Zanzibar

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Various legends of hair-oil rubbed upon the bulwarks have made many a tricked traveller a shallow infidel in the matter of smelling the land. But we soon learned that off Zanzibar, as off ‘Mozámbic,’ the fragrant vegetation makes old Ocean smile, pleased with the grateful smell, as of yore. The night breeze from the island is cool and heavy with clove perfume, and European residents carefully exclude the land-wind from their sleeping-rooms. ”

“ The aspect of Zanzibar from the sea is that of coralline islands generally—a graceful, wavy outline of softly rounded ground, and a surface of ochre-coloured soil, thickly clothed with foliage alternating between the liveliest leek-green and the sombrest laurel, the only variety that vegetation knows in this land of eternal verdure. Everywhere the scenery is similar; each mile of it is a copy of its neighbour ”

“ The town of Zanzibar is situated on the west side of the island on a tongue of land formed by the above-mentioned creek, and faces the small sandy isle which constitutes the southern boundary of the harbour. It is large and populous, and is composed chiefly of cajan huts, all neatly constructed with sloping roofs. There are, however, a good number of stone buildings in it belonging to the Arabs and merchants; and in the centre, close to the beach, stands a fort, seemingly partly of Arab, partly of Portuguese, construction. ”

“ Every blessing save that of beauty has now passed away from it, and instead of ‘cet éternel nuage de fumée qui dort sur les toits, et le bourdonnement lointain de la ruche immense,’ we see the wild ‘smokes’ of the tropical coast, and we hear the scream of the seamew harshly invading the silence and solitude of a city in ruins.
Returning to Kivinjya, we consulted the Wali and the principal inhabitants about the feasibility of a march upon the Nyassa or Southern Lake—here, as at Zanzibar, not a soul confounded it with the Tanganyika. ”

“ Zanzibar, however, must be seen on one of her own fine days: like Fernando Po and Rio de Janeiro, the beauty can look ‘ugly’ enough when she pleases.
As we drew nearer and vision became more distinct, we found as many questions for the pilot as did Vasco da Gama of old. Those prim plantations which, from the offing, resembled Italian avenues of oranges, the tea-gardens of China, the vines of romantic Provence, the coffee plantations of the Brazil, or the orange-yards of Paraguay, were the celebrated clove-grounds, and the largest, streaking the central uplands, were crown property. ”

“ Zanzibar, the capital of the African dominions of the Imâm of Muskat, in latitude 6° 28′ S. and longitude 39° 33′ E., exports gold, ivory, drugs, coir, cocoa-nuts, gums, bees-wax, tortoise-shell, spice, rice from Pemba, sesame-seed from Angoxa, and a great quantity of timber annually to the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.
In 1818 cloves were introduced into Zanzibar from Mauritius; they thrive so well that the cultivation of them has in a great measure superseded that of the sugar-cane, and even the cocoa-nut. ”

“ We passed three small Arab timber-craft which were laying in a cargo of red and white mangrove trunks, and in many places floated small rafts of palm-fronds ready to be guided down-stream. At sunset the tide, running like a mill-race, compelled our crew to pole up a little inlet near Pombui or Kipombui, a village on the left bank, well stockaded with split areca trunks. The people who are subject to Zanzibar, and are claimed by Kimwere, flocked out to welcome their strangers, laid down a bridge of cocoa-ribs, brought chairs, and offered a dish of small green mangoes, here a great luxury. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As one approaches Zanzibar from the north the coast appears bare, rocky, and surrounded by low cliffs. Here dwell some wild people, almost completely cut off from the more civilized portion of the inhabitants, and following debasing and degrading superstitions. But as we sail southwards, between the island and the main, the shore becomes low and flat, the beach covered with sand of silvery whiteness, and the whole backed by rising ground not more than 300 feet high, on which grow in rich abundance cocoanut and other feathery-leaved palms. ”

“ Though exposed to the blighting salt breeze, the land wants nothing but water, and, this given, no man need ‘tread upon his neighbour’s toes.’ Arecas and cocoas, bushy mangoes and small custard-apples, the guava and 70the castor plant, the feathery manioc, and the broad-leaved papaw and plantain flourish upon its flanks. In the patches of black forest spared by the wild woodman, the copal, they say, and the Mvule, a majestic timber-tree whose huge trunk serves for planking and doors at Zanzibar, still linger. ”

“ The Zanzibar slave-depôt is so situated that its market was limited only by the extent of Western Asia. From Ra’as Hafun to the Kilima-ni river was gathered the supply for the Red Sea, for the Persian Gulf, for the Peninsula of Hindostan, and for the extensive regions to the East. ”

“ Zanzibar island is the seat of government, and consequently the metropolis. The town contains about sixty thousand inhabitants of all nations, but principally coloured people, of which the Suahili, or coast people, living on the opposite main, predominate in number, though they are the least important. Of the merchants, there are several European houses, comprising French, Germans, and Americans ”

“ Without taking into consideration the climate, it is evident that few Englishmen are prepared to settle for long years at remote Zanzibar, and Arabs do not care to trust new men. Yet it would be the acme of short-sightedness to neglect this part of East Africa. Our Anglo-Indian subjects, numbering about 4000 [85] in the dominions of Zanzibar, some of them wealthy men, are entitled to protection from the Arab, and more especially from the Christian merchants. ”

“ Zanzibar ignores 146the exhilaration of pure desert air, and the exaltation produced by the stern aspect of mountain regions or by a boundless expanse of Pampa and Sahara. Without a single element of sublimity, soft and smiling, its sensuous and sequestered scenery has no power to spur the thought, to breed an idea within the brain. ”

“ Some of the men, perhaps, will return to their duties, but if such a large number deserts 3000 miles from their native land, what might have been expected had we taken the East Coast route. The Zanzibar headmen tell me with a cynical bitterness that the Expedition would have been dissolved. They say, "These people from the clove and cinnamon plantations of Zanzibar are no better than animals—they have no sense of feeling. They detest work, they don't know what silver is, and they have no parents or homes. The men who have homes never desert, if they did they would be so 1887. ”

“ Water must be brought from the mainland; the people own it to be brackish, but declare that it is not unwholesome. The climate is infamous for breeding fever and helcoma, the air being poisoned by cowries festering under a tropical sun, and by two large graveyards—here also, as at Zanzibar, the abodes of the dead are built amongst the habitations of the living. The population is a bigoted and low-minded race, Hassádin (envious fellows) of evil eye, say the Zanzibarians; a mixture of lymphatic Arabs, hideous Wasawahili, ignoble half-castes, and thievish slaves. ”

“ The Zanzibar Arab’s day is regular, varied only by a journey, a family festival, a debauch, or the yearly Ramazan fast. He rises at dawn for ablution and prayer, eats ‘Suwayk,’ a kind of vermicelli, wheaten bread, or even a little meat, drinks a cup of coffee, and chewing betel, repairs to the bazar for business or calls upon his friends. ”

“ The climate of Zanzibar is not the most agreeable in the world. I have heard Americans and Europeans condemn it most heartily. I have also seen nearly one-half of the white colony laid up in one day from sickness. A noxious malaria is exhaled from the shallow inlet of Malagash, and the undrained filth, the garbage, offal, dead mollusks, dead pariah dogs, dead cats, all species of carrion, remains of men and beasts unburied, assist to make Zanzibar a most unhealthy city ”

“ Lieutenant Cameron, in his journey across Africa, made Zanzibar his starting point; and the expedition of Mr. Johnson to the Kilimandjaro Mountain was chiefly outfitted there, though it left the coast at Mombasa.
"Zanzibar," continued Doctor Bronson, "is the best point of departure for an inland expedition anywhere along the east coast of Africa, for the reason that it is the largest and most important place of trade. Its shops are well supplied with the goods that an explorer needs for his journey, and its merchants have a better reputation than those of other African ports. ”

“ Like other African produce, though almost dirt-cheap, it becomes dear by passing through many hands, and the frasilah, worth from 1 to 3 dollars in the interior, acquires a value of from 8 to 9 dollars at Zanzibar.
Zanzibar is the principal mart for perhaps the finest and largest ivory in the world. It collects the produce of the lands lying between the parallels of 2° N. lat. and 10° S. lat., and the area extends from the coast to the regions lying westward of the Tanganyika Lake. It is almost the only legitimate article of traffic for which caravans now visit the interior. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Though a city of something over one hundred thousand people, with the major portion of the trade of East Africa in its hands, Zanzibar has neither dock, jetty, nor wharf, passengers and packages alike being disembarked in small boats and carried through the surf on the shoulders of Swahili boatmen. There are no words in the language adequate to describe the scene [Pg 145] which takes place on the beach bordering the harbour when a mail steamer comes in. The passengers—white-helmeted tourists; pompous, drill-clad officials ”

“ In 1890 the coast line from Ruvuma to Wanga, with the island of Mafia, was ceded to Germany, by which partition the country was reduced to two islands, Zanzibar and Pemba, containing about a thousand square miles with 165,000 inhabitants, a strip of coast line ten miles long, together with three smaller islands and five seaports. Zanzibar is a British protectorate, as are also the Zanzibar dominions on the mainland as far north as the mouth of the Juba. ”

“ This lichen chooses the forks of trees in every lagoon. In the Consular report by Lieutenant-Colonel Playfair on the trade of Zanzibar for the year 1863, I find—‘Orchilla is obtained from the more arid parts of the coast to the north: none grows on the Island.’
The people of Zanzibar are fond of fruits, especially the mango, the orange, the banana, and the pine-apple. All of these, however, except the plantain—the bread-fruit of Africa—are seedlings, and engrafting is not practised. Wall-fruit is of course unknown. ”

“ Its magnificent basin is formed by one of those small coralline islands which, from Suez to Cape Corrientes, have long been the centres of commerce with peoples who, brutalized by barbarism, and incapable of civilization, would have converted mainland depôts into scenes of rapine and bloodshed. Of this chain the principal links, the Tyre, the Alexandria, and the Araduses of East Africa, are Masawah, old Zayla, Berberah—in the 16th century an islet—Makdishu, Lamu, Wasin, ancient Mtanga, Pemba, Zanzibar, Mafiyah, the original Kilwa, and Mozambique. ”

“ For the most part Zanzibar consists of a labyrinth of narrow and dirty streets, in which live the Banyans, Singalese, the negro porters, fishermen and half-castes. There are numerous markets. In Shangani are the houses of the European merchants and the chief Arabs, and the headquarters of various Protestant and Roman Catholic missions. Characteristic of the streets are the carved and massive wooden doors, whose blackness contrasts with the white stone of the houses, and the bright red of the acacias in the garden enclosures. ”