Chapter II: Sir John Kirk at Home

Zanzibar, an island lying about twenty miles off the East Coast of Africa, under the sixth parallel south of the equator (I feel bound to furnish this information in the prevailing state of ignorance respecting African geography), has long been a nucleus of foreign rule along the eastern seaboard of the Dark Continent. Without going into the questions of its remote history, and considering whether it was or whether it was not distinctly known to the hazy geographers of classical days, we can feel pretty certain that, for nearly as many centuries as form the Christian Era, Zanzibar has been a place of resort for the Arab and Persian traders and slave-dealers of the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the coasts of Sind and Gujerat. There was at one time a distinct Persian colonization of the East African littoral to the north of Zanzibar, and apparently also in Zanzibar itself, though here the intermixture of Persian blood in the local race is in no way as evident as in places on the mainland, such as Lamu, Malindi, or Magdishu. However, even in Zanzibar, distinct traces of Fire Worship remain engrafted on the African Mohammedanism of the inhabitants. After several centuries of _quasi_ Arab rule, Zanzibar in the beginning of the sixteenth century came under the dominion of the Portuguese, whose language has left its traces in the Swahili vocabulary. When Portugal fell into the power of Spain, and her hold on Abyssinia and the Eastern Horn of Africa waned and faded, the Arabs reasserted their independence in Zanzibar, and the island remained in the possession of various Arab chiefs till the end of the last century, when the Imam of Maskat proclaimed and maintained his suzerainty over Pemba, Zanzibar, and the neighbouring coast.

In 1841, the East India Company first established relations with the ruler of Zanzibar, who had assumed the title of “Sayyid,” or Lord of the Island. He was at the same time Sovereign of ’Oman, that East Arabian principality of which Maskat is the capital. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, the first British representative at the Court of Zanzibar, remained many years at his post, and was still in East Africa when Burton undertook his pioneer journey to the Lake regions. On his death General Rigby succeeded him as Consul-General and Political Agent, and was in turn followed by several officials whose residence in the island was of short duration. At length, in 1873, Sir John Kirk, who had first come to Zanzibar as Vice-Consul in 1866, and who had for some years acted in a superior capacity, received his formal appointment to the post of Consul-General, and later on attained the further office of Political Agent. Sir John Kirk, who comes of an old Forfarshire family, was educated primarily as a doctor, and served as a physician to the British hospital at Renkioi, Dardanelles, during the Crimean War; but already, both at the University and during his service abroad, his taste and aptitude for natural history had so developed that he little cared to make the medical profession his ultimate career. In 1858 he accepted the post of naturalist to Dr. Livingstone’s expedition to the Zambesi. When he arrived at the mouth of this river, the circumstances of the expedition were such that it became necessary for Dr. Kirk (as he then was) to lay his studies of natural history aside, and assume the arduous position of second in command, and direct personally the conduct of the land party. It was largely owing to his exertions and untiring labour that the unfortunate Zambesi Expedition was not an even costlier experiment than it eventually proved; and Dr. Livingstone found in his colleague and second in command a mainstay and help in several critical emergencies wherein the rest of his staff were of little service.

Shortly after his return from the Zambesi Dr. Kirk was offered the post of Vice-Consul at Zanzibar, and thus entered the service in which he rose successively to the ranks of Consul, Consul-General, and Political Agent. In 1878 he was made C.M.G., and in 1881 he was knighted.

There is no one living or dead who has so profoundly influenced the condition of Eastern Africa as Sir John Kirk. To him more than to any one else is owing the effective repression of slave-trading; and it is only quite recently that the full consequences of his steady anti-slavery policy began to appear and develop themselves into a healthy and beneficent solution of a difficult African problem. When Sir John first arrived in Zanzibar the Arab ruler of the island, the so-called Sultan, was little more than _primus inter pares_. He was recognized as “Sayyid,” or Lord, of Zanzibar, by the Arab nobles and traders, but his authority was most uncertain. Many of his subjects thought themselves 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 defiance, 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 confidence 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 conformity 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 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 departure, and overtook him in a rapid despatch-boat before he reached Aden. An amusing incident is recorded of Sayyid Barghash during the _séance_ 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.”

SIR JOHN KIRK AT HOME.

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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 in life, are now animating so many old European nations, there is no reason why England should act as a political midwife, and assist in bringing to birth their late-born children, or neglect the wants of her own large family in order that her neighbours’ weaklings may not die of inanition.

Fig. 3.—Mtépé (with mat sail).
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One of the firmest resolves of Sir John Kirk has been to keep Eastern Africa between 10° N. and 10° S. clear of foreign influences, and so to hold this littoral through our nominee, the present Sayyid, that whenever the cold fit shall be off and the hot wave of further colonization flow on again—whenever the irresistible spreading of the English people compels it to look towards fresh fields of enterprise—Zanzibar, city, island, and coast, may not be found in hands hostile to British trade. To Sir John Kirk alone we owe it that the Government of Portugal has not now included the important Rovuma river in its East African possessions; and the same person is responsible for having, with one English frigate, driven away the whole Egyptian fleet under McGillup Pasha, when, acting under secret orders from the Egyptian Government, the Khedive’s East African Expedition proceeded to annex, occupy, and fortify the principal ports in the Sayyid’s continental dominions. About the manifold checks that French ambition and “protecting” zeal[6] have received in these Zangian regions I need not dilate, as they are questions involving political feelings of some acerbity at the present time, and would therefore be out of place in this book. But I might further recall to my readers that it is to the personal exertions of the British Agent and Consul-General that Zanzibar owes its line of telegraph, its mail service, its hospital, its observatory, its standing army (officered and commanded by Englishmen), its horticultural development, its projected sanitary reform, and possibly also the scarcely less precious introductions of lawntennis and afternoon tea.

Fig. 4.

Small Mtépé and Outrigger Canoe.
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The British Agency and Consulate-General in the town of Zanzibar is a handsome Arab house standing towards the southern end of the city, and just overhanging the sea, which at high tide lashes its protecting wall. The style of exterior and interior is purely Arab, or, to use a more accepted term in architecture, Saracenic. Entering from the narrow streets an iron gateway, you come into the grateful shade of a small garden, planted with spreading mimosas, cocoanut palms, and mangoes, and through the interstices of the foliage you look up at the high grey-white walls of the house, which are scarcely relieved in their monotony by the small and shuttered windows. The doorway is regularly Eastern, quite a “Sublime Porte” in miniature. Broad, shallow steps lead up to it, forming an admirably-arranged _mise-en-scène_ for the grouping of white-clothed “Sikari” (consular guards) and Indian suppliants in gaudy costumes. The frame of the door, which is itself garnished with immense copper nails, is delicately and intricately carved in black wood, with arabesque designs and letter scrolls.

Entering here, you come upon a small recess, with ogival niches round the walls—a sort of anteroom—and from this a winding staircase ascends to the first-floor, when you find yourself in the interior gallery surrounding the four sides of the _patio_, or hollow square, which is the ground-plan of most Saracenic buildings. From the centre of the _patio_ rises a graceful areca-palm, which contrasts pleasingly with the formal arches of the gallery. The house ascends to several storeys, and is surmounted by flat terraces of varying height; but round the _patio_, on the first-floor, the principal dwelling-rooms are ranged. These are all Arab in character—narrow, high-pitched, lighted with little windows with deep embrasures. The walls are dead white, cut into by false arches of slightly horse-shoe shape, forming alternate recesses wherein shelves of pottery, bookcases, or cabinets may be placed. Within the arches, too, are further niches, cut deeper into the wall, with a carved stone tracery at the back to let in air. These give an effect of lightness to the somewhat massive walls, and the little points of light gleaming through the windows of cut stone act as a _point de mire_ in each recess. There are no pictures on the walls; nothing but coruscations of Oriental pottery, all of it got from Zanzibar and the neighbouring coast. The amount of beautiful Persian, Moorish, and even Chinese pottery and porcelain to be found in Zanzibar is really surprising. Much of it is hoarded up by old Arab families, who have kept it for generations in their households, and it only sees the light in occasional bankruptcies and auction sales. On many parts of this Zangian coast pottery is fastened into the walls of mosques or plastered on to tombs, whence—I say it with regret—Europeans do not hesitate to “loot” it, under the pretext that if they do not the degenerate descendants of the Oriental settlers will. At places like Lamu the most tasteful Persian porcelain, rich in colour and very old, was to be easily picked up but a short while ago, though the sudden rush of greedy travellers has diminished the supply. Much of this Persian pottery—great bowls of gorgeous tints, blue and gold plates, vases and cups—decorate the walls of the Consulate, and lend colour and brightness to its apartments.

A CORRIDOR IN SIR JOHN KIRK’S HOUSE.

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Fig. 6.—Arab Dau.
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The windows of two sides of the house look forth on the sea, and command the entire harbour. All the shipping becomes a study of ever-changing colour and form. The great black hulks of the steamers, surmounted by their tall masts and funnels; the snow-sails of the daus coming into port; the “mtépé,” or native barque, with a huge sail made of matting; the dismantled daus, with their brown rigging and masts and folded sails, lying at anchor in the blue still water: and the multitude of tiny craft, canoes with outriggers, and the canoes that are simple dugouts—all these form, together with the flags of many nations and the bright costumes of the native sailors, the blue sky, with its rolling cumulus-clouds, the placid sea, and the green islands on its horizon, an infinitely diversified panorama, rather than a picture, but a cheerful scene, full of bright activity, and a pleasant field of contemplation to an idle man in a rocking-chair on a shady balcony, who is able to rest inactive in his cool retreat, and watch the busy work going on around him.

Fig. 7.

Fishing Boat and Outrigger Canoe.
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Fig 8.—A Saracenic Doorway.
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If you look from the verandah of the Consulate towards the town of Zanzibar you have a scene of much picturesqueness and colour, and one which, focussed and framed by the lattice-work that is hung with creeping plants, becomes a real picture. You see the ships in the harbour, the canoes and rowing-boats skimming in and out among the large vessels, then lines of daus all drawn up along the shore of white sand, with busy crowds of men working round and about them, some unloading, some repairing, some looking idly on, others stripping for a bathe and playing at a peculiar game in the water, round the hulls of the half-floated daus, which consists in turning a somersault and bringing your legs down with a smack on your companions’ backs. Indeed, the absence of all social restraint on the shore at Zanzibar might occasionally ruffle the sensibilities of those of our weaker sex who are supposed to be shocked at seeing life under somewhat primitive conditions. There are no “bathing regulations” at Zanzibar, and the beach immediately below the Consular windows is the favourite resort of “natives,” who in complete nudity gaily chase each other along the silver strand, or plunge into the tiny billows and the black ooze of the nether shore. Indeed, the number of Indians who seem to choose the purlieus of the British Consulate for performing their ablutions (doubtless because they look upon it as a right of British subjects to bathe under their Consul’s eye) render it necessary sometimes to despatch a Sikari for the purpose of driving the nude Hindoos to remoter shores, for should the Consul be entertaining the lady residents of Zanzibar at afternoon tea on the balcony, it is somewhat embarrassing for their gaze continually to encounter, not the black glistening forms of the burly negroes on whom nakedness sits with decency, but the yellow and obese Hindoos, who, with the figures and demeanour of middle-aged aldermen, are paddling up to their ankles with the innocence and unconcern of early childhood.

Fig. 10.—A View over the Housetops.
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The buildings of Zanzibar along the shore-line are gifted with an adventitious beauty which is derived from contrasts of colour, and light, and shade. The Sultan’s clock-tower, which rises like a minaret above the flat-roofed houses, is in reality a structure of vulgar, tasteless design, but seen from a distance with its ugliness softened down, it lends considerable point to the harbour view of Zanzibar. The other buildings are little remarkable for elegance of exterior shape, but, being all whitewashed or of light-coloured stone, they form under the sun’s rays a snowy, irregular mass, the outline of which tells out effectively against a deep blue or a storm-grey sky, and is here and there relieved by the green cocopalms or the flags of the Sultan’s palace and the different Consulates.

ZANZIBAR HARBOUR FROM THE CONSULATE.

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This view at sunset becomes really beautiful. The eastern sky is a sombre blue-grey, and the water of the harbour reflects the same tint, unvaried in the evening stillness by a ripple. The long headland of dark green forest, which stretches out into the sea, lends a deepening tone to the darkened water and sky, and forms with them an effective foil, a neutral background to the white tower and the mass of white buildings which, turned towards the west, reflect on their sympathetic surfaces the warm glow of the sunset. In the daytime, under the blaze of a vertical sun, these houses of Zanzibar are disagreeably dazzling, but now, in this one quiet half-hour of the short evening, they glow with a soft pink radiance, and their tender blush-colour is heightened by its background of strangely-coloured eastern sky which, first becoming sombre blue with the sinking sun, for a brief while grows green with jealousy of the west and partial reflection of the sunset, and offers a complementary contrast to the houses at their pinkest. Then, along the shore, and on the blue bay, the shipping, turned towards the warm light of evening, loses its blackness and distinct outlines, and fuses into dusky brown, the mazes of masts and rigging seeming to part with their perspective and to stick together in one indistinct mass. As the shadows deepen and the rose-tinted houses fade into dull grey, the stages of the Sultan’s tower are picked out with yellow lamps, and suddenly from the summit gleams out in cold radiance a star of more than first magnitude—Sayyid Barghash has fitted up his clock-tower with the electric light.

Any one visiting Sir John Kirk at home will hardly have set foot in his house many hours without remarking the arrival of an Indian gentleman in a suit of white clothes of half Asiatic, half European cut, with a magnificent gold-embroidered turban, a watch-chain, a ring, and an umbrella. This is Pira Doji, incorrectly known on board the mail steamers as “The Prime Minister of Zanzibar.” He is really an astute Indian trader, who by his capacity for business and exceptional talents as a _raconteur_, has known how to obtain a very large share of the “Sultan’s” confidence and esteem. Pira Doji is a most useful man to Sayyid Barghash. Without in reality attaining the position of Prime Minister or Grand Vizier (the Sayyid has no Ministers, and therefore rules cheaply), he has yet become a sort of financial adviser to the Prince of Zanzibar, and is at the same time head-waiter at State dinners, man-of-business, negotiator in delicate matrimonial affairs, and the picker-up and retailer of all the town news. If Sayyid Barghash is mentioned in the _Times_, Pira forthwith goes to the “Sultan” with a copy of the passage scored round with red chalk. If a European resident in Zanzibar sprains his ankle, or beats his cook, the “Sultan” likewise hears of it through the same source. Consequently all new arrivals at the Consulate become objects of interest to Pira, as likely to furnish “paragraphs” for his princely gossip. If ever a “Society” paper is founded in Zanzibar, it will have Pira Doji for its editor.

His Highness Sayyid Barghash having then heard of our arrival, and as much of our disposition, antecedents, present intentions, and future plans as Pira can glean from the Consul’s household, it becomes incumbent on us to present ourselves, or get our Consul to present us, at one of the Sultan’s Friday levées.

Drawn up before his tawdry palace (a ricketty building of many storeys, of no style whatever, and of execrable taste) is a smart-looking regiment of the New Zanzibar army, the men in white uniform, with red and yellow caps, and the officers in white trousers and magnificently embroidered tunics. At their head stands their organizer and Commander-in-Chief, General Matthews, who gives the order to present arms as the Consular party draws near. Then the Goanese band strikes up “God save the Queen,” and we risk a sunstroke by walking through the serried ranks of soldiers with our helmets raised above our heads. In the entry to the palace more guards, Persian and Baluch, are assembled, and there are crowds of Arabs in gala costumes. Preceded by a kind of Master of the Ceremonies, we pass along corridors and apartments furnished in the Neo-Oriental (bastard French) style, and then ascend a strangely mean and poky staircase covered with scraps of faded kamptulicon. As we emerge on a small landing, coming up, as it were, from a stage trap, a tall, portly Arab leans over the stair-rail, and extends to each in turn a firm, plump hand. It is Sayyid Barghash come to greet his visitors half way; and though his cordial way of taking you by the hand and hoisting you up is merely a piece of formal courtesy, still it is of material assistance to you in emerging from the trap-like staircase. Preceded by the Sayyid, we are ushered into a long, narrow reception-room of Arab shape but later French decoration. Except for the fine Persian carpet which goes the whole length of the apartment, there is little to note that is pleasing to a critical eye. The furniture is red velvet and gilt wood. Round the walls are ranged medley assemblages of kitchen clocks, ormolu timepieces, aneroid barometers, thermometers, anemometers, telescopes, opera-glasses, musical-boxes, swords, spears, guns, pistols, toys of ingenious kinds, photographic albums, photographs glazed and framed and faded, and what not else. The upper end of the room, where the “Sultan” ordinarily sits, has a large mirror in the centre, and on either side of the mirror is a full-length oil painting of Sayyid Barghash. These two paintings are identical in every detail. They were manufactured in Paris. The Sayyid had a photograph taken of himself during his visit to London. It was in a sitting posture. He sent it to Paris with the order that it was to be enlarged standing, and then converted into two oil paintings. The Parisian artist, in no way at a loss, cut off the head of the sitting Sultan and stuck it on to the decapitated portrait of some Algerian Arab photographed erect. The combination was enlarged, and in due time gave rise to the two oil paintings in the palace at Zanzibar.

Sayyid Barghash bin Sa’id, the Prince of Zanzibar, Pemba, and the Zangian coast, is a man of about forty-five, as far as an Arab’s age may be guessed. He is tall, somewhat corpulent, and not unhandsome. Were it not that his face betrays the traces of a too uxorious life, and that he has for some reason lately cut off his moustache and trimmed his beard to resemble an English tradesman’s, he might even be called good-looking. His complexion is clear, his eyes large and fine, though faded with excesses, and his teeth white and perfect. The Sultan’s feet are just of that ideal type that Sir Frederick Leighton loves to paint, and which, until I saw them peeping from Sayyid Barghash’s sandals, I never believed to exist. The feet and hands of the Sultan of Zanzibar are the most beautifully formed I ever saw in a man, and he is justly proud of them; but alas! his symmetry ends at his ankles, for he is afflicted with elephantiasis—a not uncommon disease in Zanzibar, and his limbs are swollen and misshapen. Though he speaks no languages but Arabic and Swahili, he is a better-read man than many a contemporary Eastern Sovereign, and even aspires to the honours of an author.

Fig. 11.—Zanzibar Orchids.
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One day four or five servants of the Sultan arrived at the Consulate, bearing about a dozen volumes of a work in Arabic. This was Part I. of a Digest of Mohammedan Jurisprudence written by the Sultan, and presented with his compliments to the British Agent. In conversation, Sayyid Barghash is often sprightly, and all that he says is marked by intelligence and good sense. He is simple in his diction, for an Arab, and sometimes baffles verbose flatterers by his curt replies. I may remind my readers here of a little incident commented on at the time of the Sayyid’s visit to England. At his first meeting with Lord Beaconsfield that statesman thought to set him at his ease by addressing him in somewhat high-flown Oriental parlance, and met him with the enigmatic question, “Which does your Highness prefer, flowers or jewels?” “I fail to see any connection between them,” replied Sayyid Barghash in all simplicity.

Fig. 12.—Kigelia Africana.
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An interview with the Ruler of Zanzibar, then, is not of that _fade_ character which characterizes a ceremonial visit to most Oriental sovereigns. He poses you with many shrewd questions, and when the reception is over, the coffee and rose-sherbet drunk, and the Sayyid hands you down the well-like staircase, and you depart with the band playing “Rule Britannia,” you feel that you have met a man who, had he received anything like an education, and had been trained by civilized ideas of morality to conceal, if not to bridle, his unruly passions, would have made no mean figure among the world’s rulers and statesmen.

Sayyid Barghash is the son of the last joint ruler of Maskat and Zanzibar—Sayyid Sa’id. His mother was an Abyssinian woman. He has nearly a hundred wives and five or six children, one son only among them. He is brother to the present Imam of Maskat. His income is approximately 300,000_l._ a year, mostly derived from Customs duties.

Zanzibar, the chief town of his dominions, known as Unguja to the inhabitants, has a population of about 90,000. As regards trade it is the most flourishing and important place in East Africa, and the value of its exports exceeds at the present time 1,300,000_l._, of which ivory alone contributes 400,000_l._ The value of the imports is about 1,000,000_l._, and they chiefly consist of cotton stuffs, kerosene oil, and rice. About 6,000 British subjects reside in the town, mostly Indians, and in their hands lie the whole retail and most of the wholesale trade.

Fig. 13.—A Street in Zanzibar.
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The streets of Zanzibar are paved with a sort of coral “ray,” sometimes cemented over, and are generally, from the nature of their paving, clean and inodoriferous. They are very narrow, and the houses in the Arab quarters are lofty, so that you may walk about most of the town in perfect shade. There are few really handsome buildings externally, yet many of the portals to the houses and mosques are gracefully designed in Saracenic style. Considerable Persian influence is evident in the general architecture and interior decoration of the mosques and larger buildings, and the Persian pointed arch (different in shape from the Syrian or the Moorish) is constantly met with. In fact, to a student of Saracenic architecture, Zanzibar and the Zangian coast are very interesting, as they offer not only buildings of great age, some of the mosques dating back to the tenth century of our era, but of archaic style, recalling most unmistakably the kind of architecture met with in Saracenic monuments in Spain of the same age, showing thus how universal with the early Arab rule was that distinct architectural style which they developed from the late Byzantine. Just as there are words in Portuguese and Swahili[7] derived from a common Arabic origin, so the resemblance between the architecture in Southern Portugal and Spain with that of Zanzibar may be explained by recalling the fact that the Iberian Peninsula and the Zangian coast both formed at one time extremities of Arab rule. While Zanzibar, however, resembles any other Eastern city, and differs little in outward aspect from Aleppo or Jaffa, yet the island to which it gives its name is thoroughly tropical African in its virgin state. The vegetation is rank and rich, and nearly every genus of the tropical African flora is represented among its plants. There are a few orchids, supposed to be peculiar, and possibly one or two ferns. Many trees have been introduced from India, and flourish in a way that exceeds their development in the mother-country. Magnificent mangoes are planted all over the island, and the fruit they yield is justly celebrated for its flavour of strawberries and cream. Of course pine-apples, oranges, limes, and cocoanuts abound, and fruit here may be had all the year round in constant variety and great quantity. Many remarkable and many very beautiful productions in African flora, though by no means peculiar to this island, may be observed and studied here with greater facility than on the mainland. Of such are the magnificent blue _Clitorea_, the extraordinary _Kigelia Africana_, the exquisitely lovely _Hibiscus schizopetalus_, the _Crinum_ lilies, and the gorgeous-leaved Crotons. The zoology of Zanzibar is purely African in its character, as far as it is yet known. Being separated but a few miles from the mainland, its birds and insects differ little, if at all, from the parent fauna. It possesses, however, at least two species (in common with its sister isle of Pemba) of peculiar mammals, viz. the _Galago Zanzibariensis_ (a kind of Lemuroid), and a handsome monkey, the _Colobus Kirkii_. This latter, as its name indicates, was brought to light by Sir John Kirk; it was also extinguished by his means. Like most great men who have helped to extend the British Empire, Sir John has one dark blot on his escutcheon. Warren Hastings exterminated the Rohillas, Governor Eyre was accused of too summarily suppressing the Maroons; Sir John Kirk, more, perhaps, in the interests of British science than of British rule, has entirely destroyed an innocent species of monkey. The _Colobus Kirkii_ had disappeared from nearly every part of the island of Zanzibar, but a rumour prevailed that it still lingered in a clump of forest as yet unvisited by hunters. Thither Sir John sent his _chasseurs_ to report on the monkey’s existence. After a week’s absence they returned, triumph illumining their swarthy lineaments. “Well, did you find them?” asked the British Consul-General. “Yes,” replied the men with glee, “and we killed them every one!” Wherewith twelve monkey corpses were flung upon the floor, and _Colobus Kirkii_ joined the Dodo, the Auk, the Rhytina and the Moa in the limbo of species extinguished by the act of man.

THE BAY OF MBWÉNI.

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When Sir John Kirk gets conscience-troubled, and the _manes_ of the avenging _Colobi_ (as negroes would believe) tamper with his health; when Zanzibar gets stuffy and feverish, and the official routine tryingly monotonous: he steals away, often on foot, to a little paradise he has created among the groves of Mbwéni, a tiny settlement on the coast of the island. Here he lives a life that is to him ideally happy. He chats with his tenants, who lead Arcadian lives of nothing to do and plenty to eat; he wanders in a shooting-coat amid the groves of coco-palms and the clumps of pandanus that border the sea; he photographs; and, above all, he gardens. Here, among his Cycads and his Orchids, his Ensetes and his Dracænas, spade in hand, a wide-awake hat on his head, a rare flower in his button-hole, and rustic contentment irradiating his face—here, amid scenery which typifies a botanist’s paradise, Sir John Kirk is emphatically At Home.

Fig. 15.—Colobus Kirkii.
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