SIR JOHN KIRK AT IIOMK. 
21 
Sayyid’s signature to a treaty for the suppression of 
the East African slave-trade. This, though refused 
under threats of bombardment, was granted after a 
few hours’ conversation with Sir John Kirk, and the 
treaty, which during Sir Bartle Frere’s mission had 
been persistently rejected by the “ Sultan,” was signed 
and sealed within a few hours after the envoy’s de¬ 
parture, and overtook him in a rapid despatch-boat 
before he reached Aden. An amusing incident is 
recorded of Sayyid Barghasli during the seance of 
deliberation which took place before he signed the 
treaty. Sir John Kirk was explaining to him the 
terrors and inconveniences of a blockade, how all 
supplies of provisions would be stopped, and the island 
reduced to starvation, and he wound up his effective 
picture by asking the “ Sultan” what he would do 
then ? “ Why,” said Sayyid Barghash, “ I should 
just come and live with you, Consul.” 
It is owing to our present representative in Zanzibar 
that the Sultan has gradually assured and strengthened 
his hold over the East African coast between the 
Portuguese northern boundary and the No-man’s Land 
of the Somali Deserts, thus keeping in hands friendly 
to England the richest coast-lands of East Africa and 
the trade-routes to the Central Basin. Sir John Kirk 
has little disguised his views about English influence 
in the Indian Ocean, and he steadfastly bears in mind 
that nearly the entire commerce of Eastern Africa is in 
the hands of British subjects, and that, to uphold our 
influence in the country, we should encourage to the 
utmost the thrifty settlers from Western India. He 
also feels, as any observant politician must, that much 
as we may admire and sympathize with the promptings 
to colonization which, like the desire for offspring late 
