A submarine cable connects the town with Zanzibar.
British influence was, however, still so powerful in Zanzibar that the agents of the German Colonization Society, who in 1884 sought to secure for their country territory on the east coast, deemed it prudent to act secretly, so that both Great Britain and Zanzibar might be confronted with accomplished facts.
In 1893 a contract was made with the Eastern and South Africa Telegraph Company for the construction, laying and maintenance of a cable from Zanzibar to the Seychelles and Mauritius, a distance of 2210 m., for a subsidy of £28,000 a year for twenty years.
In its plural form, Swahili, the word has become the tribal name of the natives inhabiting the coast strip opposite Zanzibar.
Some require the hot, moist temperature of a stove; such are C. amabile, a native of Sumatra, C. amoenum (India), C. Balfourii (Socotra), C. giganteum (West tropical Africa), C. Kirkii (Zanzibar), C. latifolium (India), C. zeylanicum (tropical Asia and Africa), and others.
