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.