Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/458

 were finally expelled from the place. Its Arab masters pulled down the Christian churches, using the materials in the erection of their palaces. Then fresh wars broke out during the eighteenth century, from which, however, the ruler of Muscat came out victorious.

At present the Arabs are merely commercial agents under the protectorate of

Great Britain, but the town itself is little more than a heap of ruins. Recently it had even ceased to be a starting-point of caravans bound for the interior. The three convoys which had successively set out from this place for the purpose of reaching the Kavirondo territory through Masai Land, had each lost over a hundred