Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1923-09-05

prepared by the National Geographic So
ciety, Washington, d. C.)
Zanzibar, romantic melting pot off
the east coast Of Africa, sort of
islanu vestibule to Kenya, England's
latest colony, does not share the upset
conditions of that mainland region
which has recently kept the British
cabinet in hot water. Nominally under
Its sultan, and largely ruled by a
British high commissioner and Brit
ish resident, the island goes on the
more or less serene way of the trans
planted East, furnishing plots for
comic operas and cloves for most of
the spice-loving world
Hundreds of tourists and govern
ment employees, on the manifold en-
rands Of empire, see the town of Fan
Hihar without knowing much of it or
ever exploring beyond the English ten
mis- club. But this is less remarkable
than the fact that merchants, priests,
secular missionaries, military and dip
Iomatic personages Indians, Arabs,
Parsis and Europeans Gas inconspicu-
Gus artisans or petty traders) actually
live in the town year in and year out
without so much as walking half a
mile beyond the terminus of the little
American railway at Bu-bu-bu, a vii
lage few miles from the town itself.
The precedent for this neglect-and
the social fabric of Zanzibar is de-
pendent on precedent-iS undoubtedly
the Indifference of the early explorers,
who fitted out caravans in the old
town and, bent on discovering a vol
cano or a nyanza far afield never
wasted time in wandering about the
glorious island itself.
On the first day that one leaves the
road behind and finds oneself at large
In the dense green of Zanzibar's titanic
verdure one is conscious of a newness
of interest as when one reads for the
drst time some book of very distinctive
imaginative quality.
The woods and fields, the "shambas"
'Iplantations), are like the contents of
a Brobdingnagian glass house; the col
Cgg of flowers and trees themselves
are SO elementary as to seem like a
child's concept of beauty in nature,
and when, Unexpectedly, without prep
aration of any kind, the sight of the
Glove trees, shining green, red
stemmed, symmetrical, stretches be-
fore one, with the ultramarine Of the
Indian ocean as background for their
unequaled loneliness, the beauty Of the
whole writes itself on the memory of
the most commonplace OF observers as
an indelible delight.
AS Large as Long Island.
The island, about the same size in
square miles as Long island, is of a
different shape, being shorter and
much broader. 1t is one Of Great Brit
aims protectorates.
To the south of the town the land
scape is not so redundant and riotous
in vegetable expression, but goats
abound and find all they need in the
way Of food to make them marketable
But to the north the mango trees,
palms, cloves and every form of orange
and lemon crowd thick and glorious
under the most primitive of husband
men. Just as Africa itself is netted
over with aimless foothpaths, so is
Zanzibar veined with little tracks worn
deep into the living green so long ago
that no tradition follows the feet of
those who made them.
The Industrial life of Zanzibar has
changed three times since David Liv-
ingstone cried for mercy for the black
man, who sorely needed it. Under the
Arabs the town was slave center,
where the poor creatures who were
caught in the course of one of Tippoo
Tbs "war walks" into the interior
were brought to the island carrying
ivory, and prepared by various heavy
handed methods for service as slaves
on the Persian gulf or in the shambas
and warehouses of Zanzibar itself The
Arabs achieved the best negroes mag
Unable, whatever their methods may
have been, and when England ruined
Tippoo lib by her slave regulations
ivory took the place of slaves as a
trade staple, and dealers from hither
and yon brought their ivory for sale
TO the quaint Arab town, whose SAM
tation was then by-word of the East.
The bodies OF dead slaves were fire.
sAAntlv Dx.k ant IN - beach by Arabs