52 AT MOMBASA— A SECOND START part ii 



Mombasa has long been recognised as occupying one of the 

 most important situations on the coast of Tropical Africa, 

 and that, when it is first mentioned in history, it was already 

 an important town. 



Of the foundation and early history of Mombasa we know 

 nothing. It is said that there are some old manuscripts at 

 Lamu, in the possession of the great Mazrui clan, which could 

 tell the story of the Arab settlements on this coast. These 

 precious documents, however, are so jealously guarded that no 

 European has been allowed to see them. Until their evidence 

 is forthcoming, the history of Mombasa begins with the visit to 

 it in I 33 I of the famous Arabian traveller, Muhammad Ibn 'Abd 

 Allah, or, as he is generally known, in order to distinguish him 

 from the six other authors of the same name. Sheik Ibn Batuta.^ 

 He spent one night in the town during the course of his 75,000 

 miles of wanderings. His account of the place seems to be as 

 accurate as most of his records are. His experience of the 

 people was very different from that of his successor Vasco da 

 Gama, who called in April 1498 on his first voyage to India. 

 The Arabian found the people " generally religious, chaste, and 

 honest." Da Gama describes them as hostile and treacherous. 

 According to his own account, the king sent on board a present 

 of fowls and fruit, and begged him to bring his ships into the 

 harbour : pilots were lent for this purpose, who had been really 

 ordered to run the ships on the reefs. The Portuguese records 

 do not agree among themselves, and it appears probable that 

 no such treachery was intended. Da Gama went north to 

 Melindi without personally landing on the island, though the 

 two men whom he had sent ashore had been kindly treated by 

 the natives. 



From this time onward the history of Mombasa fully 

 justifies its native name of " Mvita " or " battle." Two years 

 later, after Da Gama's return to Lisbon, the town had to pay 

 the penalty of having aroused the Portuguese suspicions. A 

 fleet was sent to India to annex and proselytise ; its com- 

 mander, Cabral, was ordered " to begin with preaching, and if 

 that failed, to proceed to the sharp determination of the sword." 



1 The standard edition of his voyages is Voyages d' Ibn Batoutah, 4 vols., See. 

 Asiat. Paris, 1853-59. For most of the later history I am indebted to Burton's 



Zanzibar. 



