28 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



CHAP. II. 



ZANZIBAR AND THE MRIMA EXPLAINED. 



The history of the word Zanzibar is curious. Its 

 Persian origin proves that the Iranians were in early 

 days a more maritime people than Vincent and other 

 writers imagine. Zanzibar, signifying Nigritia, or 

 Blackland, is clearly derived from the " Zang," in Arabic 

 Zanj, a negro, and "bar," a region. This Zangbar was 

 changed by the Arabs, who ignore in writing the hard 

 </, into Zanjibar; they still, however, pronounce 

 Zangbar, and consider it synonymous with another 

 popular expression, " Mulk el Zunuj," or " the Land of 

 the Blacks." Thus the poet sings,— 



tl And it hath been called Land of the Blacks, all of it." 



Traces of the word may be found in the earliest 

 geographers. Ptolemy records a Zingis or Zingisa, 

 which, however, with his customary incorrectness, he 

 places north of the equator. According to Cosmas 

 Indicopleustes, the Indian Ocean beyond Barbaria is 

 called Zingium. " Sinus Barbaricus" seems to have 

 been amongst the Komans the name of the belt of 

 low land afterwards known as " Zanzibar," and it was 

 inhabited by a race of Anthropophagi, possibly the 

 fathers of the present " Wadoe" tribe. In more modern 

 times the land of the Zunuj has been mentioned by a 

 host of authors, El Novayri and others. 



The limits of Zanzibar, — a word indiscriminately 



