Sultan of Zanzibar

“ For the charm of Zanzibar lies in the fact that while the white men have made it healthy and clean, have given it good roads, good laws, protection for the slaves, quick punishment for the slave-dealers, and a firm government under a benign [211] and gentle Sultan, they have done all of this without destroying one flash of its local color, or one throb of its barbaric life, which is the showy, sunshiny, and sumptuous life of the Far East. ”

“ The Sultan of Zanzibar, who knows his people better than any stranger, cannot entrust any branch of his revenue to even the better class of his subjects, but places all his customs, income, and money affairs, in the hands of Banians from India, and his father did before him. ”

“ Over these villages are set headmen, called phanzes, who ordinarily call themselves subjects of Said Majid, the Sultan of Zanzibar. But as soon as a caravan passes through their country, each headman considers himself as a sultan in his own right, and levies tolls from the travellers. They never allow strangers to come into their villages, differing in this respect from other tribes, who use their towns as traps, into which the unwary traveller is induced to come, and from which he does not escape without suffering severely in purse. ”

“ The American boy told me the Arabs are wicked, and are accursed of God. Said he to me that same day in hearing of the Sultan’s son, as if he was not a bit afraid of the consequences, ‘The Lord God makes his anger known against the Arabs by refusing knowledge and the gifts of understanding unto them, because they are wicked, because they go forth into Africa with armed servants a-plenty to destroy and kill the poor black people, and to take slaves of parents and children, whom they bring to Zanzibar to sell for their own profit.’ Is he not an unbeliever, father? ”

“ When the dawn begins to creep up out of the east, the Englishmen tell the drowsy steward to bring them Scotch and sodas and the Frenchmen order absinthes; then every one shakes hands with every one else and you make your way back to your hotel through the narrow, silent streets, returning the salute of the night constable sleepily.
No visitor leaves Zanzibar without going to the cemetery. Like the palace, and the stone ship built by a former sultan, it is one of the show places of the city. ”

“ As has been mentioned, these malpractices are severely reprobated by His Highness the Sultan, and when the evil passes a certain point remedial measures are taken. A Banyan, for instance, is sent to the coast with warnings to the Diwans concerned. But what care they for his empty words, when they know that he has probably equipped a similar party of black buccaneers himself? and what hope can there be of reform when there is not an honest man in the country to carry it out? Thus the Government of Zanzibar is rendered powerless;—improvement can be expected only from the hand of Time. ”

“ The present ruler of Zanzibar—that is, of the coastline, with all the islands which lie between the equator on the southern confines of the Somali country and the Portuguese possessions in Mozambique—is Sultan Majid, the second son of the old Imaum; for it must be remembered that the Imaum, at his death, divided his territories, then comprising Muscat in Arabia, and Zanzibar in Africa, into two separate states, giving the former, or Muscat, to his eldest son, Sayyid (Prince) Suwéni, whilst the latter was bequeathed to his favourite, the second son, Sayyid Majid, now styled Sultan. ”

“ Listen, ye children of the Arabs, sons of the great chiefs, Khamis bin Abdullah, Amer bin Osman, Sultan bin Ali, the Sheikhs Mussoud, Abdullah, Bashid, Hamdan, Thani, and Nasib! Open your ears, ye people of Zanzibar! Ye are among the Wahehe. Ye are in the land of thieves, and night-prowlers. Be wary and alert, my friends; sleep with one eye open; let not your hands forget your guns. When ye meet the prowling Wahehe in your camps at night, shoot and kill all such. ”

“ Beastly unhealthy place that Zanzibar—all fevers and agues and malaria in the wet season, and as hot as a place you’ve heard of, sir, when the sou’-west monsoon blows off the African shore. I was there when Sir Bartle Frere came to interview the old sultan to try and make him sign a treaty to put down the slave-trade; but it was all no go—the old sultan was too wide-awake for that, and, indeed, treaty or no treaty, we can never quite stop the dealing in slaves between the Arabs on the one hand and the clove-growers on the other. ”

“ About four years ago a treaty was signed between the Sultan of Zanzibar and the British government, by which the importation of slaves was prohibited, but the Arabs were permitted to retain the slaves they already possessed. Strong pressure had to be brought to bear on the Arabs to compel them to sign this treaty; but even now a considerable traffic is carried on by the east coast with Arabia, Pemba, and Madagascar. The negroes are crowded into the slave-dhows, and their sufferings from hunger and filth must be extreme on a voyage. ”

“ Similarly, Ibn Batutah, when describing the Sultan of Oman, Abu Mohammed bin Nebhan, tells us, ‘he has the habit of sitting, when he would give audience, in a place outside his palace; he has neither chamberlain nor wazir, and every man, stranger or subject, is free to approach him.’ Sometimes a noble, when ordered into arrest at Zanzibar, has collected his friends, armed his slaves, and fortified his house. One Salim bin Abdallah, who had a gang of 2000 musketeer negroes, used to wage a petty war with the Sayyid’s servile hosts. ”

“ Then the sultan said to Keejeepaa, “Take some of my soldiers, and let them convey these things to Sultan Daaraaee, that he may dress himself and come to me.”
But the gazelle answered: “Ah, my master, can I take these soldiers with me and put Sultan Daaraaee to shame? There he lies, beaten and robbed, and I would not have any one see him. I can take everything by myself.”
“Why,” exclaimed the sultan, “here is a horse, and there are clothes and arms. I don’t see how a little gazelle can manage all those things.” ”

“ Tn the large villages along the coast of the mainland the Sultan of Zanzibar is represented either by walis, or by jemadars, nearly all full-blood or half-caste ADMINISTRATION OF ZANZIBAB. 386 Arabs, who collect the taxes and keep watch over the traders to prevent the traffic in slaves, now legally suppressed. ”

“ But in the early stages the champions of British interests in East Africa received no support from their own government, while Germany was pushing her advantage with the energy of a recent convert to colonial expansion, and had even, on the coast, opened negotiations with the sultan of Witu, a small territory situated north of the Tana river, whose ruler claimed to be independent of Zanzibar. ”

“ He naturally received a very friendly reception from the sultan, and was furnished with letters of recommendation to the Arabs of the interior. He had brought with him from India some boys from the Nassick Mission, and thirteen sepoys, as a nucleus for his expedition. At Zanzibar he engaged ten Johanna men and four natives of Nyasaland, and bought camels, buffaloes, mules, and donkeys to experiment on their resistance to the effect of the tsetse fly. He arrived off the Rovuma in H.M.S. Penguin on 22 March, but owing to difficulties of entering, landed in Mikindani Bay on 4 April. ”

“ Sultan bin Mohammed, Sultan of Zanzibar, Mr. Stanley's interview with, Sunuzzi stream, Susi, Dr. Livingstone's servant, Swaruru, Sultan, Sycamore, gigantic, Tabora, Tagamoyo, massacre of the Wamanyuema by, Tanganika Lake, first visit to; cruise on, with Dr. Livingstone, Tarya Topan, integrity of Thani bin Abdullah,, Tongoni, deserted clearing, Tozer, Bp., his residence at Zanzibar; his congratulations at the author's success, Trade, mode of conducting, in Africa, Tsetse fly, Tura, Eastern ”

“ Zanzibar, a kingdom of East Africa, under British protection, consisting of the islands of Zanzibar (150) , with a capital (30) of the same name, and the island of Pemba (50) , and a strip of the coast extending 10 m. inland from Cape Delgado to Kipini; has a hot unhealthy climate, and a rich tropical vegetation; its products are cloves chiefly, coco-nuts, betel-nuts, and grain, and the exports ivory, india-rubber, gum, &c.; the natives are mostly Arab Mohammedans under a sultan. ”

“ Such stories as "The Cat's Tail," "The Fools," and "Shani and Tabak" were told in the dialects of Shela, Pate and Lamu, in which places there is a greater proportion of Arab blood. "Kajikarangi," "The Hunters and the Big Snake," and "Segu" are types of tales told by more African natives in the dialect of Zanzibar and the Mgao and Mrima coasts.
The Sultan is the king or chief. As the African coast kingdoms were often very small he was, as often as not, the chief of only one town or island, whilst in the next town another Sultan reigned. ”

“ But he was friendly to the English and in re203turn for the abolition of free traffic of slaves between Africa and Zanzibar the English government allowed him an annual subsidy of a little over £6,000 a year. In 1888 the Sultan died and his son, Feysul bin Turki, succeeded him. His rule was mild, from the palace at Muscat his influence was not far-reaching; rebellions, inter-tribal wars and plots of one mountain-chief against another mark all the years of his reign up to date. In February, 1895, there was a serious Bedouin uprising in which the Arabs took the town and looted it. ”

“ The name of Kilwa now rarely occurs in history. Late in the last century the French here attempted to form a slave depôt, which led to the out-station being re-occupied by Zanzibar. The Shirazis, however, held the land till the late Sayyid Said seized and deported to Maskat Muammadi, their last sultan, and thus the tribe was scattered abroad.
367Such is the present state of a settlement which in 1500 the Portuguese found prosperous to the highest degree, and ruling the Zangian coast to Mozambique and Sofala. ”

“ If money runs short, a village is fired by [98] night, and the people are sold off to the first caravan. In some parts the pattering of musketry is incessant, as it ever was in the turbulent states of Independent India. It is rarely necessary to have recourse to violence, the Wak’hutu, believing their tyrants to be emissaries, as they represent themselves, from His Highness the Sultan, and the chief nobles of Zanzibar, offer none but the most passive resistance, hiding their families and herds in the bush. ”

“ Oriental in its appearance, Mohammedan in its religion, Arabian in its morals, this cesspool of wickedness is a fit capital for the Dark Continent. But Zanzibar is Zanzibar simply because it is the only apology for a town on the whole coast. An immense outfit is required to penetrate this shopless and foodless land, and here only can the traveller make up his caravan. The ivory and slave trades have made caravaning a profession, and everything the explorer wants is to be had in these bazaars, from a tin of sardines to a repeating rifle. ”

“ The well-remembered undulating ridges, and the gentle slopes clad with palms and mango-trees bathed in warm vapor, seemed in that tranquil, drowsy state which at all times any portion of tropical Africa presents at first appearance. A pale-blue sky covered the hazy land and sleeping sea as we steamed through the strait that separates Zanzibar from the continent. Every stranger, at first view of the shores, proclaims his pleasure. ”

“ The more extensive Zang (Zenj) empire, of which the name Zanzibar (Zanguebar) is a lasting memorial, extending along the sea-board from Somaliland to the Zambezi, was also extinct. The Arabs had established themselves firmly on the coast, and thence made continual slave-raids into the interior, penetrating later to the Congo. The Swahili, inhabiting the coast-line from the equator to about 16° S., are a somewhat heterogeneous mixture of Bantu with a tinge of Arab blood. ”

“ Zanzibar is the starting-point of almost every Central African expedition. Thence Livingstone, Speke and Grant, Cameron, and Stanley on two occasions, have struck into the interior and made valuable discoveries. It is also the old centre of the East African slave-trade, which, though it has received a severe check, is not yet abolished. Moreover, Zanzibar is a microcosm—a little world in itself. There one meets with the Arab, the Hindoo, the Persian, the Malagashi, the Banian, the Goa Portuguese, the negro, and the European. ”

“ The Mussulman still needs slaves and concubines, and three great slave marts still exist to supply them. These are the Island of Zanzibar, the southern portion of Egypt, and Arabia. At Zanzibar a healthy man sells for $42, while the women bring $80, and more, if good-looking.
During the past ten years the history, geography, and topography of the biblical countries have been studied with immense activity, and the best travellers and scholars of Germany, France, Italy, and England have contributed their offerings to the common fund of our knowledge concerning these most interesting regions. ”

“ Petty rulers calling themselves Sultans, Ameers or Imams have for centuries divided the land between them. The Sultanate of Oman and the great Nejd-kingdom are the only important governments, but the former lost its glory when its seat of power and influence was transferred to Zanzibar. Nejd in its widest sense is governed to-day by Abd-el-Aziz bin Mitaab the nephew of the late Mohammed bin Rashid, King Richard of Arabia, who gained his throne by the massacre of seventeen possible pretenders. The territory of this potentate is bordered southward by Riad and the Wahabi country. ”