Chapter ZABITA to ZANZIBAR of Z by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

was a case of Traga.

[1900.—“The Zamorin of Calicut who succeeded to the gadi (Guddy) three months ago, has died.”—Pioneer Mail, April 13.

ZANZIBAR, n.p. This name was originally general, and applied widely to the East African coast, at least south of the River Jubb, and as far as the Arab traffic extended. But it was also specifically applied to the island on which the Sultan of Zanzibar now lives (and to which we now generally restrict the name); and this was the case at least since the 15th century, as we see from the Roteiro. The Pers. Zangi-bar, ‘Region of the Blacks,’ was known to the ancients in the form Zingis (Ptolemy, i. 17, 9; iv. 7, 11) and Zingium. The Arab softening of the g made the name into Zanjibar, and this the Portuguese made into Zanzibar.

c. 545—“And those who navigate the Indian Sea are aware that Zingium, as it is called, lies beyond the country where the incense grows, which is called Barbary.”—Cosmas, in Cathay, &c., clxvii.

c. 940.—“The land of the Zanj begins at the channel issuing from the Upper Nile” (by this the Jubb seems meant) “and extends to the country of Sofala and of the Wak-wak.”—Mas’udi, Prairies d’Or, iii. 7.

c. 1190.—Alexander having eaten what was pretended to be the head of a black captive says:

“… I have never eaten better food than this!
Since a man of Zang is in eating so heart-attracting,
To eat any other roast meat to me is not agreeable!”

Sikandar-Namah of Nizami, by Wilberforce Clarke, p. 104.

1298.—“Zanghibar is a great and noble Island, with a compass of some 2000 miles. The people … are all black, and go stark naked, with only a little covering for decency. Their hair is as black as pepper, and so frizzly that even with water you can scarcely straighten it,” &c., &c—Marco Polo, ii. 215. Marco Polo regards the coast of Zanzibar as belonging to a great island like Madagascar.

1440.—“Kalikut is a very safe haven…where one finds in abundance the precious objects brought from maritime countries, especially from Habshah (see HUBSHEE, ABYSSINIA), Zirbad, and Zanzibar.” Abdurrazzak, in Not. et Exts., xiv. 436.

1498.—“And when the morning came, we found we had arrived at a very great island called Jamgiber, peopled with many Moors, and standing good ten leagues from the coast.”—Roteiro, 105.

1516.—“Between this island of San Lorenzo (i.e. Madagascar) and the continent, not very far from it are three islands, which are called one Manfia, another Zanzibar, and the other Penda; these are inhabited by Moors; they are very fertile islands.”—Barbosa, 14.

1553.—“And from the streams of this river Quilimance towards the west, as far as the Cape of Currents, up to which the Moors of that coast do navigate, all that region, and that still further west towards the Cape of Good Hope (as we call it), the Arabians and Persians of those parts call Zanguebar, and the inhabitants they call Zanguy.”—Barros, I. viii. 4.

„ A few pages later we have “Isles of Pemba, Zanzibar, Monfia, Comoro,” showing apparently that a difference had grown up, at least among the Portuguese, distinguishing Zanguebar the continental region from Zanzibar the Island.

c. 1586.

“And with my power did march to Zanzibar
The western (sic) part of Afric, where I view’d
The Ethiopian Sea, rivers, and lakes.…”

Marlowe’s Tamburlane the Great, 2d. part, i. 3.

1592.—“From hence we went for the Isle of Zanzibar on the coast of Melinde, where at wee stayed and wintered untill the beginning of February following.”—Henry May, in Hakl. iv. 53.