The Sea Road to the East, Gibraltar to Wei-hai-wei / Six Lectures Prepared for the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office

by A. J. Sargent

To keep order in the coast towns there is a force of native Civil Police, under a European officer: here are 24 some of the havildars, and here the whole body in review order; but we see that, unlike our own police, they are 25 armed with rifles. Somaliland is not a peaceful country, and police alone are not enough; so a military force is necessary. This consisted formerly of a battalion of the King’s African Rifles, recruited partly from the natives and partly from India. Here are the drummers 26 and buglers, all natives, with a native officer; and here is a whole company of Rifles on parade. They are 27 mounted on mules, and the European officer alone is on horseback. This native force has been disbanded and replaced by a contingent of Indian troops. We have also, in the past, been compelled to employ British and Indian troops for expeditions up country, to deal with the followers of a Mohammedan Mullah who proclaimed a jihad, or holy war, a few years ago, and raided first the Christians of Abyssinia and then the natives in our own territory. The Mullah was only copying on a larger scale the usual methods of the tribes of the interior; since the chief amusement of the Somali consists in annexing the property of his neighbours, whenever and wherever he can find the opportunity. The geography of the country is all in favour of the native raider and against the civilized troops which attempt to catch him. In the dry season, when the Somali is for a time a fixture in the neighbourhood of the wells, it is almost impossible to move a considerable force up country, owing to the want of food and water for men and animals on the march. When the rains come, the whole country is open for the game of hide-and-seek, and in this the white man is no match for the quick-moving native, who is troubled by no problem of transport and is a nomad born and bred. The land itself fights for the Somali; so that effective European control is limited to the coast, except where the French have pushed inland with the railway from Jibouti to the neighbourhood of Harrar. None the less, the occupation of the coast towns, Berbera, Bulhar and Zeila, is not entirely useless, since these are the ends of the caravan routes from Abyssinia and the interior. Here the animals, skins, gums and other wild products of the country are exchanged for the rice of India, the dates of Arabia, and the cottons of Europe and America which form the sole dress of the native. For the rest, the Somali is likely to be left in the undisturbed enjoyment of his native customs; his chief visitor will be the sportsman and the naturalist, as the land abounds in wild game and is the home of many strange plants and animals which are not to be met with elsewhere in Africa.

We have made a brief survey of British Somaliland, and though much is not yet explored, yet it is not likely to differ greatly from the part which we have seen. There will be the same red dust and monotonous stony plain with its thorn bushes and dry stream-beds. In some parts, by way of variety, the thorn will grow so dense as to be impenetrable; in others it will disappear, and we shall find pure desert. Only a Somali or a camel could live and thrive in such a country. So we return to the coast and continue our voyage. Again we must 28 turn aside from the direct road across the ocean to India and follow for a time the long coast of Africa. We round Cape Guardafui, now the extreme tip of the Horn; but the sea here is shallow, and the islands which continue the line of the headland must at some remote time have been joined to the continent. Of these islands, Socotra, long and narrow, about a hundred miles from end to end, alone need be noticed. It is a British Protectorate, controlled from Aden, though nominally dependent on the little Arabian state of Kishin. It is without harbours or trade, and our only interest there is to prevent its occupation by any other Power which might dispute with us the control of the Red Sea entrance. Aden, Somaliland, Perim and Socotra have all the same place in our policy; they have no meaning except in relation to the control of the sea.

We steam onwards, and across the Equator, passing by the coastline of Italian Somaliland and British East Africa, to where, nearly two thousand miles from Aden, and close in to the mainland, are two other islands coloured red on the map, Pemba and Zanzibar. We are a long way off our course to India, yet Zanzibar and the narrow strip of coast behind it belong by history and development to India and Arabia rather than to the neighbouring continent.

The Portuguese, on the way to India, creeping along the coast in their old-fashioned vessels, found here Arab traders and Arab cities with an active intercourse across the Indian Ocean. The periodic Monsoon winds brought the fleets of dhows, with the produce of India and the Persian Gulf, and carried them back with their cargoes of ivory and slaves. The Portuguese occupied the African coast region as part of their Indian Empire; the English and Dutch, at a later time, made straight across the ocean from the Cape or Mauritius and left the Portuguese undisturbed. So, when the rule of Portugal collapsed through its own weakness, the old conditions were restored.

For a long time Zanzibar and the neighbouring coasts were ruled by local chiefs, nominally dependent on the Iman of Muscat in southeastern Arabia; until, early in the nineteenth century, Seyyid Said transferred his court from Muscat to Zanzibar and extended his power over all the neighbouring coast. On his death, in the middle of the century, Zanzibar, largely through the influence of the Viceroy of India, was separated politically from Muscat. It remains to-day in name an independent kingdom, though stripped of its dominions on the mainland and under the Protection of Britain. We became concerned with this region, in the nineteenth century, mainly owing to our efforts to suppress the slave trade of which it was the chief centre. We found it impossible to carry out our policy without some effective control over the native states, and our paramount interests in Zanzibar and the mainland to the north have been recognized in our agreements with France and 29 Germany. To-day the palace of the Sultan still remains, but on the site of the old slave-market stands the Cathedral 30 as a sign of the success of our efforts.

The island of Zanzibar is long and narrow; it measures about fifty miles from north to south, and only twenty-five at its widest in the middle. It is nearly three times the size of the Isle of Man. A long ridge of hills divides it into two distinct parts. The east is largely made up of old coral rock, with a very thin layer of soil; it is not very fertile and is, moreover, exposed to the full force of the Trade winds. Most of the population is on the more sheltered western side, and here are the town and harbour of Zanzibar. The ruling class and original landowners are Arabs; but the mass of the people are Swahili, of mixed African and Asiatic descent, and freed 31 slaves, largely natives of Africa. Here is a typical group of natives. The chief wealth of the island lies in the cultivation of cloves, as a large portion of the world’s crop is grown here; but there are also the coconut palm, the rubber vine and many other tropical plants. A great and interesting change is taking place in the ownership of the plantations: the natives of India, shopkeepers, traders and moneylenders, are steadily ousting the Arabs. The Arab has lost much of his wealth, through the emancipation of his slaves, and is slow to adapt himself to the new conditions; so that the thrifty Indian bids fair to annex the whole island in the near future, and Zanzibar will renew its connexion with the mainland on the other side of the Indian Ocean.

Apart from its agriculture, the chief value of the island is in the sheltered roadstead of the capital, as good harbours 32 are rare in this part of the world. Here we see it from the sea, and here is one of the main streets of the town. In 33 Zanzibar we find all the races of the Indian Ocean represented, and here are collected all the products of the islands and of the coast of Africa, which is only twenty-five miles away. The trade with India still remains, while the steamship has brought also direct intercourse with Europe. In the early days of trade, the security of a position on an island was an important factor in the growth of a seaport; now that Europe is policing both the sea and the mainland, the advantage of the island is less, and Zanzibar has a growing rival a hundred and fifty miles away on the coast of Africa. Mombasa 34 is on a small island, connected with the mainland by a causeway. On the north side is Mombasa harbour, 35 rather shallow and not very convenient for shipping; on the south is the deep Kilindini channel, running for a long distance inland and providing one of the finest harbours on the east coast of Africa. Mombasa is the terminus of the railway which crosses the low coast strip and surmounts the plateau of East Africa. The trade of the port is very old; but only slaves and ivory could be carried in former times over the long and difficult caravan route which ended here. Now, the railway can bring down to the sea all the products of a vast 36 area inland. Here we have a scene on the old road, and here by way of contrast the modern railway. 37 Mombasa, like Port Sudan, will create a new traffic in the future, to join the great stream which moves through the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal; but the subject of British East Africa and its resources must be left for future treatment; here we are concerned only with its relation to our sea route.

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