“The Pindar of Wakefield is my style,
And what I list I write;
Whilom a clerk of Oxenford,
But now—a banished wight.”
CHAP. II.
ZANZIBAR AND THE MRIMA EXPLAINED.
The history of the word Zanzibar is curious. Its Persian origin proves that the Iranians were in early days a more maritime people than Vincent and other writers imagine. Zanzibar, signifying Nigritia, or Blackland, is clearly derived from the “Zang,” in Arabic Zanj, a negro, and “bar,” a region. This Zangbar was changed by the Arabs, who ignore in writing the hard g, into Zanjíbár; they still, however, pronounce Zangbar, and consider it synonymous with another popular expression, “Mulk el Zunuj,” or “the Land of the Blacks.” Thus the poet sings,—
فسميت ملك الزنوج جميعها
“And it hath been called Land of the Blacks, all of it.”
Traces of the word may be found in the earliest geographers. Ptolemy records a Zingis or Zingisa, which, however, with his customary incorrectness, he places north of the equator. According to Cosmas Indicopleustes, the Indian Ocean beyond Barbaria is called Zingium. “Sinus Barbaricus” seems to have been amongst the Romans the name of the belt of low land afterwards known as “Zanzibar,” and it was inhabited by a race of Anthropophagi, possibly the fathers of the present “Wadoe” tribe. In more modern times the land of the Zunuj has been mentioned by a host of authors, El Novayri and others.
A TOWN ON THE MRIMA.
The limits of Zanzibar,—a word indiscriminately applied in former times to the coast, the island, and even to the principal town,—are variously laid down by geographers. Usually it is made to extend from Cape Delgado, in S. lat. 10° 41′ to the equator, or more strictly to S. lat. 0° 15′, at the mouth of the Vumbo, or the Webbe Ganana, which appears in our maps under the deceptive corruptions “Juba” and “Govind,” from the Somali “Gob,” a junction, and “Gob-wen,” a large junction. Mr. Cooley (Inner Africa Laid Open, p. 111) corrects the great error of the Portuguese historian, de Barros, who has made the embouchure of the Obi—in Somali Webbe, meaning any river,—the demarcation line between “Ajan” on the north, and “Zanguebar” in the south, and has placed the mouth of that stream in 9° N. lat., which would extend Zanzibar almost to Cape Guardafui. Asiatic authors, according to M. Guillain, (Documents sur l’Histoire, &c. de l’Afrique Orientale. Première partie, p. 213) vary in opinion concerning the extent of the “land of the Zunuj” and its limits; some, as El Masudi, make it contain the whole country, including Sofala, between the embouchure of the Juba River (S. lat. 0° 15′) and Cape Corrientes (S. lat. 23° 48′): others, like El Idrisi and Ibn Said, separate from it Sofala. In local and modern usage the word Zanjibar is generally confined to the chief town upon the island, the latter being called by Arabs, as well as by the Negroids, Kisiwa, “insula,” in opposition to the Barr el Moli, a barbarised Semitic term for the continent.
As usual throughout these lands, where comprehensive geographical names are no longer required, there is no modern general word for East Africa south of the equator. The term “Sawahil,” or “the shores,” in present parlance is confined to the strip of coast beyond the half-Somali country, called from its various ports,—Lamu, Brava, and Patta,—Barr el Banadir, or Harbour-land. The “Sawahil” extend southwards to Mombasah, below which the coast suddenly falling flat, is known as Mrima or the Hill, and its people as Wamrima, the “hill-men.” It is limited on the south by the delta of the Rufiji River, whose races are termed Watu wa Rufiji, Rufiji clans, or more shortly, Warufiji.