380 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



sorrow for the change — I was fated to regret it even 

 more. The excitement of travel was succeeded by 

 an utter depression of mind and body: even the 

 labour of talking was too great, and I took refuge 

 from society in a course of French novels a vingt sous 

 la piece. 



Yet I had fallen upon stirring times : the little state, 

 at the epoch of rny return, was in the height of con- 

 fusion. His Highness the Sayyid Suwayni, Suzerain of 

 Maskat, seizing the pretext of a tribute owed to him by 

 his cadet brother of Zanzibar, had embarked, on the 

 11th February, 1859, a host of Bedouin brigands upon 

 four or five square-rigged ships and many Arab craft : 

 with this power he was preparing a hostile visit to 

 the island. The Baloch stations on the mainland were 

 drained of mercenaries, and 7000 muskets, with an 

 amount of ammunition, which rendered the town dan- 

 gerous, were served out to slaves and other ruffians. 

 Dows from Hadramaut brought down armed adven- 

 turers, who were in the market to fight for the best pay. 

 The turbulent Harisi chiefs of Zanzibar were terrified 

 into siding with his Highness the Sayyid Majid by the 

 influence of H. M. consul, Captain Rigby. But the 

 representatives of the several Christian powers could 

 not combine to preserve the peace, and M. Ladislas 

 Cochet, Consul de France, an uninterested spectator of 

 the passing events, thought favourably of his High- 

 ness the Sayyid Suwayni's claim, he believed that the 

 people if consulted would prefer the rule of the elder 

 brother, and he could not reconcile his conscience to the 

 unscrupulous means — the force majeure — which his 

 opponent brought into the field. The Harisi, therefore, 

 with their thousands of armed retainers — in a single 

 review I saw about 2200 of them — preserved an 

 armed neutrality, which threatened mischief to the 

 weaker of the rival brothers : trade was paralysed, the 



