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Mombasa Island (named after the town) is 3 m. long by 21/2 m. broad, with an area of 9 sq. m. Except at the western end, the coast of the island consists of cliffs from 40 ft. to 60 ft. high. The island contains many fertile plantations, chiefly of coco-nut palms, except on the side facing the ocean, where there is little vegetation, the coral reefs being but thinly covered with earth. There are no springs and the island is dependent for water on rain collected in tanks or drawn from wellsthe latter brackish. Ruins of Arab, Portuguese and Turkish buildings are found in various parts of the island. At Ras Serani are the ruins of a chapel Nossa Senhora das Merces, built by the Portuguese in the 17th century on the site of a Turkish fort, and afterwards turned into a fort again by the Arabs.

The fort was repaired by Seixas de Cabreira ~fl 1635, the restoration being recorded in an inscription over the gateway. By the British authorities the fort is used as a military store and central gaol. In the public garden on the point of the town facing the sea a bronze statue of Sir William Mackinnonto whom Mombasa owes its renaissancehas been placed. The population of the city is cosmopolitan, with three well-marked racial distinctions: the Arab (Swahili), the Indian and the European. The climate is fairly healthy, and Europeans live there with comfort.



Mombasa takes its name from Mombasa in Oman. A PersoArabic settlement was made here about the 11th century. It is mentioned by Ibn Batuta in 1331 as a large place, and at the time of Vasco da Gamas visit (1498) it was the seat of considerable commerce, its inhabitants including a number of Calicut Banyans and Oriental Christians. The ruler of the city tried to entrap da Gama (or so the Portuguese navigator imagined), and with this began a series of campaigns which gave full force to its Swahili name Mvita (war). The principal incidents are the capture and burning of the place by Almeida (1505), Nuno da Cunha (1529), and Duarte de Menezes (1587)this last as a revenge for its submission to the sultan of Constantinople the revolt and flight (1631) of Yusuf ibn Ahmed (who murdered all the Portuguese in the townover 100), and the three-years siege by the imam of Omam I69698(the garrison being reduced to eleven men and two women), ending in the expulsion of the Portuguese. From the 12th of March 1728 to the 29th of November I 729 a Portuguese force from Goa again held Mombasa, when they were finally driven out by the Muscat Arabs. In December 1823 the Mazrui family, who had ruled in Mombasa from the early part of the I8th century, first as representatives of Oman, afterwards as practically independent princes, placed the city under British protection; and in February 1824 Lieut.

J. J. Reitz was appointed commandant or resident at the city by Captain (afterwards Vice-Admiral) W. F. W. Owen. Reitz, after whom Port Reitz is named, died at Mombasa either in 1824 or 1825. The protectorate was repudiated by the British government, which left the place to be bombarded and captured by Seyyid Said of Oman, who made repeated attacks between 1829 and 1833, and only got possession in 1837 by treachery. Said thereafter made Zanzibar his capital, Mombasa becoming of secondary importance. A revolt against Zanzibar in 1875 was put down with British assistance. The British government in the following year vetoed a proposal by the khedive Ismail to annex Mombasa and its hinterland up to the equatorial lakes to Egypta project which originated with General C. G. Gordon, when that officer administered the UpperNileprovinces. In 1887 the city was handed over by the sultan of Zanzibar to the British for administration. It became the capital of the province of Seyyidie and of the East Africa protectorate. In 1907, however, the seat of the central government was removed to Nairobi (q.v.). Mombasa still forms, nominally, part of the sultanate of Zanzibar. The city, together with Malindi, is mentioned in Paradise Lost.
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