Having settled down to the exploitation of the territory Germany, with her trade methods, began to oust the once all-dominant trade of Zanzibar.
The latter depended on her trade with India and the mainland, and the Germans instituted a direct service of luxuriously appointed steamers to stop goods from going to Zanzibar and being handled twice. In the way German traders are able to cut prices, it is probable that the saving of one handling of the goods constituted the profit on them.
A direct Indian service was also inaugurated which further cut into Zanzibar trade; while a line of steamers started to circumnavigate Africa, going down the west coast to Cape Town and returning up the east coast leisurely through the Suez Canal back to Hamburg.
It was not long before the Germans had practically the whole of the east coast trade in her hands, and the German description of Dar-es-Salaam as the metropolis of the whole of the East African coast began to have some foundation in fact.
After quelling the "insurrection" in 1889, Major von Wissmann set the corps he had formed to the building of Government offices and residences, and the imposing edifices round about the lagoon at Dar-es-Salaam are tribute to their skill.
A strong force of police was enrolled and consisted of 260 Europeans and 2,750 men, who, uniformed in khaki, were armed with the most modern guns and rifles. They constituted a formidable fighting force of sixteen companies, each of which had several machine guns.
The natives are in the main mild-mannered; and as long association with the Arabs made a condition of slavery quite a natural existence, they were readily terrorised, and the Germans found ideal ground for cultivation.
Energetically the administration set to work to open up the country by establishing centres of trade; the country was intersected in every direction by paths six feet wide for machela[F] travelling, and the natives were compelled to make these paths free of charge and maintain them in good order.
The administration, German like, was all by rule of thumb, and even the prices of food were everywhere fixed by tariff. German home methods were applied everywhere with a mixture, as in Zanzibar itself, of a shoddy imitation of Indian life.