Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/401

 KILOA. 819 penetrates some 12 miles north-westwards into the interior, presenting in many places a perfectly safe anchorage in deep water. Nevertheless this splendid harbour, although frequented in the tenth century by the Persians of Shiraz, is now but little utilised, its importance having been greatly diminished since the fifteenth century. At that time a flourishing citj', the Qiiilon (Ki/oa) of the Portuguese*, was the residence of the Zonj sultans, who ruled over the whole sea- board from Cape Delgado to Mombaz. During the first half of the fourteenth century Ibn-Batuta, the famous Arab geographer and traveller, visited this great em|)<)rium, which he called Kulua, and which was governed by a ^[u.<^sulman prince by him described as a person of perfect generosity towards the faquirs (religious mendicants) and a pious observer of the holy war against the Infidel. At one time Kiloa was said to have as many as three hundred mosques. Fran- cisco d'Almcida's fleet captured the place after a destructive siege in the year 1505, but the conquerors were soon decimated by fever, and this seaport was gradually abandoned by shippers. In the seventeenth century it fell, with the rest of this seaboard, into the hands of the Imam of Mascat. At present it belongs to the Sultan of Zanzibar, but since the suppression of the export trade in slaves the traffic of Kiloa has become insignificant. A few Hindu and Arab traders are settled in the little village of Kiloa-Kisiiraiii, that is, " Insular Kiloa," which stands on the island of Kiloa beneath the walls of an old citadel and the crumbling remains of some crenellated ramparts. At present the chief stream of traffic has been deflected some 18 miles to the north-west, towards the far less convenient harbour of Kiloa-Kivinje, or "Conti- nental Kiloa/' whose little houses and hovels, interspersed with ruins, are grouped in the shade of the surrounding cocoanut groves. But the marshy tracts run- ning parallel with the seashore have hitherto prevented the construction of a road to the interior. Yet Kiloa-Kivinje, which has a population of about three thousand, was, till recently, the chief port on this coast for the exportation of slaves, and although the traffic is legally abolished and supposed to be suppressed, the Arab dhows still occasionalh' secure a cargo of living freight from the surrounding creeks. The routes followed by the dealers in ivory between Kiloa and Lake Nyassa are still very dangerous, for they traverse the territories of the Wangindos, Wanindis, and Magwangwaras, all of whom are marauding tribes who hold in little account the lives of their visitors. North of Kiloa a safer route runs along the coast, crossing the Rufiji at the head of the deltA. In the year 18b0 Beardall saw no less than twenty-seven large boats employed in the transport of the convoys to the village of Nya-NtumbOy which at that time marked the site of the ferry. Another important station on the banks of the Rufiji is Korogero, which lies below the fluvial cataracts and gorges at the converging point of the trade routes from Kiloa, Dar-es-Salaam, and the intermediate seaports. But this important centre of the local traffic is exposed to the incursions of the "NVamahengis, who pay periodical visits to the district, burning the villages and carrying off the