Footnote 67: It is hardly necessary to correct in these days the error of Carsten Niebuhr, who made the ‘Belludges’ (Baloch) a tribe of Arabs. The Baloch mercenaries will be found further noticed in Part II. chap. vi. Footnote 68: Wellsted’s Travels in Arabia, vol. ii. p. 403. This author exposes, without seeming to know that he was doing so, the selfish and short- sighted policy of the H. E. I. Company which wanted a squadron subsidiary to its own. Footnote 69: The consular report of 1860 gives an aggregate value of the port trade at £1,667,577, viz.: imports £908,911, and exports (information furnished by the mercantile community, and evidently much understated) £758,666. Footnote 70: Commercial Reports, received at the Foreign Office from H. M.’s Consuls, between July 1, 1863, and June 30, 1864. London, Harrison and Co. In 1862 the revenue of Maskat was computed to reach the very respectable cipher of £1,065,640 per annum. Footnote 71: Report of Select Committee appointed to inquire into the whole question of the slave trade on the East coast of Africa. CHAPTER VII. A CHRONICLE OF ZANZIBAR.—THE CAREER OF THE LATE ‘IMAM,’ SAYYID SAID. ‘Mais, comme le livre n’est point une œuvre de fantaisie, comme il traite de questions sérieuses, et qu’il s’addresse à des intérêts durables, je me résigne, pour lui, à l’inattention du moment, et j’attendrai patiemment pour que l’avenir lui ramène son heure, lui refasse, pour ainsi dire, une nouvelle opportunité.’—M. GUILLAIN. There is little of interest in the annals of Oman and of her colonies. Fond of genealogy, the modern Arabs are perhaps the most incurious of Orientals in the matter of history: they ignore the past, they disregard the present, and they have a superstitious aversion to speak of the future. Lawless and fanatical, treacherous, blood-thirsty and eternally restless, the Omani races, whose hand is still against every man, have converted their chronicles into a kind of Newgate Calendar, whilst the multitude of personages that appear upon the scene, and the perpetual rising and falling of Imams, princes, and grandees, offer to the reader a mere string of proper names. Ample details concerning Maskat will be found in the pages of Capt. Hamilton, Carsten Niebuhr, Wellsted, and Salíl ibn Razík,[72] to mention no others. Zanzibar has ever been, since historic times, connected with Oman, whose fortunes she has reflected; the account of the distant dependency given by travellers is, therefore, as might be expected, scanty and obscure.