At no modern period has a larger number of slaves been imported into
Hejaz and Yemen than during the last eighteen months, and until friendly
relations with the Porte, or whatever Mussulman authority succeeds the
Porte in those provinces, are restored, slave-trading will continue. I
do not myself entirely sympathize with anti-slave-trade ideas as applied
to Mohammedan lands, knowing as I do how tolerable and even advantageous
the social condition of the negroes is in them. But still I wish to see
slavery discontinued, and I believe that a firm but friendly attitude
towards Mussulmans will have completely extinguished it in another two
generations. A rupture with them can only prolong and aggravate its
existence.
Lastly, we may perhaps find a prospective interest for England in the
probability of a Caffre conversion to Mohammedanism at no very remote
period, and the extension of Islam to her borders in South Africa. It is
of course premature to be alarmed at this, as it is a contingency which
can hardly happen in the lifetime of any now living; but Mohammedanism
is not a creed which a hundred or two hundred years will see
extinguished in Africa or Asia, and already it has passed considerably
south of the Equator.
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