"الخليج العربي؛ مسقط وزنزبار" [ظ‎‎٤‎٠] (٨/٦)

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for suppressing their slave trade. We might insis
on free access there at all times. We might hav<
a station there by right. When employed in Soutl
Africa in 1854, I then forwarded to the Duke o
Newcastle a copy of the treaty executed betweei
Admiral Watson and the Pemba Chiefs, by whicl
they ceded to Great Britain the south side of the
Bay.
This copy had been for many years in the posses
sion of a Dutch family, one ol whom gave it to me.
I recommend that we should assert our rights, and
that we should construct a station-house there ; or
least, that the bay should be subjected to the con
stant vigilance of our cruisers. A few years subse
quent to this, Admiral Keppel, 1 believe, endea
voured to arrest the building of a fort by the
Poituguese, one object of which, of course, was to
thwart our joint claims there. They always main,
am a station on shore. In that manner, and owing
to our not having, at the time of my report, brought
the position at all within the cruising ground of our
naval station at Simon’s Bay, they had virtually
closed to us and others the mouth of the St. George
river. It is navigable for 200 miles, and it is the
route through which they deal with the Kaffirs and
with the Dutch Booers beyond the Vaal. Thence
the Portuguese export, under their flag and that of
Spam the staples of the interior, viz., gold dust
ostrich feathers, and slaves. Some Kaffirs, such as
an°/fK r ^^ Barralon g. the Basutos, and
and the Bachaanas, have never been prevailed upon
to join m the latter trade. Others are more mer-
cenmy and owing to the exemption from search
enjoyed in the reserved waters of Zanzibar, and to
the loose French relations with Madagascar and the
Comoros, mutual facilities exist for the enterprise
L'S," "»■’»""*“« S P S
s° U ”.t kt r S . with Chiefs and tribes on the Red
approval'of ^Bombay 5 for Die
-vice
desirable that the Fo^ffign Offii™''''^ ’ 'n' 8 ! perlia P s
Navy than an Officer g sent fron^R Wlt n th ® RoyaI
apprehend, that neither the Foreign Office B “A *
Government of India i* nf &n rior the
"ith Officers ted forV t dS t a W d 1 r Pr 0 V A ded
who may not be conversant with 1 d , Uty * 0ne ’
customs, and with the Arabic ^r rabl< l ! 1Story and
will never be of much te here r n^^ 3 ’
due influence with the , He wdl r| ot have
be liable to be ovclreactd 6 bv^b "r' * Z"* time
r ‘ 5 “ L *' £ ^
h V,.t. .mpLyed di.l'.TSS.fjfS