The Bull-headed Mabruki.
African standing position.
CONCLUSION.
On the 9th February the Battela and the stores required for our trip arrived at Konduchi from Zanzibar, and the next day saw us rolling down the coast, with a fair fresh breeze, towards classic Kilwa, the Quiloa of De Gama, of Camoens, and of the Portuguese annalists. I shall reserve an account of this most memorable shore for a future work devoted especially to the seaboard of Zanzibar—coast and island:—in the present tale of adventure the details of a cabotage would be out of place. Suffice it to say that we lost nearly all our crew by the cholera, which, after ravaging the eastern coast of Arabia and Africa, and the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, had almost depopulated the southern settlements on the mainland. We were unable to visit the course of the great Rufiji River, a counterpart of the Zambezi in the south, and a water-road which appears destined to become the highway of nations into Eastern equatorial Africa. No man dared to take service on board the infected vessel; the Hindu Banyans, who directed the Copal trade of the river regions aroused against us the chiefs of the interior; moreover, the stream was in flood, overflowing its banks, and its line appeared marked by heavy purple clouds, which discharged a deluge of rain. Convinced that the travelling season was finished, I turned the head of the Battela northwards, and on the 4th March, 1859, after a succession of violent squalls and pertinacious calms, we landed once more upon the island of Zanzibar.
Sick and way-worn I entered the house connected in memory with an old friend, not without a feeling of sorrow for the change—I was fated to regret it even more. The excitement of travel was succeeded by an utter depression of mind and body: even the labour of talking was too great, and I took refuge from society in a course of French novels à vingt sous la pièce.
Yet I had fallen upon stirring times: the little state, at the epoch of my return, was in the height of confusion. His Highness the Sayyid Suwayni, Suzerain of Maskat, seizing the pretext of a tribute owed to him by his cadet brother of Zanzibar, had embarked, on the 11th February, 1859, a host of Bedouin brigands upon four or five square-rigged ships and many Arab craft: with this power he was preparing a hostile visit to the island. The Baloch stations on the mainland were drained of mercenaries, and 7000 muskets, with an amount of ammunition, which rendered the town dangerous, were served out to slaves and other ruffians. Dows from Hadramaut brought down armed adventurers, who were in the market to fight for the best pay. The turbulent Harisi chiefs of Zanzibar were terrified into siding with his Highness the Sayyid Majid by the influence of H. M. consul, Captain Rigby. But the representatives of the several Christian powers could not combine to preserve the peace, and M. Ladislas Cochet, Consul de France, an uninterested spectator of the passing events, thought favourably of his Highness the Sayyid Suwayni’s claim, he believed that the people if consulted would prefer the rule of the elder brother, and he could not reconcile his conscience to the unscrupulous means—the force majeure—which his opponent brought into the field. The Harisi, therefore, with their thousands of armed retainers—in a single review I saw about 2200 of them—preserved an armed neutrality, which threatened mischief to the weaker of the rival brothers: trade was paralysed, the foreign merchants lost heavily, and no less than eighty native vessels were still at the end of the season due from Bombay and the north. To confuse confusion, several ships collecting negro “emigrants” and “free labourers,” per fas et nefas, even kidnapping them when necessary, were reported by the Arab local authorities to be anchored and to be cruising off the coast of Zanzibar.
After a fortnight of excitement and suspense, during which the wildest rumours flew through the mouths of men, it was officially reported that H. M.’s steamer Punjaub, Captain Fullerton, H.M.I.N., commanding, had, under orders received from the government of Bombay, met his Highness the Sayyid Suwayni off the eastern coast of Africa and had persuaded him to return.
Congratulations were exchanged, salutes were fired, a few Buggalows belonging to the enemy’s fleet, which was said to have been dispersed by a storm, dropped in and were duly captured, the negroes drank, sang, and danced for a consecutive week, and with the least delay armed men poured in crowded boats from the island towards their several stations on the mainland. But the blow had been struck, the commercial prosperity of Zanzibar could not be retrieved during the brief remnant of the season, and the impression that a renewal of the attempt would at no distant time ensure similar disasters seemed to be uppermost in every man’s mind.
His Highness the Sayyid Majid had honoured me with an expression of desire that I should remain until the expected hostilities might be brought to a close. I did so willingly in gratitude to a prince to whose good-will my success was mainly indebted. But the consulate was no longer what it was before. I felt myself too conversant with local politics, and too well aware of what was going on to be a pleasant companion to its new tenant. At last, on the 15th March, when concluding my accounts with Ladha Damha, the collector of customs at Zanzibar, that official requested me, with the usual mystery, to be the bearer of despatches, privately addressed by his prince, to the home government. I could easily guess what they contained. Unwilling, however, to undertake such a duty when living at the consulate, and seeing how totally opposed to official convenance such a procedure was, I frankly stated my objections to Ladha Damha, and repeated the conversation to Captain Rigby. As may be imagined, this little event did not diminish his desire to see me depart.