ABSTRACT

Cabral apparently preferred the latter method of persuasion. In 1500 he avenged the supposed treachery to Da Gama by looting Mombasa. Three years later another expedition passed along the coast, and made the town pay tribute ; and in August 1505 a fleet of twenty ships, under the command of Francisco Almeyda, attacked and destroyed it. In 1508 the Portuguese formally took possession of the island, and appointed a resident governor. But they had by this time annexed more of the world than they could conveniently manage ; to help in doing this they proceeded to classify their possessions. They divided Arabia and Ethiopia into three provinces, in the first of which they placed Mombasa. These proceedings resulted in a pax Lusitanίca, the value of which we may estimate from the fact that as the Mombasa people were said to have treated the natives of Melindi and Zanzibar badly, it was necessary in 1528 to send a powerful force under Don Zuna da Cunha to raze the city to the ground. This, however, was not so easily effected ; the town was so well defended that it was not taken till after a siege of four months. The next opportunity for mischief that presented itself was on the occasion of a visit from a Turkish fleet under Ali Bey in 1586. A generation had by this time grown up which knew not Da Cunha, and so could not restrain its innate passion for intrigue. The natives placed the island under the suzerainty of the Porte, but neither of the high contracting parties gained much by this arrangement. The Portuguese Viceroy of India sent Alfonso de Melo Bombeyro with a fleet of eighteen ships to punish this act of rebellion, and Mombasa was promptly reduced to ashes. The town soon grew up again, but only to be looted by a tribe of barbarians named Zimbas, who came from the south. Their occupation of the island was, however, a very short one. The Portuguese seem then to have grown tired of this constant series of evictions, and built the fort which is now the most picturesque building in East Africa. This secured peace on the island until 1630, when the fortress was captured by stratagem. The members of the garrison were shot by arrows, although they had surrendered on condition that their lives should be spared. A force from India was at once despatched to recapture the citadel and punish the apostate mission boy, who planned both the revolt and the

massacre. For three months the rebel leader, Yusuf bin Ahmed, or, to give him his baptismal name, Don Jeronymo Chingoulia, held his own ; then he dismantled the fortress and fled to Arabia, in a ship that he had captured from his foes.