CHAPTER XVI 



THE ZANZIBARI 



' ' Whip me ? No, no ; let carman whip his jade, 

 The vaHant heart's not whipt out of his trade." 



Meas. for Meas. ii. i. 



Among the many blessings which the Arab has given man- 

 kind, not one of the least is the Zanzibari. Long before Bruce, 

 Mungo Park, and Denham had roused English interest in 

 African exploration, before even Prince Henry the Navigator 

 had sent out his fleets, or Vasco da Gama had rounded the 

 Cape and quarrelled with the people of Mombasa, the Arabs 

 had quietly found their way into the heart of the Continent, 

 settled on the shores of Tanganyika, built trading stations on 

 the hills of Unyamwezi, and discovered all the great lakes as 

 well as the snow-capped summits of Kilima Njaro and Kenya. 

 Probably for more than two thousand years caravans, 

 organised by Arabs, have been despatched from the east coast 

 to the principal trade centres of the interior. This work can 

 only be done by human transport ; for the tsetse and other 

 flies poison one set of transport animals, the uncertainty of 

 water and the roughness of the road are fatal to another, while 

 long caravans in single file are at the mercy of hostile natives 

 unless the load -bearer can fight as well as carry. Hence 

 the Arabs had to raise a supply of native porters, and the 

 Zanzibari is a product of the trade which could not exist with- 

 out his services. Indeed the term Zanzibari is only a name 

 applied to natives from any up-country tribes, who have come 

 down to the coast and adopted the trade of caravan porters. 

 Without this class of men, geographical exploration in the 



