. $3,500, the slaves--464 in number, at $7-50 per
head--would realize $13,920 at Zanzibar! Again, let us illustrate trade
in ivory. A merchant takes $5,000 to Ujiji, and after deducting $1,500
for expenses to Ujiji, and back to Zanzibar, has still remaining $3,500
in cloth and beads, with which he purchases ivory. At Ujiji ivory is
bought at $20 the frasilah, or 35 lbs., by which he is enabled with
$3,500 to collect 175 frasilahs, which, if good ivory, is worth about
$60 per frasilah at Zanzibar. The merchant thus finds that he has
realized $10,500 net profit! Arab traders have often done better than
this, but they almost always have come back with an enormous margin of
profit.
The next people to the Banyans in power in Zanzibar are the Mohammedan
Hindis. Really it has been a debateable subject in my mind whether the
Hindis are not as wickedly determined to cheat in trade as the Banyans.
But, if I have conceded the palm to the latter, it has been done very
reluctantly. This tribe of Indians can produce scores of unconscionable
rascals where they can show but one honest merchant. One of the
honestest among men, white or black, red or yellow, is a Mohammedan
Hindi called Tarya Topan. Among the Europeans at Zanzibar, he has become
a proverb for honesty, and strict business integrity. He is enormously
wealthy, owns several ships and dhows, and is a prominent man in the
councils of Seyd Burghash. Tarya has many children, two or three of
whom are grown-up sons, whom he has reared up even as he is himself. But
Tarya is but a representative of an exceedingly small minority.
The Arabs, the Banyans, and the Mohammedan Hindis, represent the higher
and the middle classes. These classes own the estates, the ships, and
the trade. To these classes bow the half-caste and the negro.
The next most important people who go to make up the mixed population of
this island are the negroes. They consist of the aborigines, Wasawahili,
Somalis, Comorines, Wanyamwezi, and a host of tribal representatives of
Inner Africa.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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