Zanzibar: City, Island and Coast (Volume One)

526 Pages·2003·9.595 MB·English

by  Richard F. Burton

Cambridge Library CoLLeCtion
Books of enduring scholarly value
Travel and Exploration
The history of travel writing dates back to the Bible, Caesar, the Vikings
and the Crusaders, and its many themes include war, trade, science and
recreation. Explorers from Columbus to Cook charted lands not previously
visited by Western travellers, and were followed by merchants, missionaries,
and colonists, who wrote accounts of their experiences. The development of
steam power in the nineteenth century provided opportunities for increasing
numbers of ‘ordinary’ people to travel further, more economically, and more
safely, and resulted in great enthusiasm for travel writing among the reading
public. Works included in this series range from first-hand descriptions of
previously unrecorded places, to literary accounts of the strange habits of
foreigners, to examples of the burgeoning numbers of guidebooks produced
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Zanzibar
First published in 1872, this two-volume memoir by explorer, ethnographer
and diplomat Sir Richard Burton (1821–90) was written while Burton and
John Hanning Speke were making preparations for their expedition to
solve one of the major geographical mysteries of the nineteenth century
– the location of the source of the Nile. The pair arrived in Zanzibar in
December 1856, and Burton made detailed notes on his surroundings
which were developed into Volume 1, which focuses on ‘The City and the
Island’, including Burton’s journey preparations and arrival. He discusses the
significance of the ‘Nile question’ as well as recording geographical, botanical,
meteorological and ethnographic observations. The manuscript on which
the book is based, entrusted to an East India Company official for dispatch
to the Royal Geographical Society, was initially misplaced, thus delaying
publication by twelve years, but enabling Burton to add a chapter on Speke’s
achievement and untimely death.
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Zanzibar
City, Island, and Coast
Volume 1
Richard Francis Burton
Published online by Cambridge University Press
CamBRIDGE UNIVERSIty PRESS
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Singapore, São Paolo, Delhi, tokyo, mexico City
Published in the United States of america by Cambridge University Press, New york
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108031462
© in this compilation Cambridge University Press 2011
This edition first published 1872
This digitally printed version 2011
ISBN 978-1-108-03146-2 Paperback
This book reproduces the text of the original edition. The content and language reflect
the beliefs, practices and terminology of their time, and have not been updated.
Cambridge University Press wishes to make clear that the book, unless originally published
by Cambridge, is not being republished by, in association or collaboration with, or
with the endorsement or approval of, the original publisher or its successors in title.
The original edition of this book contains a number of colour plates, which cannot
be printed cost-effectively in the current state of technology. The colour scans
will, however, be incorporated in the online version of this reissue, and in printed
copies when this becomes feasible while maintaining affordable prices.
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CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
CHAPTER I.
P4GE
PREPARATORY 1
CHAPTER II.
ARRIVAL AT ZANZIBAR ISLAND 16
CHAPTER III.
HOW THE NILE QUESTION STOOD IN THE YEAR OF GRACE 1856 . . 38
CHAPTER IV.
A STROLL THROUGH ZANZIBAR CITY 66
CHAPTER V.
GEOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL 116
SECT. I. AFRICA, EAST AND WEST—' ZANZIBAR' EXPLAINED—MENOU-
THIAS—POSITION AND FORMATION—THE EAST AFRICAN CUE-
KENT—NAVIGATION—ASPECT OF THE ISLAND . , . . 116
II. METEOROLOGICAL NOTES—THE DOUBLE SEASONS, 4c. . . 150
III. CLIMATE CONTINUED—NOTES ON THE NOSOLOGY OF ZANZIBAR
—EFFECTS ON STRANGERS . . . . . . . . . . 176
IV. NOTES ON THE FAUNA OF ZANZIBAR . . . . . . . . 197
V. NOTES ON THE FLORA OF ZANZIBAR . . . . . . . . 218
VI. THE INDUSTRY OF ZANZIBAR. . . . . . . . . . 252
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viii CONTENTS.
CHAPTEB VI.
PAGB
VISIT TO THE PRINCE SAYYID MAJID.—THE GOVERNMENT OP ZAN
ZIBAR 256
CHAPTEK VII.
A CHRONICLE OP ZANZIBAR.—THE CAREER OF THE LATE 'IMAM,'
SAYTID SAID 276
CHAPTER VIII.
ETHNOLOGY OP ZANZIBAR.—THE FOREIGN RESIDENTS . . . . 312
CHAPTER IX.
HORSEFLESH AT ZANZIBAR.—THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE CITY, AND
THE CLOVE PLANTATIONS 346
CHAPTER X.
ETHNOLOGY OF ZANZIBAR.—THE ARABS 368
CHAPTER XI.
ETHNOLOGY OF ZANZIBAR. — THE WASAWAHILI AND THE SLAVE
RACES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
CHAPTER XII.
PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE 469
APPENDIX.
THE UKARA OR UKEREWE LAKE . . 490
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PREFACE.
I FEEL that the reader will expect some allusion to
the circumstances which have delayed, till 1871, the
publication of a journal ready to appear in 1860. The
following letter will explain the recovery of a long report,
forwarded by me in 1857, under an address, very legibly
written in ink, upon its cover, to the late Dr Norton
Shaw, then Secretary Royal Geographical Society of
Great Britain.
< No. 9, of 1865.
Bombay Castle, 28th February, 1865.
:To
The Under Secretary of State for India,
London.
'Sir,
With reference to the packet ad-
dressed, as per margin, which was
No. 9, A. sent to you via. Southampton from
The Secretary the Separate Department, by the
R. Geog. Society, Overland Mail of the 14th instant,
Whitehall Place, I have the honour to subjoin for
London. your information copy of a note on
the subject from the Hon. ~W. E.
Frere, dated the 5th idem.
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PREFACE.
'When searching the strong box belonging to the
Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society yesterday I
found the accompanying parcel, directed to the Secretary
Royal Geographical Society, with a pencil note upon it,
requesting that it might be sent to the Secretary of State,
Foreign Office. From the signature in the corner, R. F.
B., I conclude that it must be the manuscript he sent to
Colonel Rigby at Zanzibar, and which, from some state-
ments of Mr Burton (to which I cannot at present refer,
but of which I have a clear recollection), never reached its
destination.1
'I have not been able to discover when or how the
parcel was received, nor how the Bombay Branch of
the Royal Asiatic Society was to send it to the Foreign
Office, except through Government. I therefore send it to
you, and perhaps you would send it to the Under Secretary
at the India House, with the above explanation, and re-
quest that it be sent to its direction.
I have, &c,
(Signed) C. RAVENSCROFT,
Acting Chief Secretary to Government.'
* * * *
It is not a little curious that, as my first report upon
the subject of Zanzibar was diverted from its destination,
1 Mr Frere's memory is unusually short. I intrusted the MS. to
the Eurasian apothecary of the Zanzibar Consulate, and I suspected
(Lake Regions of Central Africa, vol. i. chap, i.) that it had come to an
untimely end. The white population at Zanzibar had in those days
a great horror of publication, and thus is easily explained how a
parcel legibly addressed to the Royal Geographical Society had the
honour of passing eight years in the strong box of the 'Bombay
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.'
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PREFACE. xi
so the ' Letts' containing my excursions to Sa'adani and
to Kilwa also came to temporary grief. Annexed by a
skipper on the West African coast, appropriated by his
widow, and exposed at a London bookseller's stall (label-
led outside,' Burton Original MS. Diary in Africa'), it was
accidentally left by the buyer, an English Artillery
officer, in the hall of one of H. M.'s Ministers of State.
Here being recognized, it was kindly and courteously re-
turned to me. The meteorological observations made by
me on the East African seaboard and at other places dur-
ing the discovery of the Lakes were also, I would re-
mark, mislaid for years, deep hidden in certain pigeon-
holes at Whitehall Place. May these three accidents be
typical of the fate of my East African Expedition, which,
so long the victim of uacontrollable circumstance, appears
now, after many weary years, likely to emerge from the
shadow which overcast it, and to occupy the position
which I ever desired to see it conquer.
The two old documents are published with the
less compunction as Zanzibar, though increasing in im-
portance and now the head-quarters of an Admiralty
Court and of two Mission-Schools, with a printing-press
and other civilized appliances, has not of late been worked
out. The best authorities are still those who appeared
about a quarter of a century ago, always excepting, how-
ever, the four magnificent volumes, Baron Carl Clare von
der Decken's Reisen in Ost-Afrika, in den Jahren 1859
bis 1861, which I first saw at Jerusalem: there too I had
the pleasure of making acquaintance with Dr Otto Kersten,
who accompanied the unfortunate traveller during the
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xii PREFACE.
earlier portion of his peregrinations, and who has so ably
and efficiently performed his part as editor. Had a cer-
tain publisher carried out his expressed intention of intro-
ducing a resume of this fine work in English dress to the
British public, I should have saved myself the trouble
of writing these volumes: the Reisen, however, in the
original form are hardly likely to become popular. More-
over, the long interval of a decade has borne fruit: it has
given me time to work out the subject, and, better still, to
write with calmness and temper upon a theme of the most
temper-trying nature, — chap. xii. vol. II. will explain
what is meant. Finally, I have something important to
say upon the subject of the so-called Victoria Nyanza
Lake.
I had proposed to enrich the Appendix with extracts
from Arab and other mediaeval authors, who have treated
of Zanzibar, Island and Coast. Such an addition, however,
would destroy all proportion between the book and its
subject: I have therefore confined myself to notes on com-
merce and tariffs of prices in 1857 to 1859, to meteorolo-
gical observations, and to Capt. Smee's coasting voyage,
which dates from January, 1811. The latter will supply
an excellent birds-eye view of those parts of the Zanzibar
mainland which were not visited by the East African Ex-
pedition.
RICHARD F. BURTON.
London, Oct. 15, 1871.
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