Zanzibar; city, island, and coast. Vol. 1 (of 2)Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
Zanzibar; city, island, and coast. Vol. 1 (of 2)
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Africa, East -- Description and travel; Ethnology -- Tanzania -- Zanzibar; Zanzibar -- Description and travel
The Consular corps is represented by three members, who, as usual in
these remote Oriental spots, assume, and are allowed to assume, the
position of plenipos. The first American official was Mr Richard Palmer,
who was succeeded by sundry acting men: the second was Mr Waters, who
left in 1844: then came Mr C. Ward, Mr Webb, and Mr Macmullan. Captain
Mansfield now (1859) holding office, is agent to Messrs John Bertram and
Co. of Salem. This gentleman, who took a great interest in the East
African Expedition, has had a more extensive experience of the East than
his predecessors; he has also the advantage of being respectable and
respected.
On the part of the French Government the first Consul was M. Broquant:
he died of fever and dysentery at Zanzibar, and was succeeded by M. de
Beligny, a French Creole from Santo Domingo, afterwards transferred to
Manilla and to Charleston, South Carolina. M. Vignard, a young man of
amiable manners, and distinguished in Algeria as an Arabic scholar, fell
victim to a sunstroke when voyaging from Aden, where I met him en route
for his post. The present Consul is M. Ladislas Cochet: the Chancellier
and Dragoman is M. Jablonski, Pole and poet.
Lieut.-Colonel Atkins Hamerton is, and has been, I have said, H. B.
Majesty’s Consul, and H. E. I. Company’s Agent at the Court of H. H.
Sayyid Said, since December, 1841, when we first established relations
with Zanzibar. Attached to his establishment is a passed apothecary, an
Eurasian, the only attempt at a medico on the Island. Lieut.-Colonel
Hamerton had been on terms of intimacy with Sayyid Said during a quarter
of a century; and their friendship, as happens, began with a ‘little
aversion.’ The Britisher proposed to travel in the interior from Maskat,
in those days a favourite exploration with the more adventurous; and the
Arab, suspicious as all Arabs, thinking it safest to put the intruder
out of the way, imprudently wrote a letter to that effect. This missive
fell into the hands of the person whom it most concerned: he boldly
carried it to the Prince, and reproached him in no measured terms with
his perfidy. Sayyid Said found himself overmatched, submitted to Kismat,
and, admiring the traveller’s spirit and openness, determined to win his
attachment. The two became firm friends; the Consul was the influential
adviser of the ruler, and the latter intrusted him with secrets
jealously hidden from his own. The reason why the trade of Zanzibar was
surprisingly developed under the primitive rule of an Arab Prince is not
only the immense wealth of Eastern Africa, it results mainly from the
wise measures of a man who for the greater part of his life devoted
himself to the task. It was an unworthy feeling which made M. Guillain
write of my late friend (ii. 23), ‘Bref, sa réputation est de placer
fort bien, et à beaux bénéfices, l’argent que lui donnent la reine et le
gouvernment de la compagnie’—his generosity to his family left little
after his decease.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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