CHAPTER V 
BRITISH AND GERMAN EAST AFRICA, AND UGANDA! 
In the seventies and eighties of the last century, East 
Africa was a name loosely applied to the entire East Coast 
from the Portuguese colony of Mozambique to the Gulf of 
Aden, most of which was supposed to belong — actually or 
nominally — to the Sultan of Zanzibar. The Muscat rulers 
of Oman, on the Arabian peninsula, had exercised a pre- 
carious sovereignty over Mombasa and the neighboring 
territory on the East Coast of Africa ever since 1698; but 
the last important Mazrui prince of Mombasa died in 1837, 
leaving Said, Sultan of Zanzibar, supreme in East Africa. 
In 1822, Seyyid Said annexed the islands of Pemba and 
Zanzibar, and to the latter he moved his residence in 1840. 
But after his death, in 1856, his sons quarreled over his pos- 
sessions. No law of succession existed, except that described 
by Abdul-Aziz, brother of Said, as the “law of the keenest 
sword.” Lord Canning arbitrated the matter at length in 
1861, assigning Zanzibar and East Africa to Majid, the 
younger son, who left them in turn to his son, Barghash, in 
1870. The territory on the mainland over which Barghash 
ruled extended from Tungi Bay northward to Witu and the 
island of Lamu, and he claimed to exercise control over the 
interior as far inland as lakes Tanganyika and Victoria 
Nyanza. He maintained military posts at a number of 
places in order to keep open the main trade routes; and the 
chiefs of this region, it is true, paid him tribute and recog- 
nized the supremacy of Zanzibar. But there was no such 
1 British East Africa is now called Kenya, and the former German 
territory, Tanganyika.