British East 45 trica ] ZANZIBAR when proffered by Sir Bartle Frere in his Mission of January to March, but eventually gave way in June to a threat of naval action and Sir John Kirk's influence.

The slave traffic by land was prohibited by the Sultari in 1876 . There still remained the hardest problem of all , that of domestic slavery . An institu tion so rooted in all Mohammedan life could not, either in Zanzibar or any other Moslem country be abolished by a stroke of the pen. Decrees of Sultan Khalifa in 1889 and Ali in 1890 tended to check the system , as did the diminution of supply. But domestic slaverysurvived the independence of the country.

( 3) Zanzibar, Great Britain, and Germany .-In East Africa , as in South-west Africa , Germany in due course seized territories previously refused by Great Britain. For many years the British Government declined to exercise any direct control over Zanzibar . In March , 1862 , both Great Britain and France engaged definitely to respectits independence. Accordingly, when Bar gash in 1873 offered France the Protectorate of his dominions, the proposal fell through . In 1877 , the Sultan offered a seventy -year lease of the customs and administration of all his mainland possessions to Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Mackinnon, who for some years past had practically controlled and developed all British commerce between India , the Persian Gulf, and the East African coast. In 1872 Mackinnon had estab lished a mail service between Aden and Zanzibar , and he had gained the Sultan's entire confidence. But when the offer of 1877 was referred to the British Government the latter refused to sanction the con cession or to declare a British Protectorate over Zanzi bar. Lord Beaconsfield also ignored a declaration which Bargash hadgiven to the British Consul binding him self not to cede territory to any Power other than Great Britain . The fruit was long since ripe, but it was left to Germany first definitely to attempt to pluck it . German trade with Zanzibar dated back to the middle of the century. A German firm was established there in 1844. In 1859 the Hanseatic Consul concluded [3918] E 2