May 1861.] Notes on Zanguebar. 



91 



in a certain season, and allowed afterwards a long time to dry in well 

 ventilated and covered sheds ; iron and copper bolts and nails 

 should in the meantime be procured from England ; and generally 

 all sorts of iron work should be sent ready made according to 

 models furnished by the ship -builder. But the Imam, who has 

 always been of a quick and hasty temper, had other counsellors 

 who by their sarcasms destroyed the impression made by the ad- 

 vice of a wise and practical man, and it was decided that timber 

 was cheaper and nearer at hand on the Coast of Malabar, than at 

 a distance varying from 6 to 24 miles from Zanguebar ; and in 

 consequence two of the Imam's ships were sent for timber to 

 Cochin and returned six months afterwards. 



The originator of the idea having been Monsieur Broquant, the 

 French Consul, an experienced officer who had served both in the 

 Merchant Service and in the French Navy, need I say that his most 

 determined opponent was the English Consul and Resident of the 

 H. E. I. C, Captain, afterwards Colonel A. Hamerton ?* When 

 M. Broquant arrived at Zanguebar, he was struck by the fact that 

 the harbour was frequented by upwards of a hundred large square 

 rigged ships every year, and that there was not at that part the 

 means of making even very ordinary repairs, much less to refit a 

 ship arriving in a leaky state, or after striking on some of the in- 

 numerable reefs of the neighbouring Coast. Country vessels were 

 built and repaired at Zanguebar, but that sort of work was so dif- 

 ferent to what is required in repairing European ships, that the 

 carpenters, caulkers and smiths of the country could by no means 

 be turned to account by the Captain of a European ship in dis- 

 tress. The Coast of Africa, and the Island of Zanguebar itself, 

 possess forests of excellent timber trees ; labour is very cheap, and 

 the cost of felling and sawing would be only a trifle ; the quality 

 and size of the timber are not inferior to the best Indian teak. 



The African cocoanut trees yielding hard wood, three feet in 

 diameter, free from sap, and eighty feet in length, are very com- 



* Lieut. Col. Atkins Hamerton belonged to the 2nd Regt. Bombay 

 N. I. ; his knowledge of the Persian and Arabic languages was very 

 extensive, and he was for seventeen years the Resident of the East 

 India Company at the Court of the Imam. 



