3-070-494 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Slave Trade on the East Coast of Africa, from sketches by our special artist, Mr. J. Bell: coaling station for boats of H.M.S. London, at Funzi, Pemba, 1881. 'The London is an old wooden line-of-battle ship, converted into a stationary store-ship; she was formerly a steamer, but her engines and boilers and screw have been removed. She arrived at Zanzibar in 1873, with a special equipment of steam-launches for cruising about those waters [in search of slave ships]...Pemba is situated a short distance north of Zanzibar...The island of Pemba is about forty miles long, but very narrow, and is very fertile and populous, the soil being cultivated, by slave labour, with rich plantations of coffee, cloves, and cocoa-nut, making a large export trade to Asia. Many Banyans, of Bombay, and other British Indian subjects, reside in Pemba for the trade or plantations...The chief town is Chak-chak, built on swampy ground at the head of a shallow inlet, and much infested with fevers which are often fatal to European visitors. It is for working the plantations of Pemba that the slaves are illegally brought over from the African mainland, in spite of the unceasing vigilance of the British naval force on that station'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.