Zanzibar Tales
A. C. McClurg & Co.
1901.
To My Readers.
Thirty years ago Central Africa was what people whoare fond of airing their learning would call a terra incognita.To-day its general characteristics are pretty well known. Then, as now,the little island of Zanzibar, situated just south of the equator, onthe east coast, was the starting place of all expeditions into theinterior, and Unguja (pronounced Oon-goo′jah), the big town ofthat island, the place where the preparations for plunging into theunknown were made.
At that period these expeditions consisted, almost withoutexception, of caravans loaded with beads and cotton cloth, which wereexchanged among the inland tribes for elephants’ tusks andslaves—[6]for Unguja boasted the only, and the last, openslave-market in the world then.
The few exceptions were a would-be discoverer now and then, or aparty of rich white men going to hunt “big game;” that is,travelling hundreds—aye, thousands—of miles, and enduringmany hardships, for the momentary pleasure of holding a gun in such aposition that when they pulled the trigger the bullet hit such aprominent mark as an elephant or a lion, which was living in itsnatural surroundings and interfering with no one.
Between you and me, I don’t mind remarking that many of theirexpeditions ended, on their return to Unguja, in the purchase of a fewelephants’ tusks and wild animal skins in the bazaars of thatthriving city, after the method pursued by unsuccessful anglers incivilized countries.
But even the most successful of these hunters, by reason of havingfollowed the [7]few beaten paths known to their guides, never camewithin miles of such wonderful