Mtoni Palace Ruins

Mtoni Palace, or Beit el Mtoni ('the palace by the stream'), was built in the late 1820s and 1830s for Sultan Seyyid Said and was the largest palace on the island during his reign, after he moved the seat of his Omani empire from Muscat to Zanzibar. It was the birthplace, in August 1844, of Princess Sayyida Salme, who later eloped with the German merchant Rudolph Heinrich Ruete and became known worldwide as Emily Ruete, author of the memoir 'Memoirs of an Arabian Princess,' which recorded her memories of the palace in its prime. Abandoned in the 1880s, Mtoni is now reduced to roofless halls, arabesque arches, a reception hall, gardens and bath remnants.