JuxE 13, 1859.] EXPLORATIONS IN EASTERN AFRICA. 349 



were not less determined, and the consequence was that they were 

 abandoned by their men en masse. The necessity of awaiting the 

 arrival of some down-caravan that would convey their collections to 

 the coast delayed them for some time at Zungomero, a province 

 lying at the foot of the East African Ghauts, known by the name of 

 Usagara. They did not arrive before early in February, 1859, after 

 a journey of four months from Unyanyembe, at the little maritime 

 village of Konduchi. There they dismissed their guides, porters, 

 and Beloch guard ; and having been supplied from Zanzibar, by 

 Captain G. P. Rigby, H.B.M.'s Gonsul, with stores and a Battela or 

 native craft, they sailed for Kilwa (Quiloa) with the intention of 

 exploring the yet unvisited Delta of the Great Rufiji River. Once 

 more they were thwarted by circumstances. The cholera, which 

 had travelled slowly down the eastern coast of Arabia and Africa, 

 had committed such ravages at Kilwa that the people stunned by 

 their imminent danger would offer no assistance. In the short 

 space of three days the travellers lost half their crew, and of their 

 private servants one died and a second was rendered useless. After 

 a cruize to Kilwa Kisiwani, or the ancient settlement upon Kilwa 

 island, they returned to the mouth of the Rufiji, found the stream 

 in flood, and were soon made aware of the fact that the Hindu 

 traders would, unless controlled by an especial firman from Zanzibar, 

 oppose indirectly, by means of the savage tribes on the river-banks, 

 an exploration of the rich and copal-bearing lands lying along its 

 course. The rainy monsoon being imminent, and scant prospects 

 of overcoming the scruples of the Banyans presenting themselves, 

 the travellers turned the head of their Battela northward, and on 

 the 4th of March, 1859, landed, after an absence of nineteen months, 

 upon the island of Zanzibar. 



The Paper concluded with an allusion to the political difficulties 

 which have beset the little state since the division of property con- 

 sequent upon the decease, in 1857, of our old and valued ally H.H. 

 Sayyid Said, popularly known as the Imaum of Muscat. He had 

 bequeathed his Arabian territories to his eldest son Sayyid Suwayni, 

 and the island of Zanzibar and that portion of the East African 

 coast which has acquired the name of " Sawahil " or " the shores " to 

 a cadet, Sayyid Majid. The former prince, under pretext of re- 

 covering a subsidy or tribute from his younger brother, had prepared 

 a semi-piratical expedition, with which he threatened the coast and 

 island of Zanzibar. The report spread terror among the wealthy 

 Arab clove-growers, and the European houses established in the 

 island suffered severely from stagnation of business : the representa- 

 tives of the different governments were divided in opinion concern- 



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