Chapter XII: Section 6: The Industry of Zanzibar

The industry of Zanzibar is closely akin to nil; the same may be said of the coast—both are essentially exporting, and cannot become manufacturing centres, at least as long as the present race endures.

The principal supply is of matting and bags for merchandise: the labourers are mostly women, who thus spend the time not occupied in domestic toil. The best mats are those sent by Madagascar: the ‘native’ Simím (in Kisawahili termed Mkeka), an article upon which none but Diwans may sit, is neatly made of rush and palm-fronds from the river- side and from the low grounds of the coast; it is dyed in red patterns with madder, and the root of the Mudaa-tree boiled in water gives it a dark purple variegation. The housewives also make a rude fan, imitating that of Maskat. Materials for common mats and grain-bags are found in strips of palmated and fan-shaped leaves, cut in the jungles of the mainland, sun-dried, carefully scraped with knives, and plaited by men, women, and children. The Maskat traders buy these lengths, and sew them together with Khus, or thread made from the cocoa-leaf. The large Jámbi (mat), varying from 8 to 10 cubits long, costs about a quarter of a dollar: this is employed in bagging (in Arabic, Kafa’at, and in Kisawahili, Makándá) to defend from rain the cottons, beads, and other articles which are carried by traders into the far interior.

Cloth is fringed by Wasawahili and slaves. Many tribes, those of Chaga for instance, will not take a ‘Tobe’ without its ‘Tarázá,’ and generally when a piece of stuff is given to a wild man, he sits down and first unravels the edge. The selvage also constitutes a highly-prized ornament.

Bill-hooks (munda), coarse sword-blades (upanga), and knives (kesu); hatchets (skoka), and hoes (jembe)—the latter two diminutive, and more like playthings than working-tools—are made of imported iron, and form a staple of trade with the mainland. The European spade and the American broad axe still await introduction. Those who would explore E. Africa should supply themselves with a large stock of such hardware, and be careful not to waste them—to savages and semi-barbarians they are everywhere more precious than gold.

Split bamboo forms the brooms, and the hard material tears the plaster from the walls. A coarse pottery, which the saltness of the clay renders peculiarly brittle, is fabricated by the Wasawahili at Changani Point, and supplants the original lagenarias. Some Kumárs, or Hindustani potters, came to Zanzibar a few years ago; they suffered so severely from fever that, fancying themselves bewitched, all ran away.

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Footnote 26:

Dr Livingstone (Zambezi Expedition, x. 213) confounds these African
‘smokes’ with the blue hazy atmosphere of the ‘Indian summers’ in
America, often the result of grass-burning and prairie fires. During
an August on the Syrian coast and a December in the Brazil, I have
seen the African ‘smokes’ as well developed as at Fernando Po.

Footnote 27:

Dr Krapf (112, Missionary Travels) tells us ‘the Somali coast, from
Cape Guardafui southwards, is designated by the Arabs “Dar Ajam,” not
“Ajan” or “Azan,” as the maps wrongly have it, because no Arabic is
spoken in it.’ Dar Ajam is, I believe, a modern and incorrect phrase.

Footnote 28:

My learned and accomplished friend, Dr R. S. Charnoch (The Peoples of
Transylvania: London, Trübner, 1870, p. 28), agrees with D’Herbelot,
and from Zangi derives the racial gipsy names Czigány, It. Zingari,
Var. Cingani, Zingara, Cingari, Port. Ciganos, G. Zigeuner. But the
Zangi were and are negroes, Wasawahíli, whereas the gypsies never
were.

Footnote 29:

Foreigners—Arab, Persian, and Indian,—call them Sawáhili. They call
themselves Msawahíli in the singular, and Wasawahíli in the plural,
always accenting the penultimate syllable. In the Zangian tongues a
prefixed M is evidently an abbreviation of Mti, a tree, e. g. Názi, a
cocoa-nut, Mnázi, a cocoa-nut tree, or of Mtu, a man. Before a vowel
it is euphoniously exchanged to Mu, e. g. Muarábu, an Arab. The plural
form is Wa, a contraction of Watu, men. ‘Wá’ also is the sign of the
personal, or rather of the rational animate plural opposed to ‘Má,’
and must not be confounded with the possessive pronoun ‘Wá,’ of. Mr
Cooley (Memoir of the Lake Regions, &c., Reviewed, Stanford, 1864),
asserts that ‘Wa mtu,’ ‘of a man,’ becomes by rejection of the
singular prefix, ‘Watu,’ ‘men (des hommes):’ consequently it is an
error to call the coast people Wamrima and the mountaineers Wakilima.
If so, it is an error made by every Kisawahili-speaking man. There
are, however, tribes, for instance the Rabai and the Doruma, that do
not prefix the normal ‘Wá,’ to form a plural. A prefixed ‘Ki,’
possibly contracted from ‘kitu,’ a thing, denotes the language, e. g.
Kisawahili: it also acts diminutive, e. g. Kigito, a little mto, or
river; and it appears to have at times an adjectival sense. Opposed to
it is ‘Ji,’ an augmentative form, e. g. Jito, a big mto. U, possibly
derived from an obsolete root which survives in the Kinyika ‘Uatu’ (a
place), denotes the country, e. g. Uzaramo, Usagara, and Uzungu—Europe
the land of the Wazungu. Some names arbitrarily refuse this locative,
for instance, Khutu, Karagwah, Sanga, Bondei, and others: we never
hear Ukhutu, and so forth. ‘U’ is also a sign of abstract words, e. g.
Mzuri, a handsome man; Uzuri, beauty; Mtajíri, a merchant; Utajíri,
merchandise; Refu, long; Urefu, length. I may here remark that Captain
Speke’s analysis of Uzaramo and Usagara into U-za-ramo and U-sagara,
the country of Ramo and Gara, making them ‘obviously triple words,’ is
wholly inadmissible. The root of national and tribal names, whatever
it may be, is used only exceptionally amongst the Zangian races. Upon
this point I shall presently offer a few observations.

Footnote 30:

Captain Guillain (vol. iii. p. 107, et passim) is correct upon the
subject of the word ‘Mrima.’ Mr Cooley (Memoir on the Lake Regions,
&c., p. 8) informs us that ‘Wamrima’ (the mainland people) signifies
‘of the mainland; for it is a mistake to suppose that Mrima is but a
dialectic variation of Mlimá (read, Mlíma) hill, in its primary sense,
cultivable ground; it is, in truth, a corruption of the Arabic word
Marâ’im, signifying the land to the west, or under the setting sun.
When the early Portuguese navigators told us that the Querimba Islands
were peopled by the Morimos, we must understand by this name the
people of the mainland.’

This is an excellent illustration of how dangerous a thing is a
smattering of philology. The ‘Arabic word Marâ’im’ is absolutely
unknown to the Arabs of Zanzibar. It is evidently coined out of the
dictionary from ‘رَعَمَ observavit occidentem solem.’ I would also ask
how ‘Comazinghi is Arabic?’ (Geography, art. 15). Similarly, we find
(Journal Royal Geographical Society, xix. 190) the Somali ‘Aber’
(error for Habr) derived from the Arabic (Hebrew?) Bar, and explained
by Benú (sons), when it really signifies mother or old woman.

It may be noted that in the Kisawahili of Zanzibar, Mríma is applied
to the coast generally, especially between Mtangata and the Rufiji
River, and it is mostly synonymous with the Arabs’ ‘Bar el Moli,’
whereas Mlíma means a mountain. From the latter comes the diminutive
Kilima, a hillock, also synonymous in composition with the French
mont. It enters into many East African proper names, e. g. Kilima-
njaro, Kilima-ni, &c.

I cannot agree with Messrs Norris and Beke, despite their authority as
linguists, in stripping the national and racial names of their
inflections, e. g. Sagara for Usagara, Zaramo for Uzaramo. Mr Cooley
is equally wrong in stating that the ‘Sawáhily and the Arabs write
Nika, Zeramu, and Gogo.’ The Arabs may, the Wasawahíli do not, thus
blunder. Captain Guillain, I have remarked, is no authority. He
confounds (vol. i. p. 231) the land of Wak-wak (the Semitic Gallas)
with the South African Wamakua; and, worse still, with the ‘Vatouahs.’
And (vol. i. p. 281) he writes the well-known ‘Abban’ of the Somal,
‘Hebban.’ He also unduly neglects the peculiar initial quiescent
consonant M, e. g. (i. p. 456) ‘Foumo’ for ‘Mfumo.’ The bare root-
word, I repeat, is never used by the people, who always qualify it by
a prepositive. This, in our language Brit or Brut may be the
monosyllable upon which Briton and British are built, but it is
evidently barbarous to employ it without suffix. In the Zangian
tongues the prefixes are clearly primitive words; nouns, not as the
Rev. J. L. Doehne explains them in his Zulu-Kafir Dictionary (Cape
Town, 1857), ‘pronouns, in the present state of the language, used as
nominal forms compounded with other words.’

Footnote 31:

‘What Booken (Bukini) means I do not know.’ Wake on the Madecasses.
Journal, Anthrop. Soc. No. 28, xxxi., Dr Krapf (Kisuáheli Grammar, p.
106) uses Bukini as Madagascar generally.

Footnote 32:

Captain Guillain (vol. i. 121—139, et passim) contends, and with much
show of reason, that the Periplus was written after the days of
Ptolemy (A.D. 139 and A.D. 161). ‘Tant de lacunes dans l’œuvre du
grand géographe grec, ne semblent-elles pas assigner à son travail une
place toute naturelle entre les écrits de Marin de Tyr et le Périple?’

Footnote 33:

The daily run (مَجرا) native craft varies from 40 to 50 knots per
diem, and 50 may be assumed as an average. Captain Guillain estimates
it higher, from 48 to 60. Abulfeda gives the Majrá or δρόμος
νυχθημέρος, 100 Hashemi miles = 170 of our geographical miles, here
too high a rate unless aided by currents. Other Arab authors propose
100,000 paces = 100 Roman or Arab miles = 80 geographical miles. The
pilot Theophilus (Ptol. i. 9) rated the day and night run in these
seas at 1000 stadia = 100 miles, or two Ptolemeian degrees; the
Pelusian geographer having, I have said, reduced the degree to 500
instead of 600 stadia.

Footnote 34:

See Part II. chap. 11.

Footnote 35:

Dr Ruschenberger, I know not on what authority, says that the island
is undulated and _crossed_ by three principal ridges, whose most
elevated points are 500 feet high. My information, derived from
hearsay, however, not from actual inspection, assures me that the
waves of ground are disposed north and south.

Footnote 36:

The Bahr el Kharab, or Bad Sea, the mountains El Mulattam (the lashed
or beaten), El Nidameh (of repentance), and El Ajrad (the noisy); the
Mountains of Magnet, and the ‘Blind Billows’ and ‘Enchanted Breakers’
which, says El Masudi, make the Omani sailor of the tribe of Azd sing—

‘O Berberah and Jafuni (Ra’as Hafun), and thy warlock waves!
Jafuni and Berberah and their waves are these which thou seest!’

Footnote 37:

At Latham’s Isle was found guano, which Captain Cogan, I.N., obtained
permission to export. In 1847, however, it was washed away by a ‘Ras
de Marée.’

Footnote 38:

The temperature of the island as observed by French travellers is—

Max. (April 6 A.M. 2 morn.) 89° (F.)—Colonel 88° (F. in shade) Sykes—

Min. (October, midnight and 6 A.M.) 73° ditto 73°

Mean temperature of the year 79° 15 ditto 79·90 (extreme range
18°-19°)

The following are the results of the evaporating dish:—

Total of month Greatest in one Least in one
day of month. day.

inches. inches. inches.

January, 1857 2·36 0·09 0·04

February ” 2·19 0·10 0·05

March ” 2·49 0·09 0·06

April ” 1·76 0·10 0·03

Footnote 39:

The Consular report of 1859 gives Captain Owen’s variation.

Footnote 40:

Azyab is the classical Arab term for Cæcias (Kaikias) the N.E. wind—
according to Firuzabadi it is the S.E.; Sciron, the N.W., is the Arab
‘Shúrsh’; Lips, the S.W., is ‘Labash’; and Euros, the S.E., ‘Sh’luk’
(scirocco, which is in many places a due east wind). The N.E. is still
commonly called ‘Barráni’; in vulgar Arabic, however, men would say,
Bayn el Shimal w’el Gharb. At Zanzibar the east wind is called by the
Washawahili Zá jú—of above, and the west Phepo Mánde or Umánde—of dew
or mist.

Footnote 41:

I can only suggest that this term is borrowed from the zodiacal sign
Sagittarius.

Footnote 42:

V and F are often interchanged, as Mpumbafu (a fool), and Mfulana (a
youth), for Mpumbavu and Mvulana. Generally the Arabs of Oman and
other incorrect speakers prefer the latter, and the Wasawahili the
former, a sound which does not exist in Arabic.

Footnote 43:

Or Mbua, the B and V being confounded, like F and V. Similarly, in the
Prakrit dialects of Indra, vikh becomes bikh (poison).

Footnote 44:

This is ignored by Captain Guillain (Appendix, vol. iii.), who makes
the Wasawahili retain all the names of the Arab months.

Footnote 45:

In 1870, for instance, it was kept in Syria on the 11th of ‘Adar’
(March), old style, and on Adar 23rd, new style.

Footnote 46:

According to Captain Guillain, in 1846-7 it corresponded with August
29 (the New Year’s Day of Abyssinia and Egypt in 1844); in 1848 with
August 28; and in 1850, 51, 52 with August 27. He was also informed
that the Vuli began 20 days after the Nau-roz, and lasted 30 (Sept. 20
to Oct. 20), that the Msika (which he writes Mouaka) begins 90 days
after the 110th (Dec. 20 to March 20), and that the Mcho’o commences
20 days after the 280 (June 10 to July 1). That author, moreover,
remarks that as the new Persian calendar adds to every century 22
days, instead of our 24 days, the Nau-roz thus falls behind ours 48
hours in each hundred years. Thus between 1829 and 1879, the New
Year’s Day should occur between the 28th and 29th August.

Footnote 47:

In some cases an emetic will cut short the enemy. The allopathic
remedies are evacuants, cooling lotions applied to the head, and
sulphate of quinine (4 to 12 grains three or four times per diem),
with appropriate treatment for complications. Calomel and tartar
emetic must be avoided on account of their depressing effects. Liquor
arsenicalis and the Tinctura Warburgii (Warburg’s Drops), which is
said to have failed in yellow fever, have cured malignant, inveterate,
and chronic cases. The Persians at one time in Zanzibar besieged
Colonel Hamerton’s door for this ‘Ab-i-hayyát’—water of life. The
invaluable wet sheet and the Turkish bath were unknown at Zanzibar in
1857.

Footnote 48:

Mr Lyons M’Leod says (vol. ii. 347) that a ‘very handsome jet-black
parrot’ is to be procured there.

Footnote 49:

The χελώνη ὀρεινὴ, or mountain-tortoise of the Periplus (chap. i. 15),
may have been a turtle or terrapin. A small quantity of tortoise-shell
is sold on the island by Malagashes (Madagascarians) and Comoro men.

Footnote 50:

The iguana abounds on the West Coast of Africa, and in the Bonny
River, where the huge hideous lizard is Ju-Ju—obnoxious to the honours
of divinity.

Footnote 51:

So Dr Roschenberger mentions at Zanzibar a coluber called boa-
constrictor, and peculiar to America.

Footnote 52:

I have not seen the ‘Fishes of Zanzibar,’ published in 1867 by Lieut.-
Col. Playfair, H.M.’s Consul, and Dr Günther (Van Voorst, 1,
Paternoster Row).

Footnote 53:

The eel-shaped fishes with green bones have the reputation of causing
stomach-pains and vomiting. I may observe that the Oriental mind
readily connects venom and verdant colours.

Footnote 54:

Nází, in Kisawahili, is the fruit, Mnází the tree: in this case the
initial letter is evidently a contraction of Mti, a tree. The name for
the sun-dried meat, ‘kobra,’ is borrowed from the Hindustani ‘khopra.’

Footnote 55:

I shall speak of the clove in a subsequent chapter.

Footnote 56:

The Hindu anna, which contains four pice, is here reckoned at eight.

Footnote 57:

The mango pickles of Makdishu are described by Ibu Batutah in A.D.
1331.

Footnote 58:

Missionary of the Southern Baptist Connexion. He published a book of
Travels in Western Africa, and a Grammar and Dictionary of the Yoruba
language, printed by the Smithsonian Institution (May, 1858).

Footnote 59:

The ‘hot amourist’ pronounces this drink to be الامساک کثير

Footnote 60:

The seeds cannot easily be digested. Thus the lower regions of
Fernando Po are a thicket of guava, suggesting the Jackal-coffee of
the Neilgherries.

Footnote 61:

According to my friend Mr P. L. Simmonds (The Journal of Applied
Science) this bast fetches readily £14 to £15 per ton, and ‘although
the paper makers will buy any quantity brought to market, it is to be
regretted that they will offer no combined assistance to facilitate
the obtaining larger supplies of this important product.’

Footnote 62:

The Inzimbati (a leguminosa) and Invoulí of Capt. Guillain.

Footnote 63:

Palpably a corruption of the Portuguese Grâo—grain generally.

Footnote 64:

I have read in some book that the ‘Pywaree’ of Guiana is made from the
masticated and fermented juice of the cassava-‘flower’—probably for—
‘flour.’

Footnote 65:

I heard also of antimony on the Brazilian coast, opposite the Island
of S. Sebastião, in the Province of S. Paulo, but I have not seen any
specimens of it.