The Germans do not yet understand the art of planting
tropical colonies. They seem to have fancied that they could settle the territory ceded to them in East Africa as easily as an uninhabited island, and are dismayed at the resistance they have experienced. The rising against them on the mainland of Zanzibar is, after all, a petty affair, such as the English authorities on the Gold Coast encounter every year, and put down as part of the day's work ; but the Berlin papers treat it as fatal to the German African Company. They see no way to regain their footing, and call upon the Government to take the matter in hand, and settle the Colony for itself. The Government will not be too ready to respond to the demand. Its ships can do nothing on the coast except drive the rebels inland ; it is reluctant to send Pomeranians to perish in Africa ; and it has no African or acclimatised force which it can employ. If it acts, therefore, it will be by sending a squadron to Zanzibar to compel the Sultan, who made the concession, to do the Company's work for it. That is not a method permanently efficacious, and it would not surprise us, after a few more months, to see the concession transferred to the British East African Company, which is transacting its business at Mombassa as tranquilly as if risings were unknown.
