SHEIK ALI BEN SALIM 25 



For some three hundred years thereafter, the Portu- 

 guese had a constant struggle, with fluctuating fortunes, 

 to hold their possessions against attacks from the sea 

 by Arab pirates and Turkish corsairs and from the 

 interior by fierce native tribes. The Turks were suc- 

 cessful in capturing the Portuguese settlements in 

 1585, only to be driven out again four years afterwards 

 at about the period when flags of the English and 

 Dutch appeared for the first time in the Indian Ocean. 



In 1696 the Arabs under the Imaum of Muscat be- 

 seiged the fort at Mombasa, the Portuguese managing, 

 however, to repel all assaults for over eighteen months 

 of continuous warfare, at which time reinforcements 

 arrived. These gave them only a brief respite, for 

 the Arabs redoubled their efforts and, after a further 

 blockade of fifteen months, the Portuguese, being un- 

 able to renew their supphes, were compelled by 

 famine and disease to surrender, and the remaining 

 members of this heroic garrison were put to the sword 

 by the conquerors. 



For over half a century after the final expulsion of 

 the Portuguese, most of the East Coast came under the 

 control of the Imaums of Muscat, whose viceroys 

 reigned in Zanzibar. The slave trade was now ravag- 

 ing the continent of Africa and the terrible cruelties 

 committed under the rule of the viceroys attracted 

 attention in Europe. 



During the early part of the year 1824, the Arabs 

 voluntarily placed Mombasa Island, the Island of 

 Pemba, and the country reaching from Mahndi to 

 Pagani under the protection of the British flag, and 

 later, in the year 1887, Sheik Sayyid Bargash, then 

 Sultan of Zanzibar, granted to what the following year 



