MOMBASAH OR MVÍTA.[2]
‘Est autem urbs illa sita intra sinum quemdam in rupe præcelsâ et editâ.
Fluctus cùm se ab introitu sinus incitant, in adversam frontem urbis
incurrunt. Inde deducti introrsus penetrant et utrumque latus urbis
alluunt ita, ut peninsulam efficiunt.’—OSORIO, describing Mombasah.
From early ages the people of this inhospitable coast left untried
neither force nor fraud, neither secret treachery nor open hostility, to
hinder and deter Europeans from exploration. Bribed by the white and
black ‘Moors’—Arab and Wasawahili—then as now monopolists of the
interior trade, Vasco da Gama’s pilots attempted to wreck his ships. In
later years the Banyans, becoming the chief merchants of this coast,
excited against travellers the half-caste maritime races, as usual the
worst specimens of the population; these in turn worked upon their
neighbours, the sanguinary savages of the interior, who, in addition to
a natural fear of everything new, cherish old traditions of the white
man’s piracy and kidnapping. In 1826 the brig Mary Anne was assaulted
near Berberah and her crew was massacred by the Somal at the
instigation, according to Lieut. Wellsted (Travels in Arabia, chap.
xviii.), of the Banyans, who certainly withheld all information by which
the attack could have been prevented or repelled. In 1844 a combination,
secretly headed by Jayaram, the Collector of Customs at Zanzibar, so
effectually opposed Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton that, unable to hire a
vessel on the Island, he crossed over to the Continent in a launch
borrowed from the Sayyid and manned by his own boat’s crew. Now,
however, the increased number and power of the European houses, the
greater facility of communication, the presence of our ships in these
ports, and the more settled state of the Dominion, have convinced Arabs,
Banyans, and Wasawahili, that it is vain to kick against the pricks in
European shape. Yet they yield unwillingly, knowing that exploration
will presently divert their monopoly into other channels, and, quoting
the Riwayat or rhymed prophecy, that sovereignty shall depart from them
when the Franks’ first footstep shall have defiled the soil. Even in our
time (1857) travellers should consider the countenance of the Sayyid’s
government a sine quâ non, and unless marching in great force or
prepared for universal bakhshish, they should never make their
starting-point any port distant from head-quarters.
The town of Mombasah, still called ‘Mwita,’ meaning fight or battle, is
mentioned in A.D. 1331 by the Shaykh Ibn Batuta, as a large place
abounding in fruits, and peopled by a ‘chaste, honest, and religious
race.’ Two centuries afterwards the site is thus described by the Colto
e buon Luigi—as Camoens was termed by the amiable Tasso.
The isle before them stood so near the land,
that narrow was the strait which lay between;
a city situate upon the strand
was on the seaboard frontage to be seen:
with noble edifices fairly planned
as from the offing showed afar the scene;
ruled by a king for years full many famed,
the isle and city were Mombasah named.[3]
In João de Barros and others we read attractive details of beautiful
gardens, lofty towers, a harbour full of ships; of handsome men and of
honourable women habited in silk robes and adorned with gold and jewels;
of the ‘knights of Mombasah,’ which now can hardly show a head of horse,
and of the ‘ladies of Melinde,’ where the plundering Gallas have left
only heaps of ruins. The King, ‘for years full many famed,’ received his
first Portuguese visitors with peculiar empressement, and with the
kindly purpose of cutting Vasco da Gama’s throat, enticed him to land by
promises to furnish wax, wheat, ambergris, ivory, and precious
metals,[4] and by sending samples of spicery—pepper, ginger, and
cloves—apparently all imports, as Calicut Banyans and Christians of St
Thomas were upon the spot. But when the great Captain’s ship weighed
anchor to enter the port, she struck upon a shoal probably at the
southern end of the channel formed by ‘Leven Reef Head’ and the
mainland: the ‘Moors’ tumbled into their canoes, the Mozambique pilot
took a header from the stern, and an ugly plot stood forth in its
nakedness. To make certain, Da Gama of the ‘awful eyes’ extracted the
truth from his Moslem captives by ‘heating lard and dropping it upon
their flesh:’ unable, however, to revenge himself, he set sail for
Melinde.
And here we may explain how arose the contempt and hatred which the
coast has attached to the word Faranj, or Feringhee. The Orient became
acquainted with Europe at a time when the Portuguese were slavers and
robbers in the Lord’s name, when the Dutch were second-rate traders, and
when the English were rank ‘saltwater thieves.’ Vasco da Gama did not
hesitate to massacre all his prisoners, or to decorate his yard-arms
with wretches suspended like the captives of ‘Sallie rovers.’
Albuquerque’s soldiers hewed off the hands and feet of women and
children, the quicker to secure their rings and armlets. Torture and
cruel death, especially wholesale burning, fell to the lot of Moslems
and Pagans. In the seventeenth century even the commanders of the Hon.
East India Company’s ships, according to Della Valle, committed
robberies ashore and on the high seas: The ‘Grand Mogul’ regarded our
people as a race ‘of dissolute morals and degraded religion’—tetræ
belluæ, suis molossis ferociores.
In A.D. 1500 Mombasah yielded to D. Alvarez Cabral, and, three years
afterwards, the Captain Ravasco settled its tribute. On August 13,
1505—events succeeded one another rapidly in those brave old times—D.
Francisco de Almeyda, the first viceroy of Portuguese India, who had
been gravely insulted by the turbulent citizens, attacked with his 20
ships, captured and burnt it. The Sultan was admitted to the honours of
vassalship and tribute; stringent regulations were made, and the
conquest having been placed in the first of the three provinces of
Ethiopia and Arabia, with Mozambique as the general capital, the
government was confided by the king, in A.D. 1508, to D. Duarte de
Lemos. In 1516 Mombasah is described by Duarte Barbosa as a well-built,
wealthy, and flourishing place, which exported honey, wax, and ivory. It
was again attacked by D. Nuno da Cunha, who was bent upon avenging the
insults offered to his allies, the chiefs of Zanzibar, Melinde, and
Atondo. The Sultan defended himself stoutly, introduced into the city
5000 black archers, and armed a fort with cannon taken from Portuguese
ships: the women and children were sent to the mainland, and a system of
sorties and surprises was organized, which protracted the affair from
November 14 to March 3, 1529. At length D. Nuno, after destroying the
houses and cutting down the palm trees, set fire to the place, and burnt
it to the ground. These active measures secured peace for some years. In
1586 the Turkish corsair, Ali Bey, persuaded Mombasah to place itself,
like Makdishu, Ampaza, Lamu, Kelifi, and Brava, under the Sultan of
Stambul. D. Duarte de Menezes, viceroy of India, sent from Goa a fleet
of 18 ships, under Martim Affonso de Melo Bombeyro, who revenged the
insult by burning Mombasah the third time.
Tradition asserts, contrary to received opinion, that the Conquistadores
penetrated far into the interior, and common sense suggests that
soldiers so adventurous would not confine themselves to the seaboard.
The Wasawahili speak of a ruined castle on Njuira, a hill north of the
Pangani river, and placed by M. Rebmann 160 miles from the ocean. At
Chaga, a district west of Mombasah, whose apex is the well-known and
much-vexed Kilima-njaro or Kilima-ngao, stone walls, a breastwork for
cannon, and an image of a long-haired woman seated upon a chair and
holding a child, are reported still to remain. The Wanyika, or ‘Desert
people’ of the Mombasah Range, have preserved in their Kayas, or
strongholds near Rabai Mku, certain images which they declare came from
the west. According to Dr Krapf, these statuettes, called Kisukas, or
little devils, are carried in war processions to encourage the
combatants. No European has ever seen this ‘great medicine,’ nor has any
Chief ever dared even to propose showing them to the mission: whenever a
European evinced more pertinacity than was pleasing, he found the bushes
upon his path bristling with bow and spear, and capped by the woolly
mops of the sable Roderick Dhu’s clansmen.
‘And every tuft of broom gave life
To nigger warrior armed for strife.’
Iconolatry is unknown to these tribes, and the savages probably derived
their Kisukas from some civilized race. According to Andrew Battel, of
Leigh, the English captive at Angola (A.D. 1589), the Jagas, or
Giagas,[5] did not worship, but had small images in their towns, and a
life-sized figure of a man called Quesango. As a rule, however,
especially in the non-maritime regions, the negro’s want of
constructiveness and of plastic power prevent his being an idolater in
the literal sense of the word: he finds it more convenient to make a god
of ‘grass or palm-leaves and broken pieces of calabashes, to which
feathers of fowls are fastened by means of blood.’[6]
The important depôt was again attacked in 1589 by a savage host from the
south, called by contemporary historians, ‘Zimbas’:[7] the city was
taken by the savages; and after plunder and massacre, it was again
occupied by Thomé de Souza Coutinho. In 1592, according to the Mombasah
Chronicle, Shaho bin Misham, its last Shirazian Sultan, was succeeded by
Ahmad the Shaykh of Melinde. Two years afterwards a fort was built by
order of the Viceroy Matthias d’Albuquerque, and in 1596 D. Francisco da
Gama re-established the Portuguese rule. If we may believe the Dominican
monk João dos Santos, who was present during the war waged with the
Monomotapa about the mines of Chicova, the conduct of the European
foreigners was ‘outrageous and unreasonable,’ and it soon led to the
usual consequences. The first deadly blow against the conqueror was
struck by Yusuf bin Ahmad, alias Dom Jeronymo Chingoulia, the Nana Sahib
of the Eastern Coast. A son of Ahmad, the first Melinde Sultan of
Mombasah, he was sent at an early age to Goa, under the charge of
Augustine monks, with orders to bring him up in the true religion; he
was baptized in A.D. 1627, and, after writing a submissive letter to the
Pope, he was permitted to return home, and was imprudently promoted to
the chieftainship in August, A.D. 1630. The convert began by making
Moslems eat pork, and by similar demonstrations of zeal. When all
suspicions were laid at rest, Yusuf, no longer Jeronymo, collected 300
savages, entered the fortress in order to visit its commander, Pedro
Leitão de Gamboa; and at a given signal stabbed the latter with his own
hand, whilst his followers killed the captain’s wife and daughter,
together with the priest, who was saying mass. The surviving Portuguese
barricaded themselves for a week in the Augustine convent, but opened
the doors when the young Sultan promised to spare their lives. He at
once caused all the wretches to be arrowed, and the holy buildings to be
profaned and destroyed. Brave as he was cruel, he defended during three
months his city against a large fleet and armament sent by the Viceroy
D. Miguel de Noronha, Count of Linhares; he beat off Francisco de Moura,
and having captured two Portuguese vessels, he dismantled the citadel,
burnt the city, destroyed the trees, and escaped with his ‘Pandis’ to
Southern Arabia.
Fatal example! Mombasah thus learned that Europeans were easily
conquered. The wasted island was re-occupied by the Portuguese, and the
citadel was repaired in A.D. 1635. But after Hormuz and Maskat had
fallen into the hands of the Persians and the Arabs, the Yurabi Imam of
Oman, Sultan bin Sayf, besieged Mombasah about A.D. 1660, and, after
five years’ investment, captured only the fort. His son and successor,
Sayf bin Sultan, whose squadron was aided by the noble Arab tribe
Mazrui, and by the dependent Wasawahili, again attacked the Portuguese,
recovered the fort, massacred its defendants, and established an Arab
governor. This decisive event took place on the 9th of Jemadi el Akhir,
A. H. 1100 (December 14, 1698), a date celebrated in many a local
ballad.
I have sketched the modern history of Mombasah when chronicling that of
Zanzibar. Sayyid Said, wiser than the Portuguese, secured his conquest
by the Tarquinian operation of striking down all the tallest growth. For
our temporary protectorate Capt. Boteler is the best authority, and
since A.D. 1837 the place has no name in the annals of the coast. The
traveller, as well as merchant, must lament that we abandoned its cause;
had England retained it, the interior would long ago have been opened to
us. This lament may seem strange in the days when we propose to give up
Gibraltar, as we have given up Java, Sicily, and the Ionian
Islands—conquests hard won by blood and gold, and parted with for a
song.
The harbour of Mombasah is spacious and land-locked; without exception,
the best on the Zanzibar coast. Its magnificent basin is formed by one
of those small coralline islands which, from Suez to Cape Corrientes,
have long been the centres of commerce with peoples who, brutalized by
barbarism, and incapable of civilization, would have converted mainland
depôts into scenes of rapine and bloodshed. Of this chain the principal
links, the Tyre, the Alexandria, and the Araduses of East Africa, are
Masawah, old Zayla, Berberah—in the 16th century an islet—Makdishu,
Lamu, Wasin, ancient Mtanga, Pemba, Zanzibar, Mafiyah, the original
Kilwa, and Mozambique. The island is a mass of coralline, that forms
scarps and dwarf cliffs, 45 to 60 feet high, everywhere except on the
west, where there is a tongue of sand, and where the level ground is
covered with the fertile humus of decayed vegetation; the shape is an
irregular oval, about 3 miles long by 2½ broad, and this flat surface is
capable of growing the richest produce. The soil, excessively permeable
and bone-dry after a few hours following the heaviest downfalls, allows
neither swamp nor bog. Eastward, or outside, there is good riding-ground
defended on both sides by reefs; inside a double sea-arm moats the islet
in every direction from the coast. This channel of coral-rag and
oyster-rock, about 280 yards wide at the mouth, broadens northwards into
a deep and secure basin, Captain Owen’s[8] Port Tudor, so called from
the officer who surveyed it, and westward of the islet is Port Reitz, a
longer and a wider water. Vessels usually lie under the town opposite
English Point, where they find safe anchorage. In the South-West
monsoon, however, between May and September, square-rigged ships must be
warped out, and in so doing they run some risk of being wrecked.
On the N. West Point, where a little battery commanded the passage,
Mombasah Island is separated from the mainland by a shallow ford, and
possibly this canal may be artificial. Here I should be inclined to
place the New Fosse[9] of the Periplus, and to identify, as do Vincent
and Stuch, the Pyralaon Islands, with Pemba, Zanzibar, and Mafiyah. M.
Guillain, by a careful calculation of distances, would transfer the site
further north to the natural channel between Patta, Mandra, Lamu, and
the mainland. But whilst errors of numerals are easily made, and readily
copied in manuscripts; and whilst mistakes of distance can easily be
accounted for, it is hard to believe that the Phœnician, Egyptian, and
Greek merchants would have neglected the finest harbour and the best
site for trade upon the whole Azanian shore. Moreover, there is nothing
in the text to prevent the Pyralaon Islands being those off the Benadir,
and the Fosse being about the modern ford of Mkupa on the west of the
Island of Mombasah.
Said went on shore as the anchor ran out, and presently returned,
accompanied by Lakhmidas Thakurdas, the Banyan Collector of Customs,
with a civil message from the Jemadar, or Fort Commandant. Other
visitors were Hari, a young Bhattia, speaking English learned at
Zanzibar, and a certain Rashid bin Salim, a captain’s clerk, whose son
is commanding a Kisawahili caravan in the Ukamba-ni country. With them
we landed at a natural jetty in the N. Eastern front of the town, and
where the dents of cannon-balls mark the position of a battery. Hence we
ascended the cliff by a flight of steps in a dark dwarf tunnel, which is
a reminiscence of the English. Further to the N. West is the wharf,
constructed in 1825 by Lieut. Emery, and near it vessels generally lie.
The tunnel opens upon the Mission House, a double-storied box of coarse
masonry; the ground-floor belongs to Sayyid Said, and Shangora, the
Msawahili ‘care-taker,’ duly supplied the key. To the right and left
were other similar tenements, all more or less dilapidated, and the S.
Eastern point was occupied by a small Custom House painfully
whitewashed.
We are now in the Gavana (i. e. Governo), at present the Arab town, as
opposed to the Mji wa Kale, Harat El Kadimeh, the ‘old quarter,’ the
Black Town of the Portuguese. The site of the former is a dwarf rise at
the S. Eastern and seaward edge of the Island, and it faces to the N.
East, where over the pure blue channel orchards and verdure and wells of
pure water commend the mainland as a villeggiatura. The form of the
settlement is a parallelogram running N. West to S. East, and it was
separated from the Black Town by a wall 10 to 12 feet high. This, under
the Mazrui Shaykhs, was repaired and provided with a few bastions;
between the Gavana and the citadel, however, a defensive work was not
judged necessary, and now—an excellent sign—the rampart is rapidly
falling to ruins. Here are the tombs of the local heroes who made
Mombasah a historic name, and under a shed repose the remains of the
Mazara governors, beginning with Mohammed bin Usman. The tombs are of
masonry, and are distinguished by bearing epitaphs, which are somewhat
in the style of prayers recited before the graves of Walis at Meccah and
El Medinah. Amongst them is the sepulchre of Khuwaysah bint Abdillah, a
woman apparently with a soul, for Allah is begged, to ‘make her home
Paradise, with the best of its inmates.’
The materials of the Gavana are brown thatch huts, clustering round a
few one-storied, flat-roofed boxes of glaring lime and coral rag,
equally rude within and without. On the N. West lies the ‘native’ half,
which prolongs the Arab quarter beyond the enceinte; this suburb is
wholly composed of sun-burned and wind-blackened hovels, forming a
labyrinth of narrow lanes. Outside the faubourg clusters a thicketty
plantation of cocoa and fruit trees; here was the favourite
skirmishing-ground between the Sayyid’s troops and the Mazrui defenders
of the city. Mombasah is, as far as Nature made her, pleasing and
picturesque, but man has done his best to spoil her work. A glorious
‘bush,’ a forest of tall trees, capped by waving palms, laced with
llianas, and studded with shady mangoes, thick guavas, and fat baobabs,
here forming natural avenues, there scattered as in a pleasure-ground,
overspreads the vicinity of the town, whilst the more distant parts to
the West, S. West, and N. West, are dense wild growths, virgin, as it
were, and still sheltering the monkey and the hog, the hyæna and the
wild cat. The presence of man is known only by some wretched hut, or by
a dwarf Shamba-plot of meagre cultivation.
We inquired for the tomb of the Resident, Lieut. John James Reitz, who
died whilst exploring the Pangani river, and was buried here in 1823.
The site was once a church, but it has been turned into a cattle-yard by
the Banyans, and now it enjoys the name of Gurayza ya Gnombe (bullock
church). Besides some fine old masonry-revetted wells, still supplying
the best water, the only traces of the Portuguese and the ‘twenty
churches of Mombasah’ are ruins of three desecrated fanes, especially
the Gurayza Mkuba (great church), the Augustine convent which lies in
the north-eastern part of the Gavana. It is not to be compared for
interest with the Jesuit remains upon the Rio de São Francisco. The
people no longer show, as in 1824, the heap of masonry under which, says
Boteler (ii. 1-20), they had buried the Moslems who fell during the
second massacre of the Portuguese. I did not see the pillar or obelisk
and the ruined fort to the S.S. East of the citadel, shown in Captain
Owen’s chart. The Gurayza Mdogo is near the Augustine convent, and has
now all the semblance of a dwelling-house. The battery or citadel, built
by the Portuguese in 1594, and repaired in 1635, has been so much
altered that it is now an Arabo-Msawahili construction. Its position is
excellent, outside and S. East of the Gavana, pointing to the N. East,
with complete command, at a distance of 600 fathoms, over the narrow
northern entrance, and wanting only a reform in the batteries à fleur
d’eau, and clearing out the interior of sheds and forage, to be a match
for all the fleets of Arabia. Originally a quadrangle, some 120 yards
square, with 4 bastions facing the cardinal points, it was sunk below
the level of the coralline rock, which thus forms the footing of the
walls, and which supplies a broad, deep moat. According to the Mombasah
chronicle, the stones were brought ready cut from Portugal: the phrase
is ‘Do Reino,’ which Capt. Owen has rendered ‘from Rainu,’ and elsewhere
is commemorated ‘The Sultan of Rainu.’ The S.S. Western is the strongest
side, whence a land attack might be expected: the other flanks are rich
in dead ground, and the N.N. West front protects the Gavana. My sketch
of the north-eastern face, taken from the Mhoma-ni Shamba, on the
opposite side of the creek, shows a picturesque yellow pile, with tall,
long, and buttressed curtains, which appear slightly salient, enclosing
towers studded with, perpendicular loopholes; three tiers of fire
opposite the entrance to the northern harbour; a place d’armes; a high
don-jon with a giant flag-staff, conspicuous for 5 or 6 miles from the
south, and sundry garnishings of little domes and luxuriant trees, some
even growing out of the wall cracks.
Hearing that strangers are admitted to the Fort—Mrs Rebmann has often
visited it—I proceeded to the head-quarters of the Jemadar. Arrived at
the land gate leading to the inner Barzeh or vestibule, my attention was
directed to the Portuguese inscription before alluded to. It is half
defaced by the Arabs, but this is of the less consequence as copies have
been published by Captains Owen and Guillain.[10] At the angles of the
western and southern bastions are also scutcheons in stone bearing the
names Baluarte São Felippe and Baluarte Alberto. That to the north was
called Baluarte São Matthias (from Matthias de Albuquerque), but here,
as on the south side, the inscriptions have disappeared, probably by the
fire of the enemy. A sentinel at the gate waved his hand and cried, Sir!
Sir! (go! go!); but I persisted in sending for the Jemadar Tangai, who
took my hand and led me towards a shed of leafy branches, some 15 paces
outside the Fort. Here, he assured me, the Sayyid himself used to faire
anti-chambre; but I could see only hucksters and negroes. We parted in
high dudgeon, nor did we ever become friendly. Saíd bin Salim, who
during this scene had remained below and afar off, showed us the chief
mosque—there were eight when Lieut. Emery visited the town[11]—and a
formless mass of masonry, which marks the last resting-place of some
almost forgotten heroes.[12]
The climate of the Island is hotter, healthier, and drier than that of
Zanzibar. The rains begin with storms in early April, or before the
setting in of the S. West monsoon. They are violent in May, and from
that time they gradually decrease. Between December and March there are
a few showers, for which the cultivator longs; and, as may be imagined
in an island ever subject to the sea-breeze, the dews are exceptionally
heavy. The people suffer little from dysentery and fever: Europeans,
however, complain that they are never free from the latter. The endemic
complaint is a sphagadenic ulcer upon the legs and parts most distant
from the seat of circulation. Here, as in Abyssinia, in Yemen, in the
Hejaz, and at Jerusalem, the least scratch becomes an ugly wound, which
will, if neglected, destroy life. The cause may be found in the
cachectic and scorbutic habit induced by the want of vegetables and by
brackish water; the pure element is, indeed, to be found in the old
wells beyond the town and on the mainland; but the people save trouble
by preferring the nearer pits, where water percolates through briny
coralline. The town has suffered severely from epidemics, small-pox, and
what strangers call the plague. The citizens still remember the
excessive mortality of 1818, 1832, and 1835. At Mombasah I heard nothing
about the curious influence which the climate is said to exercise upon
cats, causing a sandy-coloured fur to be exchanged for ‘a coat of
beautiful short white hair’; and producing, according to others,
complete baldness, like the Remedio dogs of the Brazil and the Argentine
Republic.
Mombasah, as has been seen, trades with the Wanyika for copal, with the
people of Chaga and Ukamba-ni for ivory, and with the inner tribes
generally for hippopotamus’ teeth, rhinoceros’ horns, cattle, cereals,
and provisions. Slaves are brought from Zanzibar, natives of the country
about and south of Kilwa being preferred. The imports are chiefly
cottons, glass, beads, and hardware. There is no manufacturing industry,
except a few cloths, hand-made in the town. Besides Harar, Mombasah is
the only tropical African city which boasts an indigenous coinage.
During the wars with Sayyid Said, the Mazrui chief, finding a want of
small change, melted down a bronze cannon, and converted it into pieces
a little larger than our six-pence. The bit, which bears on the obverse
the name of Mombasah, whilst the reverse assures the owner that it is
‘money,’ was forcibly circulated, and the value was established at an
equivalent to the measure (Kibabah) of Maize. Since the fall of the
Mazara this purely conventional coin has fallen into disuse, and I was
unable to find specimens of it.
-----
Footnote 1:
The new system of electric signals has again altered the position of
Bombay, which is placed now in E. long. (G.) 72° 48′ 4″. Before that
invention the difference between London and Paris varied from 2° 20′
15″ to 2° 20′ 24″. In 1854 M. Le Verrier determined it from 200
observations to be 2° 20′ 9.45″.
Footnote 2:
This Kisawahili name is usually written by the Arabs ‘Mfíta.’ Dr Krapf
prefers ‘Mwita,’ and remarks that the ‘Wamwita,’ together with
remnants of 11 other tribes, represent the original inhabitants of
Mombasah. The natives would also pronounce Mombasah as Mombásá; and
indeed so it is written by Ibn Batuta (chap. ix.). The silent terminal
aspirate of the Arabic and Persian becomes in Kisawahili a long á,
e.g. Ndílá, a coffee-pot, from the Arabic Dallah and Daríshá, a
window, from the Persian Daricheh. The translation of El Idrisi
(Climate I. sect. 7), gives Manisa two days from Melinde, evidently a
conception of Mvita. Capt. Hamilton (India, chap. i.) unduly contracts
it to ‘Mombas,’ and this seems to be the cacography adopted of late
years.
Footnote 3:
In the original—
Estava a ilha a terra tão chegada
Que humo estreito pequeno a dividia;
Huma cidade nella situada
Que da fronte do mar apparecia;
De nobres edificios fabricada
Como por fóra ao longe descobria;
Regida por hum Rei de antigua idade,
Mombaça he o nome da ilha e da cidade.
LUSIAD, i. 103.
Footnote 4:
In 1823 the Arabs informed Capt. Boteler ‘that in some rivers in the
vicinity gold in small quantities was at times procured’ (Narrative of
a Voyage of Discovery, &c., vol. ii., chap. i.).
Footnote 5:
The racial name of these wandering Lestrigons, so formidable to the
Portuguese in the 16th century, and taken from a title of honour,
‘Captains of warlike nomades,’ is thus confused by Prichard (Natural
History of Man): ‘In 1569 the same people are said to have been
completely routed on the Eastern coast, near Mombasa, after having
laid waste the whole region of Monomotapa.’ He may have heard of the
Highland of Chaga, whose people, however, call themselves not Wachaga,
but Wakirima—mountaineers. Or he may have known that the Portuguese
inscription over the Fort Gate at Mombasah declares that in A.D. 1635
the Capitão Mor, Francisco de Xeixas e Cabrera, had subjugated,
amongst others, the King of Jaca or Jaga. Jaca is also mentioned by J.
de Barros (ii. 1, 2). M. Guillain (vol. ii. chap. xxii.) makes ‘Chaka’
a town between Melinde and the mouth of the Ozi river. We find ‘the
Jages, Anthropophagos,’ in Walker’s Map, No. 4, Universal Atlas, 1811.
Footnote 6:
Messrs J. Schön and Samuel Crowther’s Journals with the Niger
Expedition of 1841. London, 1842.
Footnote 7:
Dos Santos calls the Commander ‘Muzimbas.’ Duarte Barbosa mentions sub
voce Zimbaoche, a great village seven days’ journey from Benametapa.
De Barros identifies it with the Ptolemeian Agyzimba, and describes it
as a royal residence of the Emperor Benomotapa. It is the Zumbo of Dr
Livingstone.
Footnote 8:
A plan of the Island was published by Rezende in 1635.
Footnote 9:
In the edition of Charles Muller (Paris, 1845) the word καίνης
disappears, and the sentence becomes καὶ της λεγομένης διώρυχος, ‘and
the so-called fosse.’ Certainly the term διῶρὺξ would suit the
Mombasah Canal better than the Channel of Patta, and the former is the
only ‘digging’ where human labour can possibly have been applied. Thus
Pliny (v. 3) explains the name of the city Hippo Diarrhytus, ‘from the
channels made for irrigation.’ That the scanty population of Arabs at
ancient Mombasah was incapable of excavating a canal 600 metres long
is no proof that the work was not done. The Sultan of Mombasah could
bring into the field 5000 wild archers, and, similarly, in the Brazil
the most astonishing works were effected by a handful of Portuguese,
assisted by hordes of Tupy savages.
Footnote 10:
Owen (i. 404, 405) sketches and transcribes it very incorrectly.
Guillain (vol. i., Appendix, p. 622) has done his work better. In vol.
i., p. 442, however, he gives the name of the governor as ‘Sexas e
Cabra’—the latter by no means complimentary.
Footnote 11:
Short account of Mombas and the neighbouring coast of Africa, by
Lieut. Emery, R. N. Journal Royal Geographical Society, vol. iii. of
1854.
Footnote 12:
This may, however, be the pile spoken of by Boteler.