Prof. Adolf Mascarenhas informs us that a part of the House of Wander ( formerly known as Sultan,s palace) in Zanzibar had collapsed. I remember from my elders in the fifties that Sultan of Zanzibar was being rather un cooperative to the terrorist nations of Western Europe who were out to carve out large portions of African territories as their own spheres of influence and managed to do it so well at the Berlin Conference in 1884 The British who were eyeing islands of Zanzibar and Pemba ( famous for cloves production and lying opposite the port of Tanga) met with stiff resistence from the Sultan of Zanzibar and to cow him down the British sent a gunboat which bombarded the town of Zanzibar and in the process knocked down a part of Sultan's palace.( perhaps the same part of palace that came down recently. The islands of Zanzibar and Pemba being off the coast of Tanzania should have naturally become part of Tanganyika that Germany obtained for herself in 1884 but somehow the British clung to their possession. Perhaps, Prof Adolf Mascarenhas who has vast knowledge of the East African coast will throw more light on this subject provided there is some substance it it.