CHAPTER XXV. 



Description of Zanzibar — Its Commercial Advantages and Prospects — Mr. Stanley's 

 Interview with the Sultan of Zanzibar — Capture of an Arab Slave Dhow — 

 Organisation of a New Exploring Expedition, under Mr. Stanley — Proposed 

 Poute, etc. 



IN a previous portion of this work we gave an account of Sir Bartle 

 Frere's Mission from the English Government to Zanzibar, and of the 

 successful conclusion of a treaty, by which the slave-trade, both foreign and 

 domestic, ceased to be recognised or supported by the Sultan of Zanzibar 

 and his brothers on the East Coast of Africa. The conversation which is 

 recorded in the following letter from Mr. Stanley, the joint commissioner of 

 the "New York Herald" and "The Daily Telegraph," as having taken 

 place between him and the Sultan of Zanzibar, is full of interest, and is 

 well worthy of careful perusal and consideration. It would be well for the 

 Sultan of Zanzibar, instead of mourning over the loss of the gains which he 

 formerly derived from the traffic in slaves, to devote his attention to the 

 development of legitimate traffic, by utilising those rivers debouching along 

 the coast spoken of by Mr. Stanley. That there is an immense future opening 

 for Zanzibar cannot be doubted, but it depends, as does the salvation of 

 Africa, upon the relentless, the uncompromising, the final extirpation of 

 slavery, external and internal. To Mr. Stanley also we are indebted for a 

 most interesting word-picture of this great African Emporium, which bids fair 

 to become the Alexandria of the Eastern Coast. In the first of two long 

 letters, published in " The Daily Telegraph," dated Zanzibar, Nov. 15, 1874, 

 Mr. Stanley says : — 



"For the last four or five years the island and town called Zanzibar 

 have been very prominently before the public. The rigorous measures pur- 

 sued by the British Government for the suppression of the slave-trade on this 

 coast, and the appeals of Livingstone on behalf of the aboriginal African, 

 have made Zanzibar a well-known name. Previous to this time it was com- 

 paratively unknown — as little known, indeed, as the polysyllabic name by 

 which it is described in the Periplus of Arrian. The mention of Zanguebar, 

 Zanji-bar — or, as it is now called, Zanzibar — produced very little interest. 

 Some few people there were who remembered there was such a name in very 

 big characters on the map of the world, occupying a large strip on the east 

 side of Africa, seen during their school-boy days, but what that name indi- 

 cated or comprehended very few knew or cared. They thought that it might 

 be a very wild land, peopled with cannibals and the like, no doubt ; for I 

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