Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

POETUGUESE POSSESSIONS. 279
appearance ; it is healthy and fertile ; ' and seems
to me preferable to any other island in those
seas for the purpose ; it is, as we have already
stated, under British protection, very little
would be required to purchase it, and with a
good English town created, it would serve
also
as the Madeira of the Indian Seas for invahds.^
Still, I maintain, that the mainland is the only
suitable place for liberated Africans; without
such a place, whatever we may do for the negro,
' " The mountains are covered with trees, chiefly forest
and palm ti-ees, the valleys are rather narrow, but they
contain in some places much level ground wliich is partly
cultivated and partly planted with trees; the continually
changing variety of the landscape offers many highly
picturesque views, and Sir William Jones does not hesitate
to give them the preference over the forest views in
Switzerland and Wales ; the climate is said to be mild, the
heat at least not being oppressive in July." (' Knight's
Geographical Cyclopaedia.)
^ " The fertile and salubrious island of Johanna, three
degrees south of Delgado, with its secure anchorage, and its
reigning Sultan decidedly favourable to our interests, would
form an eligible haven for the cruisers on the north; whilst
the hitherto neglected British possession of the southern
portion of Delagoa Bay might constitute a convenient station
for those destined to watch the line of Portuguese coast
from that point to the mouths of the Zambesi."