Description

Pemba, the northernmost island of the fabled Zanzibar Archipelago, lies 50 km across the Pemba Channel from the mainland.  For centuries, Pemba was famous for its cloves, such that it was often said that one could smell the spice’s fragrance at while at sea, even before sighting the island!  On the mainland is Tanga, which became a major port under German colonial administration, upon the completion in 1912, of the Usambara Railway to Moshi, at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro.  It was subsequently the site of the Battle of Tanga (1914), a failed British attempt to seize the port during World War I (the British would eventually take Tanga, in 1916).

Issued by the British Admiralty, the present chart was for decades the authoritative map of the Pemba Channel vicinity.  It is predicated upon surveys by Commander W.J.L. Wharton and the Officers of H.M. Surveying Ship Fawn, 1878, and by Commarder T.F. Pullen, Lieutenant and Commander A.F. Balfour and the Officers of H.M. Surveying Ship Stork, in 1888-89, augmented by additions from the latest German Government charts.  It was first published in 1890, with further revised editions appearing over the coming decades.

During World War II, Tanga was a key base for the British Royal Navy and the Pemba Channel was frequented by German U-Boats.

Curiously, the present example, which was published in 1952, features manuscript additions/ corrections in indigo pen up the date 1960.

References: Cf. (re: different edition:) OCLC: 557890737.