IMPRESSIONS OF IBN BATUTA 15 



large and important city. He describes a visit 

 which he paid to the Sultan, and which he appears 

 greatly to have enjoyed. In Lee's translation of 

 his writings he describes a visit also to Mombasa, 

 a city which he says abounded with many luscious 

 fruits, including that which he calls the jammoom, 

 similar in appearance to an olive and of great 

 sweetness. Thence he passed to Kilwa, then ruled 

 by the Sultan Abu el Mozaffir Hassan previously 

 mentioned. 



As Dr. Theal points out, the forty-third ruler 

 of Kilwa, after the long-dead founder Ah, was one 

 Ibrahim, and from the circumstance that he had 

 usurped the sovereignty in the absence of its right- 

 ful heir, he was merely accorded the title of Emir. 

 At this time, moreover, Sofala was a powerful 

 Arab sultanate ruled by one Issuf, of whom we 

 shall hear more anon ; and thus, when Vasco da 

 Gama appeared from the south in 1498, Ibrahim 

 stiU ruled in Kilwa, and the east coast of Africa 

 was divided into a number of states, each presided 

 over by an independent ruler, and each one had 

 in turn to be placated or conquered. 



It is, of course, a far cry from either Mogdishu 

 or Kilwa to the Zambezi, but the foregoing resume 

 of the events which led up to the conditions dis- 

 covered by Vasco da Gama on his arrival are not 

 without interest, as showing the nature of the 

 difficulties which confronted him, and as explaining 

 what has in some circles been characterised as the 

 useless, wanton bloodshed which followed the ap- 

 pearance of these western strangers in the Indian 

 Ocean. 



