Page:Some account of the town of Zanzibar.djvu/7



ANY of the friends of the Central African Mission have asked me, since my return, for an account of the town in which Bishop Tozer has established himself, and I find too that some misconceptions in regard to it are not infrequent. I have, therefore, put down a few jottings about the place, which may, I hope, prove interesting to our friends, and, in their small degree, useful to the great cause of our Mission.

It has been asked why Zanzibar should have been made the head-quarters of the Central African Mission. The answer is simply because it is the capital of Eastern Africa. There is no town which has the least pretension to dispute such a title with it between Port Natal and Aden. One may almost say that it is more than the chief town, it is the only really large town and great centre of trade for all that immense coast, and the vast countries which lie behind it. Mozambique and the other Portuguese towns are so decayed, that they have barely one ship a year from their own country, and rely for their trade mainly upon an American house established in Zanzibar. And in the interior the Portuguese