Livingstone himself had the impression that his long and weary detention in Manyuema was designed by Providence to enable him to know and proclaim to the world the awful horrors of the slave-trade.  When his despatches and letters from that region were published in this country, the matter was taken up in the highest quarters.  After the Queen’s Speech had drawn the attention of Parliament to it, a Royal Commission, and then a Select Committee of the House of Commons, prepared the way for further action.  Sir Bartle Frere was to Zanzibar, with the view of negotiating a treaty with the Sultan, to render illegal all traffic in slaves by sea.  Sir Bartle was unable to persuade the Sultan, but left the matter in the hands of Dr. Kirk, who succeeded in 1873 in negotiating the treaty, and got the shipment of slaves prohibited over a sea-board of nearly a thousand miles.  But the slave-dealer was too clever to yield; for the route by sea he simply substituted a route by land, which, instead of diminishing the horrors of the traffic, actually made them greater.  Dr. Kirk’s energies had to be employed in getting the land traffic placed in the same category as that by sea, and here, too, he was successful, so that within the dominions of the Sultan of Zanzibar, the slave-trade, as a legal enterprise, came to an end.

But Zanzibar was but a fragment of Africa.  In no other part of the continent was it of more importance that the traffic should be arrested than in Egypt, and in parts of the Empire of Turkey in Africa under the control of the Sultan.  The late Khedive of Egypt was hearty in the cause, less, perhaps, from dislike of the slave-trade, than from his desire to hold good rank among the Western powers, and to enjoy the favorable opinion of England.  By far the most important contribution of the Khedive to the cause lay in his committing the vast region of the Soudan to the hands of our countryman, Colonel Gordon, whose recent resignation of the office has awakened so general regret.  Hating the slave-trade, Colonel Gordon employed his remarkable influence over native chiefs and tribes in discouraging it, and with great effect.  To use his own words, recently spoken to a friend, he cut off the slave-dealers in their strongholds, and he made all his people love him.  Few men, indeed, have shown more of Livingstone’s spirit in managing the natives than Gordon Pasha, or furnished better proof that for really doing away with the slave-trade more is needed than a good treaty—­there must be a hearty and influential Executive to carry out its provisions.  Our conventions with Turkey have come to little or nothing.  They have shared the usual fate of Turkish promises.  Even the convention announced with considerable confidence in the Queen’s speech on 5th February, 1880, if the tenor of it be as it has been reported in the Temps newspaper, leaves far too much in the hands of the Turks, and unless it be energetically and constantly enforced by this country, will fail in its object.  To this end, however, we trust that the attention of our Government will be earnestly directed.  The Turkish traffic is particularly hateful, for it is carried on mainly for purposes of sensuality and show.