Chapter XIV

THE BRITISH IN AFRICA, III
(_Egypt and Eastern Africa._)

Ever since the first year of the 19th century, when Britain expelled
the French from Egypt, she herself had longings to assume the
control of that country. One reason for this desire was very clear:
across Egypt lay the shortest sea route to India. Even without the
Suez Canal, a day’s journey on a railway or three days’ journey by
canal and carriage would transfer one from Alexandria on the
Mediterranean to Suez on the Red Sea. Two hundred and thirty-four
years ago, in the reign of Louis XIV, and one hundred and fourteen
years ago, in the dawning empire of Napoleon Bonaparte, when steam
was unknown as a motive power, the idea was conceived and born that
Egypt controlled the back door, the garden gate of India. But when
steam came into vogue on the sea, and later on the land, and people
contrasted the saving of time the Egyptian route offered, compared
with the weary three months’ voyage round the Cape, it became
apparent to British statesmen, that British influence must have full
play if not exclusive control in Egypt.

Subsequent on the withdrawal of the French, a simple major of
artillery from European Turkey—Muhammad Ali—had suddenly risen to
power by procedure which was faithfully copied 80 years afterwards
by Arābi Pasha. He had inspired such energy and bravery into the
military forces of Egypt that in 1806-7 his soldiers defeated a
British force which landed at Alexandria and Rosetta, and attempted
to take possession of the country. Thus was staved off for 76 years
the British occupation of Egypt, an occupation which in 1806 would
have been far more rapidly converted into annexation than it could
possibly be at the present day[192].

Britain respected Muhammad Ali’s sturdy resistance, and although she
opposed his attempt to conquer the Turkish Empire, and—in opposition
to the foolish encouragement he received from France—seemed at one
time his enemy, she nevertheless saved him from downfall, and
assisted him to establish a dynasty in Egypt which has ruled,
directly or indirectly, for a century. Still, knowing British
hankerings, the Tsar Nicholas I offered Egypt and Crete to Britain a
short time prior to the Crimean War in return for a free hand at
Constantinople. Great Britain declined, dreading to see Russia, with
a new base at Constantinople and the locked Black Sea behind her,
becoming the strongest Power in the Eastern Mediterranean. Then came
the making of the Suez Canal by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the influence
of which, however, was somewhat counteracted by the fact that all
the Egyptian railways were British. Nevertheless, British influence
never stood so low in Egypt as at the opening of the Canal, when the
heir to the British Crown was lost amid a galaxy of reigning
sovereigns headed by the effulgence of the Empress of the French.
But although French influence had grown so strong in Egypt, the
French Government did not—overtly at any rate—strive for more than
an equal voice with England in the affairs of Egypt, partly owing to
a feeling of loyalty to the British alliance, which Napoleon III
displayed whenever he could, and, later, to the enfeeblement of
France after the German War. In 1871 something like a thousand
British steamers passed through the Suez Canal, the enormous
importance of which became so apparent that in 1875 the British
Government purchased the Canal Shares held by the Khedive of Egypt,
and thus became a controlling factor in the Canal Company.

For between 1862 and 1877, Egypt had been ruined and reduced to
bankruptcy by a reckless borrowing of money on the part of her
native ruler, the Khedive Ismail. This prince at great cost
purchased his country’s practical freedom from Turkish control;
indeed, by 1873, he was virtually an independent sovereign. He
extended Egyptian rule into Equatorial Africa, reorganized his
customs’ service, carried through important public works; but he
also built palaces in profusion, and was guilty of needless
extravagance and waste. As the result of Egyptian bankruptcy, there
came into existence in 1877 the Dual Control of Britain and France
over Egyptian finances. Ismail instigated a rebellion against this
interference with his government and was deposed in 1879 by the
Sultan of Turkey. The Dual Control was re-established (Lord Cromer,
then Major Evelyn Baring, being one of the controllers) under the
new Khedive Taufik; but in 1881 occurred the revolt of the army
headed by Colonel Ahmed Arābi. France under the influence of
Gambetta pursued the same policy as Britain, namely, the delivering
of verbal warnings at intervals without the display of force. At
last, in June 1882, there was a riot and a massacre of Christians at
Alexandria. When the British fleet prepared to take action the
French withdrew, a hostile vote of the Chamber having dissolved the
Dual Control. Britain then intervened in Egypt against Arābi’s
revolt, bombarded the port of Alexandria (July 11, 1882), and seized
the Suez Canal. Lord Wolseley, of Ashanti fame, fought the battle of
Tel-el-Kebir, occupied Cairo (September 15), and reconquered the
country for the Khedive. When this had been done, the British
Government was in a dilemma. Had it, say some, on the capture of
Cairo, declared Egypt to be a British protectorate outright, it
would have only done what all the Powers of Europe expected. On the
other hand, this bold step would have meant the tearing up of
treaties and the partitioning of the Turkish Empire. Perhaps this
might have been got over by direct negotiation with the Sultan and
assurances of the continuance or composition of the tribute.

From about 1853 an interest was taken in the development of the
Sudan by the British Government. A Glamorganshire mining engineer,
John Petherick, after his contract of service with the Egyptian
Government was over, established himself at Khartum as an ivory
trader and was made British Consular Agent. In the sixties the
journeys and explorations of Speke and Grant, and of Sir Samuel and
Lady Baker, brought the Egyptian Sudan prominently into notice. In
1869 Sir Samuel Baker was made Egyptian Governor of the Equatorial
Province (Gondokoro to the Albert Nyanza). In 1874 he was succeeded
by Colonel Charles George Gordon, who became Governor-General over
the entire Egyptian Sudan in 1877. Between 1877 and 1879 Gordon
devoted himself, with the Italian Romolo Gessi as lieutenant, to the
defeat and suppression of the “Nubian” or “Bazinger” slave-traders
and raiders on the Bahr-al-Ghazal and Darfur. Unsuccessful wars of
conquest against Abyssinia took place during the seventies, and
equally unsuccessful attempts to secure the Mombasa coast and the
kingdom of Uganda—attempts opposed by the British Government. Gordon
was replaced by a Turk as Governor-General in 1880; and civilized
rule over the Egyptian Sudan began to decline, though Emin Pasha
(Eduard Schnitzer, a German of Silesia) ruled well and wisely over
the Equatorial Provinces till about 1886.

In the autumn of 1882, the British Government was probably sincere
in declaring its intention presently to evacuate Egypt; but it
seemed as though fate had ordained that the British garrison should
remain in that country. In 1881 the Mahdi’s revolt had broken out in
the Sudan[193]. In November 1883 Hicks Pasha’s force was cut to
pieces in the wilds of Kordofan. General C. G. Gordon was sent to
relieve and remove the garrisons, instead of doing which he remained
at Khartum in the vain hope of restoring before he left it some kind
of order to the country that he loved. An army under Viscount
Wolseley was sent to rescue him. It arrived a few days too late, yet
might even then have retaken Khartum and put down the revolt; but
Russia was threatening to impinge on the borders of India, and Great
Britain could not afford to lock up many soldiers in Central Africa.
Not being able, therefore, to settle the Sudan question, the British
were forced to remain in Egypt to prevent that country from being
overrun by the Mahdists. An attempt was made in 1885-6 to negotiate
terms of withdrawal with the Sultan, but the proposed convention was
not ratified, owing to the opposition of France and Russia.
Gradually, owing to the ability and truly British calm of the
British Agent and Consul-General, Sir Evelyn Baring (who became Lord
Cromer in 1892), the situation grew into a possible one. A moderate
British garrison was retained. The Exchequer was placed under
British control, as were public works, the administration of
justice, the organization of the army, posts and telegraphs, and
other departments where an infusion of order, honesty, and economy
was necessary. The Khedive of Egypt continued to reign with British
support and under British advice. In 1890 the conclusion of the
Anglo-German agreement for delimiting the British and German spheres
of influence in East, West, and Central Africa had secured from one
European Power, at least, recognition of an eventual British control
over the former Equatorial provinces of Egypt. From this event and
from the contemplation of maps arose the idea of “the Cape to
Cairo[194]”; and British ministries began slowly to contemplate the
reconquest of the Sudan. The Mahdists aided the growth of this
resolve by their fatuous hostility and constant attacks on Suakin
and on the Wadi Halfa boundary to the south of Egypt proper, behind
which the Egyptian forces withdrew in 1885. In 1886 the Mahdists
attempted to invade Egypt by following the Nile, but sustained a
crushing defeat at the battle of Sarras. Three years later, again
led by Wad-an-Nejumi the conqueror of Hicks Pasha and of Khartum,
they were completely routed at Toski by Lord Grenfell, and
Wad-an-Nejumi was killed. In 1894-5 the vicinity of Suakin was freed
from these marauders and the eastern Sudan reconquered, Italy
greatly aiding by her gallant capture of Kasalá[195]. The terrible
disaster which befell the Italian arms in Abyssinia in 1896 caused
the British Government to press forward the conquest of the Sudan in
order to distract the Dervishes from attacking the Italians. The
Egyptian commander-in-chief—Sir Herbert Kitchener, now Lord
Kitchener of Khartum—had thoroughly reorganized the native Egyptian
army under British officers; and with this material and a small
contingent of British troops he reconquered the province of Dongola
during the summer of 1896. In 1897 (Battle of the Atbara) and the
early part of 1898 the advance up the Nile valley was continued; and
on the 2nd of September, 1898, occurred the decisive battle of
Omdurman, in which a mixed army of British and Egyptian regiments,
under Sir Herbert Kitchener, finally shattered the Khalifa’s power
and avenged Gordon’s death. Anglo-Egyptian control was rapidly
extended eastward to the Abyssinian frontier and southward to the
Sobat river, but a half-expected obstacle came to light which
imposed a temporary check on the southward advance towards Uganda.
Major Marchand had reached Fashoda, near the confluence of the White
Nile and the Bahr-al-Ghazal, and had hoisted the French flag over
that abandoned Egyptian post. Before the determined attitude of
Great Britain, France, after two months’ delay, withdrew Major
Marchand, and later on in 1899 concluded with Great Britain a
supplement to the Niger Convention (p. 222), by which, broadly
speaking, the whole western Nile basin and Darfur were admitted to
be an exclusively British “sphere of influence.” Although France had
not yet specifically recognized the peculiar position of Great
Britain in Egypt, she had prepared the way for the Convention of
1904, in which this recognition was given in return for a similar
acknowledgement of French interest in Morocco. This 1904 Convention
definitely closed the long era of Anglo-French rivalry and
diplomatic conflict in Egypt; and thenceforth the British met with
no obstacle from any outside nation but Turkey in their task of
reforming and rehabilitating the country of the Pharaohs. Turkey in
1906 attempted to withdraw the greater part of the Sinai peninsula
from Egyptian rule, to bring Turkish posts down to the vicinity of
the east bank of the Suez Canal, and to hold both shores of the Gulf
of Akaba. It required a virtual ultimatum from Great Britain before
Turkey would give way; and this crisis (which ended by the definite
inclusion of all the Sinai Peninsula within the Egyptian dominions,
while the Turks as definitely regained those former Egyptian posts
in the land of Midian held by Egypt since 1832) gave occasion to the
British Government to assign to the British occupation of Egypt a
more definite and permanent character than it had hitherto been
accorded in diplomatic documents.

But from this period (1906) onwards there was much “national” unrest
in the towns of the Nile Delta, chiefly Cairo and Alexandria. The
prosperity which Egypt was enjoying, the spread of a modern,
European type of education, the downfall of Sultan Abd-al-Hamid in
1908, and the promise of a constitutionally governed, modernized
Turkey, were conditions which caused the Muhammadan Egyptian
townsfolk—mostly the professional classes—to think the time had come
for the establishment of a completely constitutional régime in
Egypt, coupled with a removal of British control and military
occupancy. This movement had begun in 1892 with the accession of the
young Khedive, Abbas Hilmi; but of late years the Khedive has
dissociated himself from attacks on, or even coldness towards, the
British occupation. His approximation to the British point of view
was more apparent after the Earl of Cromer’s retirement in 1907. Sir
John Gorst, Lord Cromer’s successor, sympathized to some extent with
“nationalist” ideals, but he regarded the Christian Copt as being
just as much an Egyptian as the Muhammadan Arab, Egyptian or Turk.
Copts were enabled to rise high in the public service of Egypt. In
1908 a Copt—Boutros Pasha—became Prime Minister of the Khedive’s
Government. Christian ministers of state—Armenians, Copts,
Levantines—were no novelty in Egypt; but the idea was most repellent
to the aggressive “Pan-Islamism” of the Muhammadan “nationalists,”
and the excitations of the Nationalist Press excited a student, Al
Wardani, to murder Boutros Pasha in February 1910—an event which so
deeply affected Sir John Gorst (a sincere friend towards real
“nationalism” in Egypt) that he contracted an illness which caused
his death a year later. Viscount Kitchener of Khartum succeeded him
as British representative in Egypt. In 1911-12 the “nationalist”
agitation was resumed, and a plot was arranged for the nearly
simultaneous assassination of the Khedive, Lord Kitchener, and the
Egyptian Premier. It must be remembered by all who are disposed to
sympathize with the growth and achievement of nationalism that Egypt
contains, in addition to some 10,500,000 Muhammadans (only about 5
per cent. of whom are literates), a million Christians of Egyptian
and of European race, who represent—for the most part—the brains and
wealth of the country. Until this important minority is regarded by
the Nationalist party as equally entitled to full Egyptian
citizenship, until the Muhammadanism of Egypt sheds its intense
fanaticism and its contempt for science, sanitation, for ancient
history and modern learning, the British Government in its capacity
of guardian over the land of the Pharaohs, the land of deathless
history which the Arab, Turk, and Circassian have done so much to
destroy and deface, is right in withstanding a movement which is not
strictly national, in the Egyptian sense, but a revival of Islamic
intolerance and civic dishonesty.

The Anglo-French Convention of 1904 having accorded a limited but
distinct recognition on the part of France to the British control
over the Egyptian Khediviate, various important reforms in finance
and administration followed, and the way was paved for the abolition
of the capitulations, of the last vestiges of mistrust felt by
Europe for the tribunals of a Muhammadan nation. Since 1876, the
separate consular courts in Egypt had been done away with in favour
of the mixed tribunals on which were conferred the powers formerly
attributed to the consular courts and which now try all civil and
criminal cases in which foreigners are concerned. These foreign
tribunals may be succeeded in time by national Egyptian courts. At
any rate, the Anglo-French agreement of 1904 tends in that
direction. Owing to this agreement Egypt is now allowed to apply her
surplus, after the service of the Funded Debt has been provided for,
to any purposes she may deem advisable in the interests of the
country, either for the extension of public works or the diminution
of taxation. Prior to the facilities accorded by this agreement,
however, the Earl of Cromer (the creator of modern Egypt) had, with
the financial assistance of Sir Ernest Cassel and the engineering
skill of Sir William Willcocks and others, commenced those great
irrigation works above Assuan which will triple the productive
capabilities of Lower Egypt and proportionately increase the
prosperity of the Khedive’s country. Under the British control
(since 1882) the Funded Debt has been diminished by 12 millions
sterling; taxation has been greatly reduced, yet the revenue has
increased by 4 millions of pounds; the total trade of Egypt has more
than doubled; and the population has risen from 6,832,000 in 1882 to
nearly 12,000,000 in 1912. Forced labour has been abolished; the
position of the peasantry has been enormously improved; twice the
former area of land is cultivated and under cultivation; and the
boundaries of the country have been definitely extended to the
frontier of Syria and to the Cyrenaica.

In the Sudan great changes followed the victories of Lord Kitchener
in 1898. A convention with Egypt in January 1899 determined the
constitution of the, henceforth, Anglo-Egyptian-Sudan south of Wadi
Halfa. This was to be a joint dominion of Britain and Egypt. The
Governor-General was to be selected by the British Government and
appointed by the Khedive. By a stroke of the pen the cumbersome
system of Consular or Mixed Tribunal Courts which had formerly
existed in the Egyptian Sudan was abolished and the direct
jurisdiction of the Anglo-Egyptian Government substituted. By 1900,
the reconquest of the Egyptian Sudan, begun in 1896, had been
effectually completed. In November 1899, after Lord Kitchener had
been despatched to South Africa, his successor in the Sudan, Sir
Reginald Wingate, pursued the fugitive Khalifa into the recesses of
Kordofan; and this successor of the Mahdi lost his life on the field
of battle of Om Dubreikat, on November 25, 1899. Osman Digna, the
other great Dervish leader, was taken prisoner in the Tokar hills
near Suakin on January 19, 1900. Gradually in the succeeding years
the boundaries of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan were adjusted with
Abyssinia. Darfur remains a semi-independent kingdom, accepting
somewhat grudgingly an Anglo-Egyptian suzerainty. The region of the
Bahr-al-Ghazal was occupied by the Sudan Government in pursuance of
the claims of Egypt over this region and in opposition to the
aspirations of the King-Sovereign of the Congo State, who at one
period (1894) had received permission from the British, without
prejudice to the dormant claims of Egypt, to exercise control over
this region. The King did not take immediate advantage of this
opportunity; and in the interval Egypt had revived her claims to the
original dominions of the Egyptian Sudan after the shattering of the
Khalifa’s forces at Omdurman. But, although the Congo State was not
allowed to exercise authority over the Bahr-al-Ghazal, it maintained
its sway in the smaller Lado enclave between the Congo frontier and
the western bank of the White or Mountain Nile by a lease which
terminated at the death of Leopold II in 1909, when the Lado enclave
passed under the control of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan Government in
1910.

Apart from the Arabs, the British have had but little trouble in
imposing their supervising rule over the natives of the Sudan, the
government of which is directed from Khartum. The only tribe that
adopted a hostile attitude towards the British, prior to 1904, was a
section of the Dinka people between the Mountain or White Nile on
the west and the affluents of the Sobat on the east. But in the
autumn of 1904 a strong expedition had to be directed against the
powerful Nyamnyam tribes of the Western Bahr-al-Ghazal. This people,
armed with about 20,000 modern rifles obtained by purchase or
pillage from the Belgian stations, was disposed to question the “Pax
Sudanica” and to resume its former slave raids. In 1903, another
Mahdi—a Tunisian Arab—arose in Kordofan, but he was promptly
captured and executed. In 1908, yet another fanatic, an Arab of the
Halawi tribe in Sennar, declared himself to be Jesus Christ,
returning to earth to expel the European from the Sudan. He murdered
a British official but was caught soon afterwards and hanged for his
crimes. In 1911-12 two expeditions were rendered necessary against
the Annaks, a Nilotic negro tribe on the Sobat river. The Annaks had
armed themselves with thousands of French rifles sold by French
merchants on the frontiers of Abyssinia and passed on to the Annaks
in trade by the Abyssinians. From this direction much more trouble
may occur eventually.

A good deal of commercial development has taken place in the
northern regions of the Egyptian Sudan and in Southern Egypt owing
to the resumption of gold-mining operations which had been dormant
since ancient Egyptian days, or at any rate since the Muhammadan
conquest, and the great increase in cotton planting. The advance of
the Sudan towards prosperity is only hampered by the present dearth
of indigenous population. It has been computed that the Mahdi’s
revolt and the Khalifa’s massacres must have cost the Sudan
something like three millions of lives, this loss being entailed by
direct massacre (at some places on the Nile 70,000 people—men,
women, and children—were killed in the course of two or three days),
by the unchecked spread of disease, by starvation owing to the
destruction of crops and the neglect of agriculture, and by loss in
battle against the Anglo-Egyptian forces. Efforts are being made by
the enlightened administration which rules from Khartum to encourage
agriculture and to educate the people. The Gordon College was
founded at Khartum in 1899 with the special purpose of giving a
practical and secular education to the Arabs and negroes of that
dominion. One splendid feat, among others, due to British courage
and tenacity of purpose was the cutting through the _Sadd_ (as it is
pronounced, or Sudd as it is ordinarily written), the dense growth
of floating water vegetation which from time immemorial has blocked
the courses of the Mountain Nile and its tributaries between Boz and
the 6th degree of latitude, and the confluence of the Sobat. At
intervals between 1871 and 1882 this _sadd_ had completely barred
the way to steamer or boat journeys between Khartum and the
Equatorial provinces. The great work of cutting through the _sadd_
was finally achieved under the direction of Sir William Garstin
between 1899 and 1904 by Major Malcom Peake, Lieut. Drury, R.N., and
Major G. E. Matthews. Since that time the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan has
been completely linked up by a steamer mail service with the British
Protectorate of Uganda.

The area of this vast dominion, between Wadi Halfa on the north,
Gondokoro and the 5th degree of latitude and the Nile-Congo-Shari
waterparting on the south, is 984,520 square miles; yet the
population is still only estimated at 2,600,000, though it is
capable of supporting 50,000,000 black or brown men and is healthy
in a few parts for Europeans.

Aden, at the south-west extremity of Arabia, was occupied by the
Indian Government in 1839 in view of the opening up to steam-ships
of the Egyptian route to India. To Aden were added in 1840, by
treaties of purchase or exclusive influence, Zeila and Musha Island
on the Somali coast, the island of Perim in 1858, and the island of
Sokotra in 1876[196]. Egypt in 1875 had annexed the coast of
Somaliland opposite Aden, with the exception of the French post of
Obok. When the Egyptian dominion of the Sudan collapsed, it was
necessary to our interests that the Somali coast opposite Aden
should not come under the influence of another European power; so a
British protectorate was established there (1884-89) by accord with
France and Italy, France extending her Obok territory to meet the
British Somali Protectorate, while the town of Harrar in the
interior, which was likely to be a bone of contention, was
transferred to Abyssinia together with a small adjoining piece of
territory in 1897.

In 1898, a considerable slice off the south-west portion of British
Somaliland was surrendered to the Empire of Ethiopia (Abyssinia) by
the Rennell Rodd agreement made in 1897. The Italians between 1889
and 1892 had acquired rights over all the sea-board east and south
of British Somaliland, but, as time went on, the interior—never well
disposed towards Europeans—became disturbed. The eastern and
southern parts of this Protectorate were ravaged between 1899 and
1904, and again between 1908 and 1910, by a Somali leader, Muhammad
bin Abdallah, called most inappropriately the Mad Mullah. This man—a
native of southern Ogadein Somaliland—appears at first to have been
the exponent of legitimate grievances on the part of some of the
coast Somalis. The British administration of Somaliland during the
close of the 19th century was not fortunate in its dealings with a
turbulent and fickle people. Some of the earlier officials seemed to
be more interested in the hunting of big game than in acquiring
knowledge as to the predilections, traditions, and general affairs
of the Somali tribes under their government. Gradually Somali
opinion grew restless under restrictions which were seemingly not
backed by adequate force, and leant towards the side of their
national leader, the Mullah. The latter attacked successfully those
tribes on the coast which remained faithful to the British rule. A
succession of expeditions against the Mullah culminated in an
elaborate and expensive campaign conducted by the British War Office
in 1903-4. The Mullah was repeatedly driven into Italian territory,
and the permission of Italy was obtained to use the coast of Italian
Somaliland as a fresh base of operations against the Somalis.
Somewhat dubious and half-hearted assistance was also supposed to be
rendered by Abyssinia. As the result of these operations, the Mullah
and his forces were repeatedly defeated (after more than one
disaster had happened to the British troops), and he was driven out
of British territory into the no-man’s-land in dispute between Italy
and Ethiopia. Between 1905 and 1908, there was peace, the Mullah
being content to settle down under Italian supervision. Then he
broke out again and finally attacked the tribes under British
protection. Previous Somali wars (1900-4) having cost the British
government the lives of many British officers and negro and Indian
soldiers, besides over two million sterling expended in maintaining
armies of 7000 men, it was decided to leave the interior of British
Somaliland—a barren and sparsely inhabited region—alone, and confine
the British occupation to the coast towns. This decision was carried
into effect in 1910. The Mullah Muhammad bin Abdallah is still at
large, but the interior tribes are gradually asserting themselves
against him. The area of the Protectorate is about 68,000 square
miles. Prior to 1902, this territory, alone amongst the British
Protectorates in Africa (excepting Zanzibar), paid its own way
without a subsidy, the revenue being derived from the considerable
receipts at the Customs Houses. Unfortunately, the war destroyed so
much in the way of live-stock as to make it difficult for years to
come for Somaliland to recover the partial prosperity it enjoyed in
earlier days. But nevertheless considerable towns are springing up
on the coast-line, where they can be easily defended by garrisons of
Indian troops and Somali police.

After the Portuguese had been expelled by the Arabs from Zanzibar
and Mombasa, all the East coast of Africa from Somaliland to the
Ruvuma river came under the control of the Imam of Maskat, who
usually deputed a brother or some other relation to be his viceroy
at Zanzibar. Owing to internecine quarrels which arose in the
princely family of Maskat, the British Government intervened in
1861, and definitely separated the Sultanate of Zanzibar from the
Imamate of ’Oman or Maskat. As the French were beginning to take a
keen interest in the affairs of Zanzibar and Maskat, the British
Government at that time (1863) concluded a treaty with the French
Empire by which both powers bound themselves to respect the
independence of Zanzibar and Maskat. Many years previously, in 1824,
a Lieutenant Reitz, by the orders of Captain W. F. W. Owen, had
hoisted the British flag at Mombasa, and had endeavoured to occupy
that town for the East India Company, but his action was disallowed.
Nevertheless, British influence at Zanzibar grew very strong through
the Political Agent whom we established at the court of the Sayyid
or representative of the Imam of Maskat (known later as the Sultan
of Zanzibar)[197], and the powerful squadron of cruisers which were
maintained in Zanzibar waters to put down the slave trade. In 1866
Dr, afterwards Sir John, Kirk, who had been Livingstone’s second in
command on the Zambezi, was appointed Vice-Consul and gradually rose
to be Consul and then Political Agent and Consul-General. He threw
himself zealously into the task of suppressing the Zanzibar slave
trade, which had become an outrage on humanity. The British
Government supported him; and in 1873 Sir Bartle Frere was sent to
Zanzibar to negotiate a treaty with the Sultan.

The Sultan (Barghash) was recalcitrant, and even went to the length
of offering his territory to France. Finally, however, before a
threatened British bombardment could take place or the French
squadron arrive, Sir John Kirk had persuaded the Sultan to sign the
treaty, after which Sayyid Barghash bin Said resolved to visit
England, which he did in 1874. It is said that even at that date he
had some idea of invoking German protection, provided he were
allowed to tear up the slave-trade treaty. However, the wisdom and
tact of Sir John Kirk did wonders for British influence at Zanzibar;
and in 1876 the Sultan offered the lease of nearly all his
continental territories to Mr, afterwards Sir William, Mackinnon,
the chairman of the British India Steam Navigation Company. But Mr
Mackinnon was an over-cautious man. Instead of accepting, and then
forcing the hand of the British Government, he refused to take the
Sultan’s concession unless he could first obtain a British
guarantee, an action to which the Government was naturally unwilling
to commit itself. In 1881 Sir John Kirk thought of another plan,
that of inducing the Sultan to employ capable Britons, who would
develop his territories as governors or commissioners. He secured
the services of Mr Joseph Thomson to develop the resources of the
Ruvuma Province, an appointment which might have effectually
prevented any future German intervention; but Mr Joseph Thomson was
too pessimistic and perhaps shortsighted. The country seemed to him
poor in resources, though it has long since been shown to be more
productive than he thought. He bluntly told the Sultan so and
therefore was relieved of his appointment. In 1883 Sir John Kirk
returned from England, having induced the Government to appoint a
number of salaried vice-consuls at various points in the Sultan’s
territories. It must be noted that at this period a very large
proportion of the Zanzibar trade was in the hands of British
subjects, natives of British India.

In 1882-4 took place the remarkable exploring journey of Mr Joseph
Thomson under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society.
Thomson travelled from Mombasa to the verge of Busoga, on the north
coast of the Victoria Nyanza, and revealed all the most striking
features of British East Africa. Sir John Kirk had also about the
same time entered into friendly relations with Mandara, a chief on
Mt Kilima-njaro, and had urged the sending out of a scientific
expedition, to the leadership of which Mr H. H. Johnston was
appointed in 1884, in order to explore that mountain. After some
months’ stay on Kilima-njaro Mr Johnston reported the great
advantages this region possessed as a sanatorium, and, while waiting
for instructions from Sir John Kirk, concluded treaties with several
chiefs. The response of the British government was favourable to the
establishment of British interests in this direction; but various
obstacles arose which required consideration, amongst others the
remembrance of the 1862 agreement with France. Another European
power, however, was bound by no such agreement, and had no such
scruples, as will be related in Chapter XIV. Although Mr Johnston’s
treaties with Chaga (South Kilima-njaro) and Taveita (the eastern
slopes) proved the basis on which the British East Africa Company
was eventually founded, the actual mountain district of Kilima-njaro
finally fell to Germany. By 1885, the British Government had more or
less indicated to Germany that portion of the Zanzibar dominions
which must come under British influence if there was to be a
division of those territories; and after several years of diplomatic
conflict, the whole question was settled with fairness to both
parties by the 1890 Convention between Great Britain and Germany,
and by a secondary agreement with France, which definitely allotted
to Great Britain the northern half of the Sultan of Zanzibar’s
dominions, the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, and a sphere of
influence in the interior which included Uganda and Lake Albert
Nyanza.

The British East Africa Company, organized in 1886, was chartered in
1888, and undertook the government of the vast territories lying
between the Mombasa coast and the Victoria Nyanza. For the first two
years things went smoothly. The company possessed a capable
administrator, Mr (afterwards Sir) George Mackenzie, who solved the
slavery difficulty by redeeming the slaves of the Arab gentry and
then setting them free. This no doubt prevented the coast Arabs from
attacking the British régime at a time when they had nearly
destroyed that of Germany in the regions farther south.

But the Imperial British East Africa company had undertaken a task
far too great for its resources in capital. It was expected by the
people and government of Great Britain to maintain and defend
British interests over a vast hinterland. The country of
Uganda[198], on the north-west of this greatest of African lakes,
had been allotted to the British sphere by the German Convention;
but unfortunately for British interests the country had been entered
by French Roman Catholic missionaries of Cardinal Lavigerie’s White
Fathers’ mission (cf. pp. 245-6), who were such ardent Frenchmen
that they rather forgot the religious purpose for which they had
come, and fomented serious quarrels between the king and the
Protestant missionaries who had preceded them. The great King Mtesa
died in 1884, peevish and disgusted with the missionary disputes and
religious recriminations that buzzed in his ears, and longing for
the old, easy, pagan life he had led before pressing Stanley (p.
326) to send him Christian teachers. After his death, the Arab party
prejudiced his son Mwanga against the Christian foreigners and
native converts. Bishop Hannington, of the Church Missionary
Society, newly appointed to East Equatorial Africa, persisted in
entering Uganda along Mr Thomson’s route by what the king called the
“back way.” Frightened lest the bishop might be coming to take the
country by the methods which the Germans had employed farther south,
the king ordered him to be murdered in Busoga, not far from the
Victoria Nile. Soon after this, the missionaries, Protestants and
Catholics, were expelled from Uganda. Then later on there was a
Muhammadan revolt, which drove Mwanga flying. He took refuge with
the Catholic missionaries at the south end of the lake, and became a
Christian. He was restored to his throne by the aid of Mr Stokes,
who was afterwards hanged by Major Lothaire (p. 347). Then the
French missionaries got control over the king, and attempted to
prevent the country from becoming a British protectorate—if it could
not be French, at any rate let it be German; and Dr Peters arriving
on the scene strove to make it German; but his efforts were annulled
by the 1890 Convention. After this, to prevent the country from
falling under the sway of the Muhammadans, who might have joined the
Mahdists or become French, the British East Africa Company was
obliged by public opinion to intervene, although it did not possess
sufficient funds to administer such an expensive empire. Captain,
now General Sir Frederick, Lugard not long returned from the Arab
war in Nyasaland, was sent there as their agent in 1890-1, and in an
exceedingly able and courageous manner restored order, obtaining
from the king a treaty with the Company, and putting down revolts of
the Roman Catholic Christians and of the Muhammadans. But the East
Africa Company was obliged to appeal to the British Government to
come to its assistance lest Uganda should swallow up all its
resources. The late Sir Gerald Portal, Agent and Consul-General at
Zanzibar, was sent to Uganda to report on the advisability and the
means of retaining this country under British influence. Unhappily,
he died soon after his return to England in 1894, but his report led
to the establishment of a British protectorate. Through the
intervention of the Pope, some appeasement of bitterness was
obtained in regard to the White Fathers’ mission, whose field of
work was bounded on the east by the Victoria Nile. A new Roman
Catholic mission under Bishop Hanlon, an Irishman, supported by
English, Irish and Dutch priests, has since carried on the
conversion and teaching of the natives in the eastern half of the
protectorate on harmonious terms with the British administration;
though indeed since 1900 all bitterness of feeling between the White
Fathers’ mission and the British officials or the native chiefs is
completely at an end. The French missionaries were compensated in
1895 for the destruction of some of their stations in the civil war
by a payment of £10,000.

After the withdrawal of Emin Pasha from his Equatorial province a
number of his former Sudanese soldiers volunteered for employment in
Uganda, and were eagerly recruited as a capable fighting force. But
they were Muhammadans, and always inclined to intrigue against a
Christian power. Added to this, Mwanga, the Kabaka or King of
Buganda, was the most unstable of men, and an exceedingly bad
character to boot. His vices and his cruelty had made him so hateful
in the eyes of his subjects, that without British support he would
probably have been deposed or killed. As it was, the presence of the
British prevented this, but did not arrest his intrigues with that
section of the populace which disliked European intervention. After
an undecided behaviour which lasted several years he finally
attempted to massacre a few of the British officers and
missionaries, but was defeated, and fled across the German border.
Then the Sudanese troops revolted, seized a fortress and some guns,
and for nearly a year set the British and the loyal Baganda at
defiance. Finally, a detachment of 450 Sikhs reached the country (a
handful of these splendid soldiers had already enabled the European
officers to face the Muhammadan mutineers), order was to some extent
restored, and a determined effort was made to capture the truant
king Mwanga and that aged scoundrel Kabarega, the King of Bunyoro,
who has been justly hated by Europeans since Speke and Baker’s
time[199]. This capture was achieved by Colonel John Evatt in June,
1899. The British Government having decided that the military and
civil organization of Uganda should now be settled definitely,
decided in the same year to dispatch Sir Harry Johnston as a Special
Commissioner to frame and inaugurate a suitable scheme of
administration in these countries round the Nyanzas and the Upper
Nile[200].

Prior to these troubles, continual warfare was carried on for some
years with the Bunyoro kingdom to the north, which was finally
conquered and eventually annexed to the Protectorate. In these wars
with Bunyoro (commencing with unprovoked hostilities on the part of
Kabarega) Major A. B. Thurston greatly distinguished himself. This
gallant officer and able linguist was afterwards killed by the
mutineer Sudanese soldiers (1897). Major ‘Roddy’ Owen had hoisted
the British flag at Wadelai, on the White Nile (in 1894), but this
action was not confirmed by the British Government. Nevertheless,
with the movement towards Khartum in prospect, and the eventual
reconquest of the Sudan, it was decided to send out a well-equipped
surveying expedition under Colonel (Sir) J. R. L. Macdonald which
should explore thoroughly the lands between the Victoria Nyanza and
the Mountain Nile. It was partly the demand that this expedition
should be escorted by a Sudanese battalion which precipitated the
mutiny of these discontented soldiers. Sir James Macdonald
cooperated in breaking the chief resistance of these mutineers and
then proceeded on an epoch-making survey which revealed new
mountains, new lakes, new peoples and new languages, and laid the
foundations of British influence on the northern part of the Uganda
Protectorate.

The Special Commission of Sir Harry Johnston arrived in Uganda at
the close of 1899, when the Sudanese mutiny and other troubles were
nearly over. As the results of this Special Commission the
boundaries of the Uganda Protectorate were carried northward to
Gondokoro on the Mountain Nile, to the 5th degree of N. latitude and
to Lake Rudolf; the state of Ankole on the south-west was also
included up to the German frontier. A definite constitution was
given to the kingdom of Buganda. The native ruler of Buganda
received the title of His Highness the Kabaka[201]; the native
Parliament or Lukiko was recognized; and the kingdom was divided
into a number of administrative counties. A land settlement was
arrived at, by which at least half of the land of the kingdom of
Buganda was secured to native owners. Settlements somewhat similar
to that effected in the province or kingdom of Buganda have been
carried out in the adjoining provinces of Ankole, Toro, and Bunyoro.
In 1903, the Eastern (Masai) province was transferred to the
administration of the adjoining East African Protectorate, thus
reducing the total area of the Uganda Protectorate at the present
day to 117,681 square miles, with a population—almost entirely
negroes—of about 2,900,000 (650 Europeans).

In the summer of 1901 a new portent appeared in Uganda—the terrible
disease known as sleeping sickness. This is a malady caused by the
injection into the human system through the proboscis of a Tsetse
fly of trypanosome animalcules which after swarming in the blood
reach the spinal marrow and then kill the patient—negro or European.
This terrible disease, which has existed for centuries in West
Africa, penetrated from the Congo forest into Uganda in 1901-2 and
killed many thousands of the natives year after year along the
shores and islands of the Victoria Nyanza. It is being carefully
studied with a view to its extirpation.

After the Zanzibar Sultanate had been placed under British
protection it was necessary to reorganize its administration. The
islands of Zanzibar and Pemba remained under the more or less direct
rule of the Sultan, who, however, appointed English ministers to
control the various departments of state, and was at the same time
subject to the advice and financial control of the British Agent and
Consul-General. Several Sultans succeeded one another and died in a
few years; and on the occasion of the death of Sultan Hamid bin
Thwain (1896) a palace revolt occurred, occasioned by a disappointed
claimant to the throne. This revolt, however, was really a premature
outbreak on the part of the Arab party, who frankly disliked British
interference which entailed the abolition of the slave trade and
even the disappearance of slavery, and were sufficiently foolish to
imagine that they were strong enough to resist a European nation. A
few hours’ bombardment of the Sultan’s head-quarters quelled this
rebellion. Since that time, by degrees, and with a wise system of
gradation, slavery is being abolished, and will soon cease to exist
as a recognized status. In 1911 the young Sultan of Zanzibar (Ali
bin Hamūd) abdicated for reasons of health; and his son, Sū’id bin
Ali, was proclaimed under a regency, the Regent-and-First Minister
being a British official. Between 1903-5 there was considerable
local dissatisfaction with the methods of government employed in
Zanzibar, and a deputation of Zanzibaris came to London to make
representations on the subject; but since reforms were instituted in
1906 the people of Zanzibar and Pemba have been quiet and
prosperous. The total area of these two islands is 1020 square miles
and the population (200,000) mainly negro, with about 10,000 Arabs,
10,000 Indians, and 300 Europeans. Zanzibar Island is a great
rendezvous for shipping and is the head-quarters of a great ocean
cable company; apart from this, it produces cloves and other
tropical vegetable products, and Pemba is rich in cattle.

On the mainland between the Umba river and Mombasa on the south and
the Juba river and Somaliland on the north, the Imperial British
East Africa Company continued to rule until 1894. But as soon as the
British Government had undertaken to govern Uganda as a Protectorate
(1894) it was evident that the company’s rule over the intervening
district from Kikuyu to the coast could not continue. Accordingly in
1894 the company’s charter was annulled and they were compensated
with £450,000. On July 1, 1895, Sir Arthur Hardinge took over the
administration of the British East Africa Protectorate.

The new administration had scarcely been installed on the Mombasa
coast than it found itself obliged to deal with the question of the
Mazrui Arabs. It has been mentioned elsewhere in this work that
early in the 18th century the Arab power on the coast between the
Rufu River on the south and Malindi on the north was exercised
nominally on behalf of the Imam of Maskat by an Arab family known as
the Mazrui. Various explanations are given of this name and of the
origin of this clan, some deriving them from an old colony of
Egyptian Arabs (_Masr_ is the Arab name for Egypt); but more
probably they came from Southern Arabia, or even from Oman, prior to
the arrival of the Portuguese, who dispossessed them for a time. In
the 17th century they had made common cause with the Arabs of Oman
in attacking and expelling the Portuguese, but, when it came to
their accepting the Imam of Maskat as their sovereign lord, they
usually evaded the direct issue by partial compliance. In the early
part of the 19th century they had defied the representative of the
Imam at Zanzibar and had attempted to place Mombasa under British
protection. During the latter part of the 19th century the Sultan of
Zanzibar, backed by Sir John Kirk, had asserted Zanzibar rule over
the coast strip as far north as Somaliland. He held, indeed, all the
principal ports of what is now Italian Somaliland, as well as Lamu,
Malindi, and Mombasa. In the hinterland of Lamu was another
semi-independent Arab Sultanate, that of Vitu, on the Ozi River;
while the Mazrui clan between Mombasa and the German frontier was
represented by a line of Sultans usually called Sidi Mubarak or
Mbaruk (_Sidi_ means lord, the rest of the name is a varying form of
the Arab word for blessing). The Germans in their dealings with East
Africa had early appreciated the dissidence between the Sultan of
Zanzibar and the independent Arab powers on the mainland; and, when
Germany and Britain were striving in the eighties for an East
African dominion, Germany had recognized the independence of the
Sultanate of Vitu. By the 1890 agreement Vitu was transferred to the
protectorate of Great Britain, much against its will. It was a
country rendered inaccessible by an extravagant growth of forest
nourished by the delta of the Rivers Ozi and Tana, but was
nevertheless captured in the late autumn of 1890 by a naval
expedition under Admiral Sir E. Fremantle, to punish the Sultan for
resuming the trade in slaves and ordering a party of German
timber-cutters to be massacred. A little further action on behalf of
British officials resulted in the tranquillity of this small state
being re-established with a reasonable degree of self-government.

Sir Arthur Hardinge, on assuming the control of British East Africa,
found that he had first of all to fight a long war of skirmishes,
ambushes, and repelled raids, against the Sultan Mubarak, whose
strongholds were a series of small Arab towns in the hinterland
regions, south-west of Mombasa. This difficulty was not finally
disposed of till the following year, 1896, when Mubarak after
several defeats inflicted on him by the negro and Indian troops of
the British, took refuge on German territory. Since that time there
has been no further difficulty with the Arabs in this part of East
Africa.

The Masai of the East African hinterland, who, it was thought, would
give the most serious trouble to any overruling power, very soon
acquiesced in the idea of a British protectorate and have really
been the allies of the British in many of their difficulties with
recalcitrant tribes. In the Kikuyu forest country, which was once
the western borderland of the East African Protectorate, a few
police operations had to be carried out, as the industrious Kikuyu
people, suspicious after many years of raiding by the Masai, at
first looked upon the white man as another enemy, and attacked
British settlers or big-game hunters in the neighbourhood of their
country.

In 1902-3, as already mentioned, the Protectorate of East Africa was
extended over the eastern province of Uganda up to the shores of the
Victoria Nyanza, the slopes of Mount Elgon, and the south-west coast
of Lake Rudolf. On the south it was of course bounded by the
Anglo-German frontier, which last was accurately defined between
1903-5. On the north, after long negotiations with Abyssinia, its
boundaries were so drawn as to admit the Abyssinian Empire to the
north-east corner of Lake Rudolf. From this point the East African
boundary is drawn along the Goro escarpment to the Juba River, which
it then follows down to the sea. The total area of the Protectorate
is about 200,000 square miles, and the total population at the
present day is guessed at 4,040,000[202]. It consists mainly of
negroes and negroids, the negroids being the result of ancient or
modern intermixture between the Hamitic tribes of Ethiopia and
Somaliland and the negroes of Equatorial Africa. The Gala, a
handsome and interesting Hamitic people, displaying their kinship
with the white man by their use of the plough, by their possession
of a sex-denoting language, and by many other features, inhabit a
portion of the northern parts of the Protectorate, coming as far
south as the Tana River. In the north-east, on either side of the
Jub or Juba River, are the Somali clans chiefly belonging to the
group known as Ogadein. These southern Somalis are much mixed with
negro blood, and are not such a handsome or Caucasian people as
those of Northern Somaliland. Alike to the Italians and to the
British—and perhaps even more markedly towards the British—they have
shown themselves inimical from the very first. It will be remembered
how cruelly they treated in older times the Portuguese Catholic
missionaries who attempted to travel through their country into
Abyssinia. Since 1896 they have murdered several British officials
stationed at Kismayu, or other places in their territory; and
punitory expeditions have been directed against them in 1898 and in
1901. This last expedition ended somewhat disastrously for the
British arms, but was wisely not followed up by an expensive
avenging campaign, as the country is not at present worth
conquering, and is only inhabited by semi-nomad, warlike Somalis,
who are, however, by the lure of commerce gradually settling down
into a peaceable condition. In the Borān Gala country in the
northernmost parts of the Protectorate, raids of Abyssinian soldiers
take place from time to time and are particularly exasperating by
the reckless damage which is done to the big game of the country. In
this portion of East Africa the big game is being rapidly
exterminated by the Abyssinians.

Big game, indeed, has been found to be one of the assets of this
East African Protectorate. The writings of Joseph Thomson, H. H.
Johnston, F. G. Jackson, Count Teleki, and Lieutenant
Höhnel—explorers of this region between 1882 and 1888—revealed to
the world the amazing wealth of mammalian life in this region,
formerly so abundant as to rival in this respect the South Africa of
the early 19th century. Not long after the definite establishment of
a British administration, measures were taken to preserve this
wonderful fauna from a too rapid extinction at the hands both of
European and of native hunters; and game reserves were established.

But perhaps the most important feat performed by the British
Government, and one which has irradiated good as an exemplar and as
a transport agency over all East and Central Africa, was the
building of the Uganda railway between 1897 and 1903. The railway
commences at Mombasa, with another station at the great harbour of
Kilindini on the south side of Mombasa Island, and pursues a course
of 585 miles till it reaches the head of Kavirondo Gulf on the
north-east of the Victoria Nyanza. Before long it will no doubt be
extended through Kavirondo and Busoga till it attains the Victoria
Nile and links up with railways which are being made from the
birthplace of that river to the Albert Nyanza and Gondokoro. The
Uganda railway, so early as the commencement of the 20th century,
enabled European tourists and settlers to penetrate far into Eastern
Africa, and thus brought to public notice what had for some time
past been realised by a few individuals—the fact that a good deal of
the interior of British East Africa is a high and healthy plateau,
possessing a very good climate, a kind of mild, perpetual summer,
but invigorating, genial, and sufficiently rainy to support an
abundant vegetation, In British East Africa there are, in fact,
scattered areas of relatively-uninhabited, healthy upland amounting
in all to about 30,000 square miles, uninhabited at the beginning of
the 20th century because the native population had either been
dispersed or exterminated by intertribal wars and famines, or found
the climate too cold and preferred the lower-lying lands. At one
time there was a project of offering a region about the size of
Wales, carved out of these plateaus, to the distressed Russian,
Rumanian, and Galician Jews through the Jewish Territorial
Organization Committee. But the offer was foolishly declined by that
body, and it is most unlikely it will ever be renewed, for, no
sooner was the South African War over, than Boer settlers to the
number of 600 or 700 with their wives and families proceeded to this
interior part of East Africa and began to take up land from the
British Government. Before and subsequent to their arrival there
came not a few British for the same purpose, and at the present day
there is a settled white population in British East Africa numbering
at least 2000. Without injustice to the indigenous peoples, there is
no reason why some 30,000 square miles of East Africa should not be
set aside for white settlement and nourish in course of time a
sturdy population of three or four millions, which might prove to be
a very potent factor in the politics of Equatorial Africa. It is not
to be supposed that this region is without disease, but the disease
arises not from the climate, but from the co-existence of black men
with germs in their blood, and mosquitoes, ticks, and tsetse flies,
whose odious purpose in life is to transfer these germs from the
blood of one man to that of another. But the mosquito is often
absent from both the high and the dry parts of East Africa, and in
that case germ-diseases cannot be spread, or it is possible by
cultivating the land to get rid of this and other pests. No doubt
also in the plans which will be adopted for the eventual settlement
of the whole country, some policy of segregation will be adopted,
separating to a certain extent the colonies of the white man and of
the British Indian. For, amongst other things which are happening as
the result of the British development of East Africa, is the
in-pouring of a number of British Indian colonists, and even of
Persians; and this Asiatic population shows every sign of
prospering. It would be more reasonable, however, to reserve for
Asiatic colonization the vacant lands near the coast and in the more
northern parts of the Protectorate, which are hot and low-lying, and
therefore unsuited to European settlement, but which would be well
adapted for the cultivation of cotton and grain crops and the
rearing of cattle by agricultural colonies of Asiatics.

----------------------------------------------------------------

BRITISH AFRICA

Plate V.

EXPLANATORY NOTE

Colonies, Protectorates, Spheres of Influence or Control

[red] _In 1815_ (_This darker colour in Cape Colony represents the
extreme extent of Dutch South Africa when taken over by
the British_)

[pink] _In 1912_ (_Pink bars imply uncertainty of possession_)

----------------------------------------------------------------

-----

Footnote 192:

The dynasty of Muhammad Ali may be said to have begun in 1841, in
which year it was recognised and made hereditary by Turkey; but
Muhammad Ali was the ruler of Egypt (as Pasha) from 1811, after
the slaughter of the Mamluk Beys. His sons and son-in-law
conquered for him Syria and Western Arabia and the northern part
of the Sudan. The conquests west of Sinai were given up in 1841
but in that year he became the Vali or Viceroy over Egypt and the
Sudan, the succession to that post to fall to his male
descendants. His immediate successor was his grandson Abbas bin
Tusūn; then followed the rule of his favourite son, Said bin
Muhammad. Said was succeeded in 1863 by his nephew Ismail, son of
Ibrahim, the reputed eldest son of Muhammad Ali. But according to
some accounts Ibrahim, the great conqueror, was only the adopted
son of Muhammad Ali. The present Khedive of Egypt is the
great-grandson of Ibrahim, but he is also descended from Muhammad
Ali through his mother, Princess Amina, who was the
great-great-granddaughter of Muhammad Ali through Tusūn. The title
of Khedive (a Persian word meaning prince) was conferred on the
Pasha or Viceroy of Egypt in 1867.

Footnote 193:

This was a revolt against Egyptian rule, taxation, and
interference with the slave trade, started by an Arab fanatic born
in the Dongola district who was named Muhammad Ahmad, but called
himself the Mahdi or Messiah. His first successes were amongst the
ignorant Muhammadans of Kordofan who had grown to loathe the
exactions of Turkish (i.e. Egyptian) rule. Muhammad Ahmad died in
1885 and was succeeded by his Lieutenant, the Khalifa
Abdallah-al-Taaisha. His fanatical followers were usually called
the “Dervishes.” Muhammad Ahmad’s forces captured Al-Obeid the
capital of Kordofan in January 1883, and overwhelmed nine months
later a force of 10,000 men under Hicks Pasha sent by the Egyptian
Government to recover the Western Sudan from anarchy. Hicks Pasha
(Colonel William Hicks) was an officer of the Indian Army who had
served with distinction in the Mutiny and had fought in the
Abyssinian campaign of 1867-8. In 1882 he entered the Khedive’s
service as Chief of the Staff in the Sudan, recaptured the Sennar
country from the Mahdists, and might have suppressed the whole
rebellion and obviated Gordon’s mission and all subsequent
disasters if he had been allowed a free hand by the Egyptian
ministry at Khartum. Out of his force of 8000 fighting men and
2000 camp followers, all but 300 were slain at Kashgil on the
fatal day of November 5, 1883.

Footnote 194:

This phrase first made its appearance in a pamphlet issued by the
late Sir Edwin Arnold in 1876 and was revived by the author of
this book in an article in the _Times_ of August 10, 1888.

Footnote 195:

Taken by the Italians from the Dervishes in 1894 and restored to
Anglo-Egyptian control in 1897.

Footnote 196:

Placed under British protection in 1884.

Footnote 197:

The first British Agent (for the East India Company) and Consul
General at Zanzibar was appointed in 1841.

Footnote 198:

Uganda will probably continue to be the general name for this
protectorate; but the correct form of the word is _Buganda_. This
rendering is now reserved for the native kingdom or province of
Buganda, while the Swahili version of the term—Uganda—is applied
to the whole protectorate of five provinces.

Footnote 199:

Kabarega was the son and successor of the Kamasi who had so
persecuted the Bakers, Emin, Casati and other travellers.

Footnote 200:

The work of this Special Commission was additional to and
confirmatory of the efforts of Sir Henry Colvile, Mr Ernest
Berkeley, Mr F. G. Jackson (since Governor of Uganda), Mr George
Wilson and Colonel Trevor Ternan (Commissioners or Acting
Commissioners) to found a stable confederation of warlike and
peaceful negro peoples, to combat famine and disease caused by
intertribal wars, and to extend the boundaries of this
protectorate northwards to the navigable Nile.

Footnote 201:

The Kabaka of Buganda has been, down to 1912, a minor under a
native regency. He is descended from a dynasty which has
apparently ruled in Buganda since a period contemporary with the
reign of Henry IV in England. This dynasty, like most others in
Equatorial East Africa, appears to have been founded by a man of
Gala descent.

Footnote 202:

The Protectorate now contains seven provinces and a northern tract
of territory not yet organized. The narrow coast-belt from Lamu to
the Umba River is leased from the Sultan of Zanzibar for a payment
of £17,000 per annum.