264- 



EAST AFRICA. 



Buera, and Koki. The total area is estimated 

 to be more than 1,000,000 square miles. 



The Imperial British East Africa Company, 

 which is empowered to govern and exploit these 

 countries after the fashion of the old East India 

 Company, has a capital of 2,000,000, of which 

 1,000,000 was subscribed by the public. Sir 

 William Mackinnon is its president. The oper- 

 ations of the company were confined at first to 

 the coast region. The harbor at Mombasa was 

 improved and the town largely rebuilt in the 

 modern style. The customs duties in 1888 

 were $36,000, and in 1889 $56,000. In 1890 

 the collections in the southern ports alone, ex- 

 clusive of those ceded to Italy, were expected to 

 amount to $96,000. The trade is mainly in the 

 hands of Banyan merchants from British India, 

 many of whom have migrated from the German 

 to the English part of the coast. The imports 

 are cotton goods, iron and copper wire, and 

 beads. The chief exports are cloves, ivory, 

 sesame, gum arabic, copra, orchilla weed, coir, 

 and hides. The company has a body of 300 

 Soudanese soldiers, many of whom served with 

 Emin Pasha in the Equatorial Province, and 

 200 Sikhs from India, in addition to a large 

 force of native levies, all trained and commanded 

 by English officers. A railroad from Mombasa 

 to Lake Victoria Nyanza, a distance of 450 

 miles, has been surveyed and construction 

 begun, and along the route a line of forts is 

 being built. Gen. Sir Francis de Win ton, the 

 chief administrator, has his seat of government 

 at Mombasa. A permanent post has been estab- 

 lished at Machakos, situated on a healthful 

 plateau, 250 miles from the coast, and another 

 at Mengo, the capital of Uganda. 



Punitive Expedition to Vitn. In Septem- 

 ber, 1890. after trie transfer of Vitu to England, 

 the natives rose against the Europeans and mas- 

 sacred nine Germans Sir E. R. Fremantle, the 

 British naval commander at Zanzibar, conducted 

 an expedition to punish the Sultan and people 

 of Vitu for these murders. A force of sailors 

 and marines was landed at Kipini. After sev- 

 eral skirmishes the main body of the Sultan's 

 forces was routed on Oct. 28. 'The blue-jackets 

 entered the deserted town and destroyed every 

 building with fire or dynamite. The Sultan, 

 Fumo Bakari. who was responsible for some of 

 the murders, was deposed, and Fumo Omaree 

 was declared Sultan in his stead. G. S. Mac- 

 kenzie, director of the British East Africa Com- 

 pany and Consul Berkeley proceeded to Gongani, 

 in the center of Vitu, whither the inhabitants of 

 the city had fled, and there concluded a treaty 

 with the chiefs and notables, who handed over 

 the administration to the company's officials and 

 agreed to the abolition of slavery, masters em- 

 ploying slave labor in cultivating plantations 

 being allowed five years of grace, at the end of 

 which, on May 24, 1891, all slaves shall be eman- 

 cipated. 



Zanzibar. The sultanate of Zanzibar, com- 

 prising the islan^ of Zanzibar, having an area 

 of 625 square miles, and that of Pernba, 360" 

 square miles, was proclaimed a British protec- 

 torate in accordance with the Anglo -German 

 treaty signed at Berlin,\Tuly 1, 1890. The popu- 

 lation of the city of Zanzibar is about 100,000, 

 that of the rest of the island 25,000, and of 



Pemba 40,000. The city has been the center of 

 the export and import trade of East Africa, but 

 now divides the business with the ports on the 

 German coast. The exports were formerly $4,- 

 000,000 a year and the imports from $5,000,000 

 to $6,000,000. Cloves are cultivated on the 

 islands. The present Sultan or Seyyid, Ali bin 

 Said bin Sultan, born in 1855, a brother of the 

 late Seyyid Khalife and his predecessor Burg- 

 hash, came to the throne in February, 1890. 

 The sultans while they were independent ruled 

 as absolute monarch's. In September, 1891, 

 Gerald Portal, the English resident, induced the 

 Sultan to reorganize the system of government, 

 accepting a fixed sum as a civil list and ap- 

 pointing ministers who should act on the advice 

 of the British consul-general, without whose 

 consent no item in the budget can be altered. 

 The Sultan's army and police were placed under 

 the command of English officers and the harbor 

 and the light-houses were handed over to the 

 administi'ation of Englishmen. 



Uganda. The most powerful of the native 

 states in East Africa is Uganda or Buganda, oc- 

 cupying the northern shore of Victoria Nyanza : 

 The area of the kingdom proper is 20,000 square 

 miles. Beyond the Somerset Nile are Usoga and 

 other vassal states, and others west of the Ny- 

 anza swell the area to more than 70,000 square 

 miles. The ruling class are the Wahuma, a con 

 quering tribe of Galla origin. The mass of the 

 population, estimated at, from 3.000,000 to 5,000,- 

 000, are of the negroid stock of Central Africa, 

 speaking a language of the Bantu class. The 

 country has been the scene of fierce wars origi- 

 nating in the rival teachings of Mohammedanism 

 and Christianity, and latterly the competition 

 between French Catholic and British Protestant 

 missionaries has led to civil war. Having a de- 

 veloped agricultural and pastoral industry and 

 communications with the Congo valley, the 

 Tanganyika region, the Nile countries, and the 

 Zanzibar coast, Uganda has always been a cen- 

 tral distributing point for the slave and ivory 

 trade. Mtesa, a subtle and strong ruler, wel- 

 comed missionaries, and at one time nominally 

 embraced Christianity, and at another Moham- 

 medanism. Propagandists of both creeds were 

 encouraged, and Protestant missionaries were 

 invited to enter the field in competition with the 

 French priests. Thus enlightenment and civiliza- 

 tion displaced heathen savagery, and at the same 

 time religious animosities were awakened be- 

 tween different schools of young reformers. He 

 died in 1884, and his son and successor, Mwanga, 

 likewise had both Christian and Mohammedan 

 advisers, but reverted to paganism and older 

 methods of rule and planned to get rid of both 

 classes of reformers. The consequence was that 

 they united and deposed him, placing his elder 

 brother, Kiwewa, on the throne. He was inclined 

 to Christianity and progress until the Germans 

 occupied the east coast, when the King fell 

 under the influence of the Arabs and Swaheli. 

 He placed Christians of both creeds and Moham- 

 medans in the chief offices and in command of the 

 troops, but when the Arabs convinced the King 

 and the people that the presence of white mis- 

 sionaries, more of whom were on the way, would 

 lead to the subjugation of the country by the 

 Germans and English and the suppression of 





