May 1861.] Notes on Zanguebar. 



93 



a very little personage at Zanguebar compared to the all -powerful 

 English Resident — could have no political motives concealed under 

 the considerations of economy he urged in recommending the 

 scheme to Seyed Said. The English Resident on the contrary, 

 (independently of the very legitimate desire he had of continuing 

 to Anglo-Indian subjects the rich harvest yearly afforded by the 

 ship building mania of the Imam,) feared perhaps the possibility 

 of the creation of a Dockyard in these seas, and the comparative 

 independence of English aid and influence which the Imam of Mus- 

 cat might derive from it.* 



The French Consul, the Imam Seyed Said Ben Sultan, and Lieut. 

 Colonel Atkins Hamerton are all dead ; they had all three a noble 

 sense of their duties to their respective countries and an inexhaus- 

 tible and large-hearted kindness to all travellers, whether country- 

 men or strangers. In relating the little strifes of their political in- 

 tercourse, I cannot but add how unfortunate it is that, actuated by 

 unceasing rivalry, France and England have hitherto so seldom 

 acted together even when a question of general interest is at stake. 

 The French Consul M. Broquant, Chevalier de la Legion d'Hon- 

 neur, died at Zanguebar in May 1847 of dysentery; the Imam of 

 Muscat Seyed Said Ben Saltan died in 1857 ; the English Consul 

 Colonel Hamerton died of dysentery at Zanguebar on the 6th July 

 1857. All three, the Frenchman, the Englishman and the Arab, 

 are gone before their Maker, but the remembrance of their hospita- 

 lity, kind hearted manners and valuable qualities, will survive many 

 generations of African travellers, and will ever be held as a sacred 

 recollection by the writer of these Notes. 



* Our readers will remember that the writer of these interesting 

 Notes is a Frenchman, and that without casting the slightest reflection 

 on his good faith, we may reasonably presume that he writes with a 

 natural bias in favour of the French Consul. — (Ed. M. L. J.) 



