Roanoke Rapids herald., 1923-09-07

too inhuman to give them burial, and
animals who had died were disposed
of in the same fashion Bath water
was informally evicted through harem
windows, and all the wanton waste of
the cooking department in large Arab
houses was banked up by the kitchen
doors. There is tendency to that
sort of thing still but Zanzibar's West
ern health officers have removed Sir
Richard Burton's reproachfully apt
epithet of filth in connection with Zan-
zlbar town.
Cloves Are Its Salvation.
But the third and last phase of in
dustry in Zanzibar has been its saliva
tion, and will keep 1t alive as place
of importance long after Mombasa
has caught up with and passed 1t as
the center for general trade and the
entrepot for the African hinterland.
This last phase Is Glove cultivation,
and the history of the Glove in Zanzi-
bar is a record of such pluck and fore
sight as may we'll teach a lesson to
the proud Saxon who considers his
race a monopolist of both qualities.
In 1860 an Arab named Telim bin
Isse came up from Maurltius with a
handful of cloves in his pocket and
200 plants to put into his shamba His
Idea of agriculture was very unique,
and he only intended to persevere In
Glove culture If he could depend on a
crop after every neglect and affront
had been offered his trees Their
beauty Gloves are a kind of myrtle
and exquisite in appearance) excited
the interest OF Said Burgash about to
become Zanzibar's sultan, and he wrote
at once to the Moluccas to obtain the
finest plants which could be bought
for money.
Two Dutch ships brought them in
an unusually short time, and the sui
tan, the most remarkable man Zanzl-
bar has ever produced or associated
with Its fortunes, sent out numbers of
his henchmen to compel laborers from
every side to get the plants into the
soil Immediately. He had read up the
whole subject in book Of French au-
thorshp, which he had caused to be
written out in Arabic, and saw that
the enterprise had a great mercantile
future for Zanzibar. He knew that the
islands supremacy as a trade center
would pass. and he hoped to make 1t,
with Pemba the extremely fertile but
rather uninteresting island to Zanzi-
bars north paramount in the world OF
spices.
In 1872 cyclone blew over Zanzi-
bar which uprooted all the Glove trees
and blew the coconuts fiat to the
earth without breaking them. Many
Glove trees were blown Into the sea;
many were broken off short Within
week after the storm Said Burgash
was rounding up his laborers again
and sending hither and yon for plants.
which he presented to the poorer
Arabs. who had seized on the idea Of
crop which could be sold to Euro
peans, and had put their all into the
purchase of plants and slaves for their
culture.
From that second planting comes
the great bulk Of the worlds Glove
supply today, and when one realizes
that the least output of cloves per an
nun has amounted (from Zanzibar
alone) to $4,000 bales and the great
est output to 100000, and when one
Furthermore realizes that the govern.
ment claims as tax one bag out of
each Ave, one may catch a vista of
Burgash's dream, and concede that
the Oriental has In part the greatest
of mental ttributes-imaginati
One might write book on Zanzibar,
and in the hurry of Its beauties and
the horrors of its mysterious catas-
trophies. like the smallpox epidemic or
the bubonic plague, forget to tell the
half Of its wonders. 1t will always
remain In ones mind like soiled
page of the Arabian Nights" with
what promised to be splendid out
come ruined by some fearful visitation
of cyclone or of sickness. But the In
trinsic strength Of the island continues
In the Glove crop and has attracted an
enormous number of Indians, who are
fast driving out the Arab and keeping
up desultory intercourse with India
| for caste reasons.