Really it was all one story. The slaving Arabs, on this pretext or on
that, had set tribe against tribe. Then they sided with the stronger
and conquered the weaker by aid of their terrible guns, killing out
the old folk and taking the young men, women and children (except the
infants whom they butchered) to be sold as slaves. It seemed that the
business had begun about twenty years before, when Hassan-ben-Mohammed
and his companions arrived at Kilwa and drove away the missionary who
had built a station there.
At first this trade was extremely easy and profitable, since the raw
material lay near at hand in plenty. By degrees, however, the
neighbouring communities had been worked out. Countless numbers of
them were killed, while the pick of the population passed under the
slave yoke, and those of them who survived, vanished in ships to
unknown lands. Thus it came about that the slavers were obliged to go
further afield and even to conduct their raids upon the borders of the
territory of the great Mazitu people, the inland race of Zulu origin
of whom I have spoken.
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