I proceed now to the practical part of this chapter, namely, the actual visits of inspection to Zanzibar, and their results. Until the end of the last century, our knowledge was derived almost entirely from those ‘domini Orientalis Africæ,’ the Portuguese. The few exceptions were Sir James Lancaster, who opened to the English the Orient seas. He wintered at the island in 1591; Captain Alexander Hamilton (new account of the East Indies, 1688-1723, Hakluyt’s Collection, viii. 258); and M. Saulnier de Mondevit, commanding the king’s Corvette, La Prévoyance. The latter, who, in 1786, visited the principal points of Zanzibar, published a chart with ‘Observations sur la côte du Zangueibar’ (Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, vol. vi.), and recommended a French establishment at ‘Mongalo.’ In February, 1799, Captain Bissel, R.N., commanding H. M.’s ship Orestes, with the Leopard carrying Admiral Blankett’s flag, touched at the island for refreshments when beating up against the N. E. monsoon towards the Red Sea. He briefly but faithfully described its geography, and he laid down sailing directions which to this day are retained in Horsburgh. Since then many coasting voyages have been made by naval officers and others, who collected from natives, with more or less fidelity, details concerning the inner country. As early as 1811, Captain Smee and Lieutenant Hardy were sent by the Bombay government to gather information on the eastern seaboard of Africa, and they brought back sundry novel details (Transactions Bombay Geographical Society, 1844, p. 23, &c.). Between the years 1822-1826 the whole coast line was surveyed by Captain (afterwards Admiral) W. F. Owen, and by his officers, Captains Vidal, Boteler, and others. Their charts and plans of the littoral, despite sundry inaccuracies, such as placing Zanzibar Island five miles west of its proper position, excited general attention, and were justly termed by a modern author miranda tabularum series. During this Herculean labour, which occupied three years, some 300 of the officers and crew fell victims to the climate of the Coast, to the hardships of boat-work, and to the ferocity of the natives. In 1822 Sir Robert Townsend Fairfax, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Mauritius, after a crusade against the slave-trade in the dominions of Radáma, King of the Hovas, commissioned Captain (afterwards Admiral) Fairfax Moresby, of H. M.’s ship Menai, to draft a treaty between England and Maskat for limiting the traffic. The mission was successful. The sale of Somalis, a free people, was made piracy; and the Sayyid’s vessels were subject to seizure by the Royal, including the Company’s, cruizers, if detected carrying negroes ‘to the east of a line drawn from Cape Delgado, passing south of Socotra and on to Diu, the west point of the Gulf of Cambay.’[14] In 1822, the Sayyid’s assent having been formally accorded, Captain Moresby left the coast.