The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

KILOA. 319penetrates some 12 miles north-westwards into the interior, presenting in manyplaces a perfectly safe anchorage in deep water. Nevertheless this splendidharbour, although frequented in the tenth century by the Persians of Shiraz, isnow but little utilised, its importance having been greatly diminished since thefifteenth century. At that time a flourishing city, the Qiiiloa (Ki/oa) of thePortuguese, was the residence of the Zenjsultans, who ruled over the whole seaboardfrom Cape Delgado to Mombaz. During the first half of the fourteenthcentury Ibn-Batuta, the famous Arab geographer and traveller, visited thisgreat emporium, which he called Ktihia, and which was governed by a Mussulmanprince 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. Franciscod'Almeida'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 graduallyabandoned by shippers. In the seventeenth centurj^ it fell, with the rest of thisseaboard, iuto the hands of the Imam of Mascut. At present it belongs to theiSultan of Zanzibar, but since the suppression of the export trade in slaves thetraffic of Kiloa has become insignificant. A few Hindu and Arab traders are settledin the little village of Kiloa- Kisiicani, that is, " Insular Kiloa," which stands on theisland of Kiloa beneath the walls of an old citadel and the crumbling remains ofsome crenellated ramparts.At present the chief stream of traffic has been deflected some 18 miles to thenorth-west, towards the far less convenient harbour of Kiloa-Kivinje, or " ContinentalKiloa," whose little houses and hovels, interspersed with ruins, are groupedin the shade of the surrounding cocoanut groves. But the marshy tracts runningparallel with the seashore have hitherto prevented the construction of a roadto the interior.Yet Kiloa-Kivinje, which has a population of about three thousand,was, till recentlj', the chief port on this coast for the exportation of slaves, andalthough the traflic is legally abolished and supposed to be suppressed, the Arabdhows still occasionally secure a cargo of living freight from the surroundingcreeks.The routes followed by the dealers in ivory between Kiloa and Lake Xyassaare still very dangerous, for they traverse the territories of the Wangindos,Wanindis, and Magwangwaras, all of whom are marauding tribes who hold inlittle account the lives of their visitors. North of Kiloa a safer route runs alongthe coast, crossing the Rufiji at the head of the delta. In the year 1880Beardall saw no less than twenty-seven large boats employed in the transport ofthe convoys to the A-iUage of Nya-Ntumbo, which at that time marked the site ofthe ferr}-.Another important station on the banks of the Rufiji is Korogero, which liesbelow the fluvial cataracts and gorges at the converging point of the trade routesfrom Kiloa, Dar-es-Salaam, and the intermediate seaports. But this importantcentre of the local traflic is exposed to the incursions of the Wamahengis, whopay periodical visits to the district, burning the villages and carrying off the