20 
THK KILIMA-KJAR 0 KXRKLITIOK. 
Sultan, was little more than primus inter pares. He 
was recognized as “ Sayyid,” or Lord, of Zanzibar, by 
tbe Arab nobles and traders, but bis authority was 
most uncertain. Many of his subjects thought them¬ 
selves superior to him in purity of blood and ancient 
genealogy, and whenever the wishes of their nominal 
ruler—merely one of themselves deputed to transact 
the Government business—clashed with their personal 
interests or predilections, they openly bade him de¬ 
fiance, and put their fortress-houses into a state of 
siege. The standing army was composed of a few 
miserable, beggarly Baluch mercenaries—ill-clothed, 
unpaid, and as cowardly as they were rapacious. 
Slaves were openly sold in Zanzibar, and the Sayyid 
was too weak to incur the displeasure of his Arab 
subjects by the suppression of a lucrative and easy 
trade. When Sayyid Majid died and the present 
“ Sultan,” Barghash bin Sa’id, succeeded him, Sir 
John Kirk set himself resolutely to acquire the con¬ 
fidence and friendship of the young Arab ruler, and, 
aided by his great knowledge of Arabic and Ki-Swahili, 
was able to converse with the Sayyid in strict intimacy, 
without the medium of an interpreter, so that he was 
enabled often to weld the will of Barghash to con¬ 
formity with his own wishes by means of an earnest 
expostulation and half-playful sarcasm which would 
have sounded ill through the intermediary of some 
wily Goanese. So great was the influence already 
exercised over the Prince of Zanzibar after two years 
of personal intercourse that Sir John Kirk was able 
to exact from him as a favour and concession to 
friendship that which Sir Bartle Frere, with all his 
personal prestige and position, and with a fleet of 
ironclads behind him, failed to extort, namely, the 
