Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/418

 the great Arab landed proprietors export to the markets of the neighbouring city.

Shaki-Shaki, capital of Pemba, lics on the west side, near the head of a creek inaccessible to shipping at low water. Even small craft have to wait for the flow before venturing to penetrate up the inlet. On the other hand the port of Kishi-Kashi, towards the north-west extremity of the island, is deep enough to accommodate large vessels, which might here ride at anchor in perfect safety. But the narrow and dangerous channel through which it communicates with the sea has not yet been buoyed. The head of the Arab aristocracy in Pemba, a vassal rather than a subject of the Sultan of Zanzibar, has his residence at Kishi-Kashi. More than half of the inhabitants of this island are still in a state of slavery.

As now regulated by the conditions of the German protectorate, the authority of the Seïd or Sultan of Zanzibar is almost entirely restricted to the islands. Recently the narrow strip of territory about eleven miles broad skirting the continental seaboard between the Rovuma estuary and Somaliland, was also placed under his jurisdiction. But even in

this contracted zone there are many places where his authority is not recognised, while his rule is reduced to a diplomatic fiction by the assignment of the Dar-es-Salaam and Pangani custom-houses to a board of foreign traders presided over by the great chancellor of the Germanic Empire.

Tn the large villages along the coast of the mainland the Sultan of Zanzibar is represented either by walis, or by jemadars, nearly all full-blood or half-caste