154 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



" religious, chaste and honest." Be that as it may, 

 Zanzibar was a place of no little account before 

 the Portuguese doubled the Cape. And with the 

 arrival of the Portuguese began a new era in the 

 history of Zanzibar, a new era of blood and 

 sack and conquest and surrender. Cabral and 

 Francisco d'Almeida began the gory history. 

 Arabs and sheikhs and beys and corsairs drew 

 their fingers through the bloody trail and be- 

 smeared the island and the whole sea-coast. 



In 1798 a British squadron under Commodore 

 Blankett, which was cruising in the Eastern 

 seas " to counteract the operations of Bonaparte, 

 threshed up the East Coast of Africa against 

 the north-east monsoon and a strong current," 

 and anchored somewhere off Mtoni in ten fathoms 

 of mud. History records that they were 

 " hospitably received." We Britons are surely 

 favoured ! If I mistake not, the seers of Zanzibar, 

 did they but know, would have rid Napoleon 

 and the East of Blankett and Mears, his 

 lieutenant ! 



Then the Hon. East India Co. sent the sailing 

 ship Ternato to leave the dangerous calling cards 

 of commerce on Yakuti, the Hakim or Governor. 

 Followed other frigates of King George, and 

 next the American eagle, having grown its 

 Republican wings, came flying over the island 

 like an albatross, and made Richard P. Waters 

 American Ambassador at the Sultan's Court. 

 Half a century later, Zanzibar figured in the 

 treaties of Great Britain and Germany. The 

 proud old Sultanate became a pawn in the great 

 game of " grab " over which the Powers still 

 linger, though all the counters have long since 

 been cornered. One of these games of politics 



