British 47 East frica ] ZANZIBAR under his Imperial protection some 60,000 square miles of territory claimedby the Sultan of Zanzibar as part of his inherited dominions. Protests and military ex peditions despatched by Bargash were alike vain . On Aug. 14, 1885, he yielded to the inevitable (in the shape of a German squadron) so far as to acknowledge Ger man Protectorates over Usagara, &c . , and Witu ." In October, 1885 , three commissioners (a British, French , and German ) were appointed to ascertain the precise limits of the Sultan's claims to sovereignty on the East Coast of Africa . A resulting Agreement (Oct. 29 Nov. 1 , 1886) between the German and British Govern ments was accepted by Bargash on Dec. 4, 1886, and ended the competition for the mainland so far as he was concerned . France also accepted it. Germany then gave her adhesion to the Anglo -French Agreement of 1862 respecting the independence of Zanzibar . This Agreement of 1886 gave to the Sultan of Zanzi bar the islands of Zanzibar, Pemba, Lamu , Mafia, and a number of other smaller islands . On the mainland he was awarded nothing but a continuous strip of terri tory, ten sea-miles in depth, from the south bank of the Minengani River in the centre of Tunghi Bay to Kipiniat the mouth of the Tana River, a distance of some 600 miles . North of Kipini, on the Benadir coast , he retained the stations of Kismayu , Brava, Merca, and Mogadishu, with radii landwards of 10 sea -miles , and Warsheikh, with a radius of 5 sea -miles. He was further allowed to lease to the German East Africa Company the custom dues of Dar es Salaam and Pangani in return for an annual payment.

In the next few years the Sultans of Zanzibar dis posed of the whole of these coastal possessions by lease or by sale.

In May, 1887 , Sultan Bargash gave a fifty years' 1 A German Protectorate over the East Coast of Africa from Witu to Kismayu was officially notified on October 22, 1889.

• Portuguese action subsequently substituted the Rovuma River.