EAST AFRICA. 



271 



The possession of Witu became almost value- 

 less commercially when the arbitration of Baron 

 Lambermont on Aug. 17, 1889, assigned the con- 

 trol of 'the island of Lamu, which is the port of 

 Wituland, to the English company. The Bele- 

 zoni Canal, which a former Sultan of Witu had 

 dug, was delivered up to the British author- 

 ities, though not without the German consul- 

 general's bringing pressure on the sultan, who 

 dismissed Curt Toeppen, the manager of the 

 Witu Company, who had acted as his vizier, and 

 reinstated Carl Denhardt. A force of 150 Arabs, 

 forming part of the military forces of the British 

 East Africa Company, was landed to take forci- 

 ble possession of the canal and custom house 

 and the sultan intimated to Toeppen that if the 

 Germans would not defend him in his rights he 

 would accept the protection and control of the 

 British company. The only remaining chance 

 of profitable development and an outlet to the 

 sea for the Witu Company was in the possession 

 of the islands of Manda and Patta and of Hohen- 

 zollernhafen in Manda Bay, where the German 

 flag had been raised. The islands were claimed 

 by the Sultan of Witu and also by the Sultan of 

 Zanzibar, and in the London agreement they 

 had been passed over. In April the Sultan of 

 Zanzibar was persuaded by the Germans to sus- 

 pend his concession to the British company of 

 these islands, but the representatives of the com- 

 pany affirmed that he had ceded his authority 

 over the territory, and insisted on entering into 

 possession at once. After a new treaty had been 

 concluded between the Sultan Fumo Bakari and 

 Consul-General Michahelles in April, the Ger- 

 man Witu Company on May 19 was formally 

 amalgamated with the German East Africa 

 Company, which, notwithstanding alterations in 

 its favor of the contract with the Sultan of Zan- 

 zibar, had itself sustained a net loss of 370,000 

 marks on 3,147,000 marks of paid-up capital to 

 the end of 1889. The German Government, 

 which assumed the cost of suppressing the Arab 

 revolt, had spent directly 5,500,000 marks and 

 thrice that sum indirectly, to April 1, 1890. 



The British East -Africa Company. The 

 company formed to occupy, develop, and admin- 

 ister the territory conceded to Great Britain in 

 the Anglo-German agreement of 1886, estimated 

 at 150,000 square miles, and to farm the customs 

 of the Sultan of Zanzibar, was organized under 

 a royal charter, dated Sept. 3, 1888, on the model 

 of the old East India Company. The first con- 

 cession of the sultan gave to the company the 

 coast from the Umbe to the Ozi river, including 

 Kau and Kipini. In 1889 he further granted 

 all his towns and possessions north of Kipini, 

 comprising the islands on the coast and in Man- 

 da Bay, and the ports and districts of Kismayu, 

 Brava, Merka, Magadosho, Warsheik, and Mruti, 

 making a coast line of 700 miles, of which 300 

 miles, comprising the region north of Juba riv- 

 er, has since been conceded to lie within the Ital- 

 ian sphere of interests, and the ports of Brava, 

 Merka, Magadosho, Warsheik, and Mruli have 

 been transferred to the Italian Government, with 

 provision for a joint occupation of Kismayu. 

 Sir Francis de Winton in 1890 was appointed 

 administrator-in-chief. The company during 

 the period when George S. Mackenzie was ad- 

 ministrator rebuilt Mombasa and constructed a 



harbor and established stations at Wanga and 

 Melinde ; opened the Sabaki river route ; built a 

 strong fort at Machaka, half-way to Victoria 

 Nyanza ; garrisoned with Soudanese and Indian 

 troops other stations along the route, 30 miles 

 apart ; and had begun a railroad 450 miles long, 

 from Mombasa to the lake. When the revolt of 

 the slave-dealers began in German east Africa, 

 the runaway slaves were made free by paying 

 the masters their value out of the funds of the 

 company, which was partly reimbursed by the 

 British Government. Since then a scheme of 

 gradual emancipation has been adopted by which 

 the slaves must earn their own freedom if they 

 have been brought from the interior. Those 

 who are members of the coast tribes with which 

 the company has treaties are declared free ab- 

 solutely under the law of the Koran forbidding 

 the enslavement of free people. The financial 

 results have been as unsatisfactory as those of 

 the German company, and at one time, when 

 the Government refused to come to its aid, as 

 the German Government had to the aid of its 

 rival, the directors spoke of dissolving. Of the 

 2,000,000 of capital subscribed, 159,834 had 

 been called in ; there were 183,186 of liabilities, 

 and the assets, including estates and plants, were 

 valued at 164,829 on April 30, 1890. The rental 

 of 56,000 per annum that the company agreed to 

 pay the sultan for the customs receipts for fifty 

 years was almost realized the second year. The 

 population of Mombasa has grown from 15,000 

 to 30,000. Since the new agreement with Ger- 

 many abundant capital has been offered to carry 

 out the company's plans in the enlarged sphere. 

 The two companies are now competing in the 

 work of improving the communications with the 

 interior. On German territory two railroad lines 

 are in contemplation. Henry M. Stanley, on his 

 march to the coast from AlbeVt Edward Nyanza, 

 in May, 1889, obtained cessions of sovereign 

 rights of several chiefs through whose territories 

 he passed, in consideration of the protection that 

 he gave them against the attacks of the people 

 of the King of Unyoro. These treaties he has 

 transferred to the East Africa Company, embrac- 

 ing the states of Mpororo, Ankori, Kitagwend, 

 Unyampako, Ukonju, Undussuma, and Uson- 

 gora. The Semliki valley and the territory 

 between Albert Nyanza and Ituri river are also 

 claimed by virtue of his discoveries. 



The Anglo-German Agreement. While 

 the English and the Germans in east Africa 

 were striving each to ruin the enterprises of the 

 other in order to obtain the commercial field 

 and the future empire as far as possible for 

 themselves, and while the citizens of each coun- 

 try were making treaties or raising pretensions 

 behind the sphere of the other, the governments, 

 though desirous of reaping the largest benefits 

 from accomplished facts, were determined still 

 to go " hand in hand " in colonial matters. 

 When the new German Chancellor was seated in 

 his office, Sir Percy Anderson was sent to arrange 

 a settlement of the differences that had arisen, 

 on the principle of give and take, in consulta- 

 tion with Dr. Krauel, the head of the newly cre- 

 ated Colonial Department of the German For- 

 eign Office. The German Government demon- 

 strated its serious purposes by sending Emin 

 Pasha to consolidate its influence in the interior 



