UNIVERSITY Of CAL!FORK!!A LOS ANGELES ZANZIBAR, VOL. I. *^^>^ ANCIENT TOMB AT TONGO-NI. ZANZIBAR; CITY, ISLAND, AND COAST. lUCHARD F. BURTON. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : TINSLEY lUiOTHEliS, 18, ^CATIIKKINE l;>T., fciTKANlJ. 1872. lAll Rights reserved.'] • A • • JOHN CHILDS AND SON, I'RJNTERS. 435 TO THE MEMORY OF MY OLD AND LAMENTED FRIEND, (F.R.C.S., ETC. ETC., STAFF SUROEON, BOMBAY ARMY), THIS NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY, IN WHICH FATE PREVENTED HIS TAKING PART, IS INSCRIBED WITH THE DEEPEST FEELINGS OF AFFECTION AND REGRET. 47G3G0 LIBRARY CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAPTER I. ■1 PAGE PREPARATORY 1 CHAPTER II. ARRIVAL AT ZANZIBAR ISLAND 16 CHAPTER m. HOW THE NILE QUESTION STOOD IN THE YEAR OF GRACE 1856 . . 38 CHAPTER rV. A STROLL THROUGH ZANZIBAR CITY 6« CHAPTER V. GEOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL 116 Sect. I. AFRICA. EAST AND WEST— ' ZANZIBAR ' EXPLAINED— MENOU- THIAS— POSITION AND FORMATION— THE EAST AFRICAN CUR- RENT—NAVIGATION—ASPECT OF THE ISLAND . . 116 II. METEOROLOGICAL NOTES— THE DOUBLE SEASONS, 4c. . . 150 III. CLIMATE CONTINUED— NOTES ON THE NOSOLOGY OF ZANZIBAR -EFFECTS ON STRANGERS . . . . . . 17C IV. NOTES ON THE FAUNA OF ZANZIBAR . . . . 197 V. NOTES ON THE FLORA OF ZANZIBAR . . . . . . . . 218 VI. THE INDUSTRY OF ZANZIBAR. . . . . . . . . . 252 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. PAGB VISIT TO THE PRINCE SAYTID MAJID.— THE GOVERNMENT OF ZAN- ZIBAR 256 CHAPTER VII. A CHRONICLE OF ZANZIBAR.— THE CAREER OF THE LATE 'IMAM,' SAYYID SAID 276 CHAPTER VIII. ETHNOLOGY OP ZANZIBAR.— THE FOREIGN RESIDENTS . . . . 312 CHAPTER IX. HORSEFLESH AT ZANZIBAR.— THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE CITY, AND THE CLOVE PLANTATIONS 346 CHAPTER X. ETHNOLOGY OF ZANZIBAR.— THE ARABS 368 CHAPTER XI. ETHNOLOGY OF ZANZIBAR. — THE WASAWAHILI AND THE SLAVE i RACES 40r CHAPTER XII. PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE 469 APPENDIX. THE UKARA OR UKEREWE LAKE 490 l^ PREFACE. I FEEL that the reader will expect some allusion to the circumstances which have delayed, till 1871, the publication of a journal ready to appear in 1860. The following letter will explain the recovery of a long report, forwarded by me in 1857, under an address, very legibly written in ink, upon its cover, to the late Dr Norton Shaw, then Secretary Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain. ' No. 9, of 1865. ' General Department, Bombay Castle, 28M February, 1865. 'To The Under Secretary of State for India, London. 'Sir, "With reference to the packet ad- dressed, as per margin, which was No. 9, A. sent to you via Southampton from The Secretary the Separate Department, by the R, Geog. Society, Overland Mail of the 14th instant, "VMiitehall Place, I have the honour to subjoin for London. your information copy of a note on the subject from the Hon. W. E. Frcrc, dated the 5th idem. PREFACE. * When searcliing the strong box belonging to the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society yesterday I found the accompanying parcel, directed to the Secretary Royal Geographical Society, with a pencil note upon it, requesting that it might be sent to tbe Secretary of State, Foreign Office. From the signatiu'e in the corner, R, F. B., I conclude tbat it must be tbe manuscript lie sent to Colonel Rigby at Zanzibar, and which, from some state- ments of Mr Burton (to which I cannot at present refer, but of which I have a clear recollection), never reached its destination.^ *I have not been able to discover when or how the parcel was received, nor how the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society was to send it to the Foreign Office, except through Government. I therefore send it to you, and perhaps you would send it to the Under Secretary at the India House, with the above explanation, and re- quest that it be sent to its direction. I have, &c., (Signed) C. Ravenscroft, Acting Chief Secretary to Government.' * * * * It is not a little curious that, as my first report upon the subject of Zanzibar was diverted from its destination, ' Mr Frere's memory is unusually short. I intrusted the MS. to the Eurasian apothecary of the Zanzibar Consulate, and I suspected (Lake Regions of Central Africa, vol. i. chap, i.) that it had come to an untimely end. The white population at Zanzibar had in those days a great horror of publication, and thus is easily explained how a parcel legibly addressed to the Royal Geographical Society had the honour of passing eight years in the strong box of the 'Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.' PREFACE. so the * Letts ' containing my excursions to Sa'adani and to Kilwa also came to temporary grief. Annexed by a skipper on tlie ^est African coast, appropriated by his widow, and exposed at a London bookseller's stall (label- led outside, ' Burton Original MS. Diary in Africa'), it was accidentally left by the buyer, an English Artillery officer, in the hall of one of H. M.'s Ministers of State. Here being recognized, it was kindly and courteously re- turned to me. The meteorological observations made by me on the East African seaboard and at other places dur- ing the discovery of the Lakes were also, I would re- mark, mislaid for years, deep hidden in certain pigeon- holes at "Whitehall Place. May these three accidents be typical of the fate of my East African Expedition, which, so long the victim of uncontrollable circumstance, appears now, after many weary years, likely to emerge from the shadow which overcast it, and to occupy the position which I ever desired to see it conquer. The two old documents are published with the less compunction as Zanzibar, though increasing in im- portance and now the head-quarters of an Admiralty Court and of two Mission-Schools, with a printing-press and other civilized appliances, has not of late been worked out. The best authorities arc still those who appeared about a quarter of a century ago, always excepting, how- ever, the four magnificent volumes, Baron Carl Clare von der Dccken's Reisen in Ost-Afrika, in den Jahren 1859 bis 1861, which I first saw at Jerusalem : there too I had the pleasure of making acquaintance with Dr Otto Kerstcn, who accompanied the unfortunate traveller during the PREFACE. earlier portion of his peregrinations, and vvlio has so ably and efficiently performed his part as editor. Had a cer- tain publisher carried out his expressed intention of intro- ducing a resume of this fine work in English dress to the British public, I should have saved myself the trouble of writing these volumes : the Eeisen, however, in the original form are hardly likely to become popular. More- over, the long interval of a decade has borne fruit : it has given me time to work out the subject, and, better still, to write with calmness and temper upon a theme of the most temper-trying nature, — chap. xii. vol. II. will explain what is meant. Finally, I have something important to say upon the subject of the so-called Victoria Nyanza Lake. I had proposed to enrich the Appendix with extracts from Arab and other mediaeval authors, who have treated of Zanzibar, Island and Coast. Such an addition, however, would destroy all proportion between the book and its subject: I have therefore confined myself to notes on com- merce and tarifis of prices in 1857 to 1859, to meteorolo- gical observations, and to Capt. Smee's coasting voyage, which dates from January, 1811. The latter will supply an excellent birds-eye view of those parts of the Zanzibar mainland which were not visited by the East African Ex- pedition. Richard F. Burton. London, Oct. 15, 1S71. ZANZIBAR. PAET I. THE CITY AND THE ISLAND. • Of a territory within a fortnight's sail of us, we scarcely know more than we do of much of Central Africa, infinitely less than we do of the shores of the Icy Sea.' — Trajjs. Bombay Geog. Soc, vol. xii. ' Si fueris sapiens, sapicntibus utere factis. Si ignarus mordax, utere dente tuo.' Fr. Joao de Samt' Ancelo. ZANZIBAR; CITY, ISLAND, AND COAST. RICHARD F. BURTON, IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. IL LONDON : TIN.SLEY LROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE ST., STRAND. 1872. [All Rights reserved.] JOHN CHILDS AND SON, J'KINTEKS. ^n ZANZIBAR. CHAPTER I. PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE. ' We were now landed upon the Continent of Africa, the most desolate, desert, and inhospitable country in the world, even Greenland and Nova Zembla itself not excepted.' — DEroE. I COULD not liave believed, before Experience taugbt me, how sad and solemn is the moment when a man sits down to think over and to write out the tale of what was before the last De- cade began. How many thoughts and memories crowd upon the mind ! How many ghosts and phantoms start up from the brain — the shreds of hopes destroyed and of aims made futile ; of ends accomplished and of prizes won ; the fail- ures and the successes alike half forgotten ! How many loves and friendships have waxed cold in the presence of new ties ! How many graves JOIN THE BASH I BUZUKS. have closed over tlieir dead during those short ten years — that epitome of the past ! ' And when the lesson strikes the head, The weary heart grows cold.' ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ The result of a skirmish with the Somal of Berberah (April 19, 1855) was, in my case, a visit ' on sick leave ' to England. Arrived there, I lost no time in recovering health, and in volun- teering for active Crimean service. The cam- paign, however, was but too advanced; all ' appointments ' at head- quarters had been filled up ; and new comers, such as I was, could look only to the ' Bashi Buzuks,' or to the * Turkish Contingent.' My choice was readily made. There was, indeed, no comparison between serving under Major-General W. P. Beatson, an experienced Light-Cavalry man who had seen rough work in the saddle from Spain to Eastern Hindustan ; and under an individual, half-civihan, half -reformed Adjutant-General, whose specialty was, and ever had been, foolscap — Hterally and metaphorically. In due time I found myself at the Dar- danelles, Chief of Staff in that thoroughly weU- abused corps, the Bashi Buzuks. It were ' ac- tum agere ' to inflict upon the reader a rechauffe THE BASHI BUZUKS IN THE CRIMEA. 3 of our troubles, — how the military world de- clared us to be a band of banditti, an irreclaim- able savagery ; how a man, who then called himself H. B. M.'s Consul — but who has long since incurred the just consequences of his misconduct — packed the press, because General Beatson had refused him a lucrative contract; how we awoke one fine morning to find our- selves in a famous state of siege and blockade, with Turkish muskets on the land side, and with British carronades on the water-front ; and how finally we, far more sinned against than sinning, were reported by Mr Consul Calvert to Constantinople as being in a fui'or of mutiny, intent upon battle and murder and sudden death. These things, and many other too per- sonal for this occasion, will fit better into an autobiography. The way, however, in which I ' came to grief (permit me the phrase) deserves present and instant record : it is an admirable comment upon the now universally accepted axiom, ' sur- tout, pas de z51e,' and upon the Citizen-king's warning words, ' Surtout, nc me faites pas des affaires.' The Bashi Buzuks, some 3000 sabres, almost all well mounted and better armed, were pertin- VOLUNTEER FOR EARS. aciously kept pitched on a bare hill- side, far from the scene of action and close to the Dar- danelles country town, that gay and lively Turk- ish Coventry, at the Hellespont-mouth. In an evil hour I proposed, if my General, who wanted nothing better, would allow me, to proceed in person to Constantinople and to volunteer of&ci- ally for the relief of the doomed city, Kars. Ah, Corydon, Corydon, quae te dementia cepit ? And I did proceed to Stamb'ul ; and I did volunteer ; and a neat hit, indeed, was that same public- spirited proceeding ! It w^ould be a lively imagination that could conceive the scene of storm which resulted from my brazen-faced procedure. The picture has its comic side when looked back upon through the mellowing medium of three long lustres. The hopeful eagerness of the volunteer ; the ' proper pride ' in one's corps, that had come forward for an honourable action ; the fluent proof that we could convoy rations enough for the gallant and deserted Ottoman garrison, diplomatically left for months to slow death by starvation; and — the blank and stunned surprise at the hurricane of wrath which burst from the high authority to whose ambassadorial ear the project was en- trusted. RENEW EXPLORATION OF AFRICA. 5 Reported home as a ' brouillon ' and tui-bu- lent, I again turned lovingly towards Africa — Central and Intertropical — and on April 19, 1856, I resolved to renew my original design of reaching the unknown regions, and of striking the Nile-sources via the Eastern coast. For long ages, I knew, explorers had been working, literally, as w^ell as figuratively, against the stream ; and, as the ancients had succeeded by a flank march, so the same might be done by us moderns. My Ptolemy told me the tale in very plain and emphatic terms, and although his shore-line shows great inaccuracies, his tra- ditions of the interior, derived from mariners of Tyre and from older writers, appeared far more reliable : — ' He {scil. the Tyrian) says that a certain Dio- genes, one of those sailing to India, . . . having the Troglyditic region on the right, after 25 days reached the Lakes whence the Nilus flows, and of which the Promontory of the Hhapta is a little more to the south.' ' Amongst my scanty literary belongings on ^ Georg. lib. i. ix. The concluding words are wv tan tu Twv 'V(x-Tb}v uKpoTi'ipiov 6\iy<^ voTiwripoy. There is HO reason why Bilibaldus Pirkimerus (Bilibaldi Pirckeymher), Lugd. 1535, should render it, ' quibus llhapium promontorium paulu- lum est Aubtralius.' 6 MOTIVES FOR EXPLORING AFRICA. our marcli to the Tanganyika Lake was a paper (De Azania Africse littore Orientali, Commen- tatio Pliysiologica, Bonvise, Pormis Caroli Gen- gii, MDCCCLii.) kindly sent to me by the author, Mr George E. de Bunsen. It quoted that same passage which was a frequent solace to me during our 18 months' wanderings, and I still preserve the pamphlet as a memory. Nor had I forgotten Camoens : — * And there behold the lakes wherein the Nile is born, a truth the ancients never knew ; see how he bathes, 'gendering the crocodile, th' Abassian land, where man to Christ is true . behold, how lacking ramparts (novel style !) he fights heroic battle with the foe. see Meroe, island erst of ancient fame, Noba amongst the peoples now its name.' ' Lusiad, Canto x. 95. ^ When the Portuguese counselled the Abyssinians to wall their settlements against the Gallas, the former replied like Spartans, ' No ; we keep stones to build churches and temples, but we defend our country with our arms and hands ! ' The Coptic ' Nob ' signifies gold (Ritter Erdkunde, French transla- tion, 142), the Camoensian 'Noba' is therefore more correct than our modern Nubia, which we find in the monk Burchard (a.d. 1250), 'Ethiopia quae hodie Nubia dicitur.' De Barros (1. iii. xii.) prefers ' a gente dos Nobis.' I have been tempted to add a stanza which is not translated from Camoens. 95 («) And see the twain from Albion's chalky shore go forth th' Egyj)tian mystic veil to rend : the farthest font of Nilus they explore, THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY. 7 This is happier and truer to antiquity than the doubts of Jose Basilio da Gama : — ' — the sombre range Virginal, ne'er by foot of man profaned, Where rise Nile's fountains, if such fountains be.' O Uruguay, Canto v. I consulted my excellent friend the late Dr Earth, of Timbuktu, about following the foot- steps of pilot Diogenes the Eortunate. He re- plied in a kind and encouraging letter, hinting, however, that no prudent man would pledge himself to discover the Nile sources. The Koyal Geographical Society benevolently listened once more to my desire of penetrating into the heart of the Dark Continent. An Expeditionary Com- mittee was formed by Sir Roderick I. Murchison, the late E,ear-admiral Beechey (then President of the Society), Colonel Sykes, Chairman of the Court of Directors of the Hon. East Indian Company, Mr Monckton Milnes (Lord Hough- ton), Mr Erancis Galton, the South African tra- veller, and Mr John Arrowsmith. I did not hear, strange to say, till many years had passed, those mighty waters whence the rivers trend, then, O dire Chance ! Fortune hard and sore ! of all their fatal labours view the end — tliat lies sulf-victiined in liis natal land, tliis lives afar on friendlcj-s IbrciLrn strand.' 8 DESPATCHED TO EQUATORIAL AFRICA. of the active part wliich Vice-admiral Sir George Back, the veteran explorer of the Arctic regions, had taken in urging the expedition, and in pro- posing me as its head. Had it been otherwise, this recognition of his kindness would not have come so tardily. The Committee obtained from Lord Claren- don, then H. M.'s Secretary of State for Eoreign Affairs, the sum of £1000, and it was under- stood that the same amount would be advanced by the then ruling Court of Directors. Unfor- tunately it was found wanting. I received, how- ever, on Sept. 13, 1856, formal permission, ' in compliance with the request of the Uoyal Geo- graphical Society, to be absent from duty as a regimental officer under the patronage of H. B. Majesty's Government, to be despatched into Equatorial Africa, for a period not exceeding two years, calculated from the date of departure from Bombay, upon the pay and allowances of my rank.' So wrote the Merchant-Sultans. I was anxious again to take Lieut. John Hanning Speke, because he had suffered with me in purse and person at Berberah, and because he, like the rest of the party, could obtain no redress. Our misfortunes came directly from Aden, indirectly from England. I had pro- DIFFICULTIES AND OBSTACLES. 9 posed to build a fort at Berberali, and to buy all the non-Ottoman ports on the western shores of the Eed Sea for the trifle of £10,000. In those days of fierce outcry against ' territorial aggran- disement ' the Court of Directors looked with horror at such a firebrand proposal, and they were lost in wonder that a subaltern officer should dare to prepare for the Suez Canal, which Lord Palmerston and Mr E^obert Stephenson had declared to be impracticable. Therefore the late Dr Buist, editor of the Bombay Times, had his orders to write down the ' Somali Expedition.' He was ably assisted by a certain Eeverend gentleman, then chaplain at Aden, who had gained for himself the honourable epithet of Shay tan Abyaz, or White Devil, while the apathy of the highest political authority — the Eesident at Aden, Brigadier Coghlan — and the active jealousy of his assistant, Captain Playfair, also contributed to thwart all my views, and to bring about, more or less directly, the bloody disaster which befell us at Berberah. Eor this we had no redress. The Eight Honourable the Governor-General of India, the late Lord Dalhousie, of pernicious memory, thought more of using our injuries to cut off the slave-trade than of doing us justice, although justice might easily have been done. After keep- 10 LIEUT. SPEKE. ing us waiting from April 23, 1855, to June 13, 1857, the spoliator of Oucle was pleased to inform us, laconically and disdaining explanation, that he * could not accede to the application.' ^ Nothing could persuade the Court of Di- rectors to dispense with the services of Lieut. Speke, who had, like myself, volunteered for the Crimea, and who, at the end of the War, had re- solved to travel for the rest of his leave. I per- suaded him to accompany me as far as Bombay, trusting that the just and generous Governor, the late Lord Elphinstone, who had ever warmly supported my projects, and that my lamented friend James Grant Lumsden, then Member of Council, would enable us, despite official oppos- ition at home, to tide over all obstacles. I have been prolix upon these points, which suggest that the difficulty of reaching the Lunar Mountains, or the ' Invisos Pontes,' were in Lon- don, not in Africa ; that the main obstacles were ^ The losses of the Somali expedition (not including those of the Arab and Somali attendants) were as follows : — Lt. Stroyan, I.N. (killed), lost Co.'s Eupees . . 1750 Lt. Speke (wounded) do. Lt. Burton (do.) do. Lt. Heme do. Shaykh Ahmed do. 4100 1950 500 120 Total, Company's Eupees 8420 ANGLO-INDIAN MISMANAGEMENT. 11 not savages and malaria, but civilized rivaliy and vis inertias ; and that the requisites for success were time, means, and freedom from official trammels. Hardly had we reached Cairo (Nov. 6, 1856), and had inspected an expedition fitted out by H. H. the late Abbas Pasha, and admira- bly organized by the late Marie Joseph Henri Leonie do Lauture, Marquis d'Escayrac (gen- erally known as Comte d'Escayar de Lauture), when an order from the Court of Directors summoned me back to give evidence at some wretched Court-martial pending on Colonel A. Shirley. The document being so worded that it could not be obeyed, we — Lieut. Speke and I — held on our way. And even when outward bound, I again got into trouble, without being able, as was said of Lord Gough, to get out again. A short stay at Suez, and the voyage down the Red Sea, taught me enough of Anglo-Indian mis- management and of Arab temper, to foresee some terrible disaster. Again that zeal ! In- stead of reporting all things couleur de rose, I sent under flying seal, through the Royal Geo- grajihical Society, with whom I directly corre- sponded, a long memorandum, showing the true state of affairs, for transmission to the home 12 CENSURED FROM HOME. branch of the Indian Government. This ' med- dhng in politics ' was ^ viewed with displeasure by Government,' and reminded me of the old saying — ' Wba mells wi' what anither does, May e'en gang hame and shoe his goose.' The result was a ' wig ' received in the heart of Africa, and — curious coincidence ! — accom- panying that sheet of foolscap was a newspaper containing news of the Jeddah massacre (June 15, 1858), and of our farcical revenge for the deaths of Messrs Page, EveiUard, and some four- teen souls, nearly the whole Christian colony.^ It need hardly be mentioned that this catastrophe showed the way to others, especially to the three days ' Tausheh ' of Damascus in 1860. Eortune had now worked her little worst. We had a pleasant passage to Bombay (Xov. 23, 1856), where affairs assumed a brighter as- pect, as we began preparing for the long explor- ation. Lord Elphinstone, after an especial re- quisition, allowed Lieut. Speke to accompany me. He also kindly ordered the Hon. East India Company's sloop of war Elphinstone, Captain • I could not resist the temptation of printing ' wig' and newspaper paragraph side by side iu the Appendix (ii. 428) to my ' Lake Eegious of Central Africa.' DR J. F. STEINHAEUSER. 13 Frusliard, I.N., to convoy us, knowing how mucli importance Orientals attach to appearances — especially to first appearances. My ' father * Prushard gained nothing hy the voyage but the loss of his pay ; therefore is my gratitude to him the greater. Nor must I forget to record the obliging aid of Mr, now Sh* Hemy L. Anderson, Secretary to the Government of Bombay ; he enabled us to borrow from the public stores a chronometer, surveying instruments, and other necessaries. Judging that a medical officer Avould be use- ful, not only to the members of the expedition, but would also prove valuable in lands where the art of healing is not held destructive, and where Medici are not called ' Caucifici et Sanicidse,' Lord Elphinstone also detached the late Dr J. F. Steinhaeuser, then staff-surgeon, to accompany us. Unfortunately the order came too late. No merchantman happened then to be leaving Aden for Zanzibar, and during the south-west mon- soon native craft will not attempt the perilous passage. Nothing daunted, my old and tried friend crossed the Straits to Berberah, with the gallant project of marching down country to join us in the south ; nor did he desist till it became evident, from his slow rate of progress, that he 14 LOSS OF DR STEINHAEUSER. could not make Zanzibar in time. The journey through the North-eastern horn of Africa would alone have given a title to Eame. Its danger and difficulty Avere subsequently proved (October 2, 1865) by the wounding of Baron Theodore von. Heughlin and by the murder of Baron von der Decken, Dr Link, and others of his party/ The absence of Dr Steinhaeuser lost the East African Expedition more than can be succinctly told. A favourite with * natives ' wherever he went, a tried traveller, a man of literary tastes and of extensive reading, and better still, a spirit as staunch and determined as ever attempted desperate enterprise, — he would doubtless have materially furthered our views, and in all human probability Lieut. Speke would have escaped deafness and fever-blight, I paralysis and its con- sequent invalidism. We afterwards wandered together over the United States, and it is my comfort, now that he also is gone, to think that no unkind thought, much less an unfriendly word, ever broke our fan' companionship. His ' Proceedings Eoyal Geographical Societj^, May 5, 1866. The lamented travellers' notes have now (1809 — 70) being pub- lished under the title of ' Baron Carl Claus von der Decken's Eeisen in Ost-Afrika in den Jahren 1859 bis 1861. Bearbeitet von Otto Kersten (who accompanied the first expedition). Loudon. Asher.' TESTIMONIES TO HIS WORTH. 15 memory is doubly dear to me. He was one of the very few who, through evil as well as through good report, disdained to abate an iota of his friendship, and whose regard was never warmer than when all the little world looked its coldest. After long years of service in pestilential Aden, the ' Coal-hole of the East,' he died suddenly of apoplexy at Berne, when crossing Switzerland to revisit his native land. At that time I was wandering about the Brazil, and I well remem- ber dreaming, on what proved to be the date of his death, that a tooth suddenly fell to the ground, followed by a crash of blood. Such a friend, indeed, becomes part of oneself. I still feel a pang as my hand traces these lines. IS'OTE. ' The Bashi Bazuks, commanded by General Beatson, were displaying all the violence and rapacity of their class, little, if at all, restrained by the presence of .their English officers.' Thus writes Mr John William Kaye in ' Our Indian Heroes ' {Good Words, June, 1S51), for the greater glorification of a certain General Neill, whose principal act of heroism was to arrest a ' Jack-in-Office Station Master.' Mr Kaye is essenti- ally an official writer, but even official inspiration should not be allowed directly to misstate fact. CHAPTER II. ARRIVAL AT ZANZIBAR ISLAND. ' There is probably no part of the world where the English Grovernment has so long had a Resident, where there are always some half-a-dozen merchants and planters, of which we know so little as of the capital and part of the kingdom of one of the most faithful of our allies, with whom we have for half a cen- tury (since 1804) been on terms of intimacy.' — Teansactions Bombay Geog. Soc, 1856. On December 2, 1856 — fourteen long years ago ! — Tve bade adieu to the foul harbour of Bombay the Beautiful, with but a single sigh. The warm-hearted Mr Lumsden saw us on board, wrung our hands with friendly vigour, and bade us go in and win — deserve success if we could not command it. No phantom of the future cast a shadow upon our sunny path as we set out, determined either to do or die. I find my jour- nal brimful of enthusiasm. ' Of the gladdest moments in human life, methinks, is the de- parture upon a distant journey into unknown A JOURNEY! 17 lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fet- ters of Habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many Cares and the slavery of Home, man feels once more happy. The blood flows with the fast circulation of childhood. Excite- ment lends unwonted vigour to the muscles, and the sudden sense of freedom adds a cubit to the mental stature. Afresh dawns the morn of life ; again the bright world is beautiful to the eye, and the glorious face of nature gladdens the soul. A journey, in fact, appeals to Imagination, to Memory, to Hope, — the three sister Graces of our moral being. ' ^ The 18|- days spent in sailing 2400 direct miles ' far o'er the red equator ' were short for our occupations. I read all that had been written upon the subject of Zanzibar, from Messer Marco Miglione to the learned Vincent, who always suspected either the existence or the place of the absurd ' Maravi Lake.' We rubbed up our acquaintance with the sextant and the alti- tude and azimuth ; and we registered barometer and thermometer, so as to have a base for observ- ations ashore. The nearest reference point of known pressure to Zanzibar was then Aden, dis- ' Somewhat boisterous, but true. (Note li years after- wards.) VOL. I. 2 18 'FATHER FRUSHARD: tant above 1000 miles. Under all circumstances the distance was undesirable ; moreover, violent squalls between the Persian Gulf and Cape Guardafui sometimes depress the mercury half an inch. I shall again refer to this point in Chapter V. ' Eather Prushard ' was genial, as usual, and under his command every soul was happy. We greatly enjoyed the order, coolness, and cleanli- ness of a ship of war, after the confusion, the caloric, and the manifold impurities of a Red Sea passenger-packet. Here were no rattling, heav- ing throbs, making you tremulous as a jelly in the Caniculi; no coal-smoke, intrusive as on a German Eisen-bahn ; no thirst-maddened (cock-) ' roaches ' exploring the entrance to man's stomach ; no cabins rank with sulphuretted hy- drogen ; no decks whereon pallid and jaundiced passengers shake convulsed shoulders as they rush to and from the bulwarks and the taffrail. Also no ' starboard and larboard exclusiveness ' ; of flirting abigails tending portly and majestic dames, who look crooked beyond the salvation- pale of their own very small ' set ' ; no peppery civilians rubbing skirts against heedless ' grif- fins ' ; nor fair lips maltreating the ' hapless letter H ' ; nor ofiicers singing lullabies to their etiol- OUR LANDFALL. 19 ated enfants terrihles, and lacking but one little dispensation of nature — concerning which Hum- boldt treats — to become the best of wet-nurses. The ' Elphinstone ' belonged not to the category * Shippe of Helle,' one of whose squadron I have described in an old voyage to a certain ' Un- happy Valley.' We would willingly have pro- longed our cruise with the jovial captain, and with the good fellows and gallant gentlemen in the gun-room, over many and many a league of waves. Of course we had no adventures. We saw neither pirate nor slaver. The tract seemed de- sert of human life ; in fact, nothing met our eyes but flying-fish at sea, gulls and gannets near shore. The stiff N. East trade never quite failed us, even when crossing the Line, and the Dol- drums hardly visited us with a tornado or two — mere off-shore squalls. The good old heart of teak, then aged 33 years, made an average of 150, and an exceptional run of 200 knots, in 21 hours. This was indeed ' gay sailing on the bosom of the Indian Sea.' After IG days (Dec. 18), before the solar lamp had been removed, our landfall, a long, loAV strip at first sky-blue and distance- blurred, had turned purple, and had robed itself in green and gold, with a pomp and a glory of 20 PEMBA. vegetation tlien new to us. This was Pemba, one of the three continental islands composing the Zanzibarian archipelago : the Arabs call it Jazirat el Khazra (Green Island), and no wonder ! Verdant and fresh enough must this huge con- servatory, this little and even richer Zanzibar, appear to their half-closed ' peepers,' dazed and seared by the steely skies and brazen grounds of Mdnga^ (Arabia generally) and Maskat (Mus- cat), and by the dreadful glare and ' damnable blue ' of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. We are soon to visit this emerald isle, therefore no more of it at present. All had hoped to run in that night, but Pate or our evil deeds in the last life otherwise deter- mined. The wind fell with the sun, and during the five minutes of crepuscule we anchored in the sandy bay-strand under Tumbatu Island, S.W. of Point Nunguwi (Owen's Nangowy), the north cape of its big insular brother, Zanzibar. Like the items of this archipelago generally, it is a long cairn-shaped reef of coralline, with its greater length disposed N.S. This well-known norm of great peninsulas has been explained by ^ Literally rock, rocky ground. Hence the Arabs are called "Wamanga. Mr Cooley (' Inner Africa Laid Open,' p. 61) blunders pitiably about this word. TUMBATU. 21 a sudden cliange in the earth's centre of gravity, which caused the waters to rush furiously from the northern hemisphere towards the south pole. As usual, the burning suns, the tepid winds, the sopping dews, and the copious rains clothe the thin soil with an impervious coat of verdure, overhanging the salt-waters, arid boasting a culti- vation that would make spring in green Erin look by its side autumn — rusty and yellow-brown. We landed, and curiously inspected the people of Tumbatu, for we were now beyond Semitico- Abyssinian centres, and we stood in the presence of another and a new race. They are called by the Omani Arabs Makhadim — helots or serviles — and there is nothing free about them save their morals. Suspicious and fearful, nu- merous and prolific, poor and ill-favoured, they show all the advantasfes and the disadvantas^es of an almost exclusive ichthyophagism. Skilful in divination, especially by Bao or geomancy, they have retained, despite El Islam, curious prac- tices palpably derived from their wild ancestry of the Blackmoor shore. They repair, for the pur- pose of 'clear-seeing,' to a kind of Trophonius cave, spend the night- in attack of inspiration, and come forth in the morning ' Agelasti, majsti, cogitabundi.' Similarly the Nas-Amun (Nasa- 22 SPIRITUALISM. mone) slept, for insight into futnrity, upon their ancestral graves. The wild highlanders of the East African ghauts have an equally useful den in their grim mountains; and on the West African coast the Krumen consult the ' Great Debbil,' who lives in a hole amongst the rocks of Grand Cavalla. The traveller who, pace my friends of the Anthropological Society, postulates spiritualism or spiritism (as M. Allan Kardec has it), will save himself much mystification, and he will soon find that every race has had, and still has, its own Swedenhorg. The men of Tumbatu at their half-heathen wakes, lay out the corpse, masculine or feminine, and treat it in a way which reminds us of Ham- let's (Act V. 1) ' Where be your gibes now ? your gambols, your songs ? ' A male friend will say to his departed chum — ' O certain person ! but a few days ago I asked thee for cocoa-nut-water and tobacco, which thou deniedest to me — enh ? Where is now the use of them ? ' ' Pellow ! ' a woman will address the dead, * dost thou remember making fierce love to me at such and such a time ? Much good will thy love do me now that thou art the meat of ugly worms ! ' THE WAKE. 23 Their abuse is never worse than when lavished by a creditor upon a defunct debtor. The idea underlying this custom is probably that which suggested the Irish wake — a test if the clay be really inanimate. Nor would I de- spise, especially during prevalence of plague or yellow fever, in lands where you are interred off- hand, any precaution, however barbarous, against the horrors and the shudders of burying alive. Certain Madras Hindoos, after filling its mouth with milk and rapping its face with a shankli or conch-shell, grossly insult, as only the 'mild Hindu ' of Bishop Heber can, all its feminine relatives. The practice is also found in the New World. The Aruacas (Arrawaks) of Guiana opened the eyes of the corpse, and switched them with thorns ; smeared the cheeks and lips with lard, and applied alternately sweet and bitter words. This was a curious contrast to the cus- toms of the Brazilian Tupys and the Bolivian Moxos, who, according to Yves d'Evreux and Alcide d'Orbigny, met every morning to bewail their losses, even of their grandfathers and great- grandfathers ! As darkness came on we saw the sands spark- ling with lights, here stationary like glow-worms or the corpusant ; there flitting about like ignes 24 FISHING. fatui or fire-flies. Such was the spectacle seen by Columbus and Pedro Gutierrez (' gentleman of the king's bedchamber') on the memorable night when Bahaman Guanahani was discover- ed. The fishermen burn dry grass and leaves, and the blaze, like the Arabs' ' fire of hunting,' which dazzles the eye of the gazelle, attracts shoals that are easily speared. Some carried torches in canoes : now the flame floated in crimpled water, which broke up its reflection into a scatter of brilliants ; then it reposed upon mirror-like smooths, the brand forming the apex of a red pyramid which seemed to tremble with life, whilst the boat was buried in the darkness of death. And so 'fishy' are these equinoctial seas, that gangs of old women and children may be seen at Pemba, and on the coast, converting their body-clothes into nets, and filling pots, hand over hand, with small fry. I have seen them myself, although a certain critic says, * No.' The people of Tumbatu, like the Greeks, have their good points. They are skilful pilots and stout seamen, diligent in gathering their bread from the waters, and comparatively in- dustrious, considering their enervating, prostrat- ing climate. Their low, jungly ledge wants the THE HERESY. 25 sweet element, compelling them to fetcli it from Zanzibar — their mainland ; hence travellers have described the islet as uninhabited. The people are mentioned as Moslems by Yakut (early 13th century), and this island of ' Tambat ' was made a refuge for the inhabitants of Languja or Zanzi- bar. We inquired in vain about the fort which the Arabs are said to have built there. The skins of Tumbatu are sooty, the effect, according to some, according to others the concomitant, of humid heat. The reader must not charge me with ' trimming ' between the rival schools of * race versus climate, the cause of complexion.' Many peoples betray but a modicum of chro- matic and typical change. On the other hand, I have found an approximation of colour as well as of form between the Anglo-American and the Luso-Brazilian ; and I have enlarged upon this chromatic heresy, if heresy it be, in the High- lands of the Brazil (Vol. i. chap, xxxviii.). rinally, when speaking of the permanence of type, it is well to bear in mind that our poor ob- servations hardly extend over 2500 years. The next morning placed us at the base of our operations, and we were on deck with Aurora. The stout ship ' Elphinstone,' urged by the cool land breeze, slid down the channel, the 26 THE MPOA-NI. sea-river that separates the low-lying and ever- green Zanzibar Island from its reflection, the Mpoa-ni.^ We were sensibly affected by the difference between the Sawahil, this part of the East African sea-board which begins at the Juba River, and the grim physiognomy of Somaliland, Hegion of Fragrant Gums, with its sandy horrors of Berberah, and its granitic grandeurs of Guar- dafui, which popular apprehension refers to Garde a vous, and which Abyssinian Bruce, ac- cording to Bitter (Erdkunde, 2nd Division, § 8), 1 This is the'Poane' of '0 Muata Cazembe ' (p. 323), and there rightly translated, ' Costa de Zanzibar.' Mr Cooley (p. 14, ' The Memoir on the Lake Eegions, &c., reviewed.' London, Stanford, 1864) thus misleads his readers : ' The Cazembe knew the name of only one place on the coast — Mpoani, near the Querimba Islands.' The word literally means ' on the coast,' or simply ' the coast.' In the Zaugian dialects the terminative ' -ni ' has two senses. Now it is a loca- tive, signifying on, in, by, or near, as, e.g., Nyumba-ni, ' at home ' (in the house) ; Mfu'ua-ni, at the place near the Mfu'u tree. Then it is almost pleonastic, as Kisiwa-ni, ' the island,' and Kisima-ni, ' the well.' Mpoa-ni, a word in general use, is a literal Kisawahili translation of the Arabic Sawahil (plural of Saliil), ' the shores,' strictly speaking between Mtangata and the Eufiji Eiver. Hence, possibly, the Greeks drew their name, * AtyiaXoc.' The latter is usually identified with the modern Arabic Sayf Tawil, the long strand, not ' bold or declining shore,' as translated by Captain Owen. It extends southwards from the Ka'as el Khayl to Ea'as Awaz (Cape of Change) in the Barr el Khazain (Ajan or Azania). Of the latter more in Sect. 1, Chapter V. ZANZIBAR. 27 altered to Gardefan, the Straits of Burial.^ We were in the depths of the ' dries,' as they are called in West Africa, in the local midwinter, yet this land was gorgeous in its vestment when others would be hybernating in more than semi- nudity. Truly prepossessing was our first view of the then mysterious island of Zanzibar, set off by the dome of distant hills, like solidified air, that ^ De Barros by a slip of tlie pen writes (Decades i. 5, 9) Guadrafu. I should explain the corrupted 'Guardafui' not as usual by ' Cabo d'Orfui,' but as a European version of Jurd Ilafun, — highland or crest of Hafuu. Jurd, in Arabic, means the mountain-top, opposed to the Wusut, shoulders or half-way slopes, and to the Sahl, or low lauds. The modern Arabic name of the ancient Aromata Promontarium is Ea'as Asir, the captive headland, a term especially applied to the projection of land, some 2000 feet high, which, viewed from the south, extends farthest seaward to the north-east, as I saw when sailing from Zanzibar to Aden. Hafun, supposed to be the Mosyllum Promontorium of Pliny and the Opone of Ptolemy, the Khalchui of El Idrisi ; the Jafuni of El Masudi ; the Carfuna of other Arab geographers, and the Orfui of the moderns, means the surrounded, i.e. by water, because almost an island. Lieutenant Crittenden, I.N. (Aden, April 10, ISIS. Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society), de- scribes it as a headland of lime and sandstone nearly square, and 600 to 700 feet high. He remarks that after the Elephas Mons it is the only point on the coast concerning which there can be no mistake. The sites are thus — IlaaXsir (Ouardafui) \"orth E.i»t«mmost point of Africa N. lat. 11' SO" 0"Kaper(ll» 4' 4"NoiTi») Has Hafun, Ea«tomniost point of Kttica. N. lat. in" 2fi' 48" „ (10° 27' 48" „ ) DiffiTpnco 1* Zi' a-r 1" 13' 16" Lieutenant Carlcss, I.N., makes the difference of meridian arc 0° V SO" 28 LAZINESS. form the swelling line of the Zanzibar coast. Earth, sea, and sky, all seemed wrapped in a soft and sensuous repose, in the tranquil life of the Lotus Eaters, in the swoon-like slumbers of the Seven Sleepers, in the dreams of the Castle of Indolence. The sea of purest sapphire, which had not parted with its blue rays to the atmo- sphere — a frequent appearance near the equator — lay basking, lazy as the tropical man, under a blaze of sunshine which touched every object with a dull burnish of gold. The wave had hardly energy enough to dandle us, or to cream with snowy foam the yellow sandstrip which separated it from the flower-spangled grass, and from the underwood of dark metallic green. The breath of the ocean would hardly take the trouble to ruffle the fronds of the palm which sprang, like a living column, graceful and luxu- riant, high above its subject growths. The bell- shaped convolvulus (Ipomsea Maritima), sup- ported by its juicy bed of greenery, had opened its pink eyes to the light of day, but was lan- guidly closing them, as though gazing upon the face of heaven were too much of exertion. The island itseK seemed over-indolent, and unwilling to rise ; it showed no trace of mountain or crag, but all was voluptuous with gentle swellings, CLOVE GROUNDS. 29 with the rounded contours of the girl-negress, and the brown-red tintage of its warm skin showed through its gauzy attire of green. And over all bent lovingly a dome of glowing azure, reflecting its splendours upon the nether world, whilst every feature was hazy and mellow, as if viewed through * woven air,' and not through \Tilgar atmosphere. Most of my countrymen find monotony in these Claude-Lorraine skies, with the pigment and glazing on. 1 remember how in Sind they used to bless the storm-cloud, and stand joyously to be drenched in the rain which rarely falls in that leather-coloured land. Zanzibar, however, must be seen on one of her own fine days : like Fernando Po and Eio de Janeiro, the beauty can look 'ugly' enough when she pleases. As we drew nearer and vision became more distinct, we found as many questions for the pilot as did Vasco da Gama of old. Those prim plantations which, from the offing, resembled Italian avenues of oranges, the tea-gardens of China, the vines of romantic Provence, the colfec plantations of the Brazil, or the orange- yards of Paraguay, were the celebrated clove- grounds, and the largest, streaking the central uplands, were crown property. We distinctly felt 30. BAYT EL RA'AS. a heavy spicy perfume, as if passing before the shop of an Egyptian ' attar,' and the sensorium was not the less pleasantly affected, after a hard diet of briny N.E. Trade. Various legends of hair-oil rubbed upon the bulwarks have made many a tricked traveller a shallow infidel in the matter of smelling the land. But we soon learned that off Zanzibar, as off 'Mozambic,' the fragrant vegetation makes old Ocean smile, pleased with the grateful smell, as of yore. The night breeze from the island is cool and heavy with clove perfume, and European residents carefully exclude the land-wind from their sleep- ing-rooms. Eor a little while we glided S. by E. along the shore, where the usual outlines of a city took from it the reproach of being a luxuriant wilderness. The first was ' Bayt el Ba'as, a large pile, capped with a dingy pent-house of cajan (cocoa leaves), and backed by swelling ground — here bared for cultivation, there sprinkled with dense dark trees, masses of verdure sheltering hut and homestead. EoUowed at the distance of a mile, the Ptoyal Cascine and Harem of Mto-ni, the Bivulet.^ Our ancient ally ' Sayyid Said, ^ Tet we read of the ' great river Matoney,' aud of ' travel- lers crossing the great Eiver Mtonj.' Mto, in the language MTO-Nl. 31 Imam of Maskat and Sultan of Zanzibar and the Sawahil,' had manifestly not attempted African copies of his palaces in Arabian Shinaz and Bat'hah, pavilions with side-wings and flanking tf)wers, the buildings half castle half chateau, so much affected by the feudal lords of Oman. He preferred an Arabo-African modification, here valuable for ' sommer-frisch.' The demesne of Mto-ni has a quaint manner of Gothic look, pauperish and mouldy, like the schloss of some duodecimo Teutonic Prince, or long-titled, short-pursed, placeless, and pension- less German Serenity in the days now happily gone by, when the long drear night of German do-nothingness has fled before the glorious day- break of 1866 — 1870. We can distinguish upon its long rusty front a projecting balcony of dingy planking, with an extinguisher-shaped roof, dwarfed by the luxuriant trees arear, and by the magnificent vegetation which rolls up to its very walls. Mto-ni takes its name from a run- of Zanzibar, is a river or a rivulet; also a pillow. The Qiii- limaiii Kiver signifies simply kilima-ui, (water) from the mountain. The meaning of Quilimansi (the Obi — Webbe — Nile of Makdishu, AVebbe Shebayli, of late christened the Haines River, and called Quilimaucy by De Barros, from a settlement now unknown) is still under dispute. It cannot grammatically be made to mean ' mountain-stream, or a moun- tain with streams,' as Dr Krapf has it. S2 'PASSES OF ZANZIBAR.' nel which., draining the uplands, supplies the * Palace,' and trickles through a conduit into the sea. We shall presently visit it. Entering the coral reef which defends this great store-house of Eastern Intertropical Africa, I remarked that the lucent amethyst of the waters was streaked and patched with verdigris green ; the ' light of the waves ' being caused by shoals, whose golden sands blended wdth the blue of heaven. The * Passes of Zanzibar' reminded me in colouration of the ' Gateways of Jeddah,' and as the coral reefs cut like razors, they must be threaded with equal care. So smooth was the surface within the walls, that each ship, based upon a thread of light, seemed to hover over its own reflected image. And now we could distinguish the normal straight line of Arab town, extending about a mile and a half in length, facing north, and standing out in bold relief, from the varied tints and the grandeur of forest that lay behind. A Puritanical plainness characterized the scene — cathedrals without the graceful minarets of Jed- dah, mosques without the cloisters of Cairo, turrets without the domes and monuments of Syria; and the straight stiff sky-Kne was un- relieved except by a few straggling palms. In ARRIVAL. 33 the centre, and commanding the anchorage, was a square-curtained artless fort, conspicuous withal, and fronted by a still more contemptible battery. To its right and left the Imam's palace, the various Consulates, and the large parallelo- grammic buildings of the great, a tabular line of flat roofs, glaring and dazzling like freshly white- washed sepulchres, detached themselves from the mass, and did their best to conceal the dingy matted hovels of the inner town. Zanzibar city, to become either picturesque or pleasing, must be viewed, like Stambul, from afar. AVe floated past the guard-ship, an old 50-gun frigate of Dutch form and Bombay build, be- longing to ' His Highness the Sayyid ; ' it was modestly named Shah Allum (Alam), or ' King of the World.' The few dark faces on board bawled out information unintelligible to our pilot, and showed no colours, as is customary when a foreign cruizer enters the port. We set this down to the fact of their beini? blacks — ' careless Ethiopians.' But flags being absent from all the masts, and here, as in West Africa and in the Brazil, every ' house ' flies its own bunting, we decided that there must be some cause for the omission, and we became anxious accordingly. 34 BAD NEWS. But not for siicli small matter would tlie H. E. I. C.'s sliip-of-war ' Elphinstone ' have tlie trouble of casting loose and of loading lier guns gratis. With the Sayyid's plain blood-red ensign at the main, and with union-jack at the fore, she cast anchor in Eront Bay, and gallantly de- livered her fire of 21. Thereupon a gay bunting flew up to every truck ashore and afloat, whilst the brass carronades of the 'Victoria,' another item of the Maskat navy, roared a response of 22, and, curious to say, did not blow off a single gunner's arms. We had arrived on the fortieth or last day of Moslem mourning ; and the mourn- ing was for Sayyid Said, our native friend and ally, who had for so many years been calling for volunteers and explorers, and from whom the East African expedition had been taught to ex- pect every manner of aid except the pecuniary. We lost no time in tumbling into a gig and in visiting the British Consulate, a large solid pile, coloured like a twelfth-cake, and shaped like a claret-chest, which lay on its side, com- fortably splashed by the sea. Lieut. -Colonel Atkins Hamerton, of the Indian Army, H.B.M.'s Consul and H.E. I. C.'s agent, to whom I was directed to report arrival, Avas now our main- stay, but we found him in the poorest state of COLONEL HAMERTON. 35 health. He was aroused from lethargy by the presence of strangers, and after the usual hos- pitable orders my letters were produced and read. Those entrusted to me by Lord Elphin- stone, and by his Eminence the learned and be- nevolent Cardinal Wiseman, for whom he had the profoundest respect, pleased him greatly; but he put aside the missive of the Eoyal Geo- graphical Society, declaring that he had been terribly worried for ' copy ' by sundry writing and talking members of that distinguished body. I can even now distinctly see my poor friend sitting before me, a tall, broad-shouldered, and powerful figure, with square features, dark, fixed eyes, hair and beard prematurely snow- white, and a complexion once fair and ruddy, but long ago bleached ghastly pale by ennui and sickness. Such had been the effect of the burn- ing heats of Maskat and ' the Gulf,' and the deadly damp of Zanzibar, Island and Coast. The worst symptom in his case — one which I have rarely found other than fatal — was his unwilling- ness to quit the place which was slowly killing him. At night he would chat merrily about a remove, about a return to Ireland ; he loathed the subject in the morning. To escape seemed a physical impossibility, when he had only to order 36 SAYYID MAJID. a few boxes to be packed, and to board the first home-returning ship. In this state the invalid requires the assistance of a friend, of a man who will order him away, and who will, if he refuses, carry him off by main force. Our small mountain of luggage was soon housed, and we addressed ourselves seriously to the difficulties of our position. That night's rest was not sweet to us. I became as the man of whom it was written — ' So coy a dame is Sleep to liim, That all tlie weary courtship of his thoughts Cau't wiu her to his bed.' After the disaster in Somali-land, I was pledged, at all risks and under all circumstances, to suc- ceed ; and now St Julian, host and patron of tra- vellers, had begun to show me the rough side of his temper. The Consul was evidently unfit for the least exertion. He had in his ' godowns ' dozens of chests and cases which he had not the energy to open. H. H. Sayyid Said had left affairs in a most unsatisfactory state. His eldest son, the now murdered Sayyid Suwayni, heir to Maskat, and famous as an anglophobe, had threat- ened to attack Zanzibar ; a menace which, as will afterwards apjiear, he attempted to carry out. The cadet Sayyid Majid, installed by his father TROUBLES. 37 chief of the African, possessions, was engrossed iu preparations for defence. Moreover, this amiable young prince having lately recovered from confluent small-pox, an African endemic which had during the last few years decimated the islanders, was ashamed to display a pock- marked face to the 'public,' ourselves included. The mainland of Northern Zanzibar about Lamu was, as usual on such occasions, in a state of anarchy. Every man seized the opportunity of slaying his enemy, or of refusing to pay his taxes. An exceptionally severe drought had reduced the southern coast of Zanzibar to a state of famine. Briefly, the gist of the whole was that I had better return to Bombay. But rather than re- turn to Bombay, I would have gone to Hades on that 20th of December, 1856. NOTE. Since these pages were penned the Bomhay Gazette of November 11, 1870, announced the death of H. H. Sayyid Majid, Sultan of Zanzi- bar, and the succession of his brother — Sayyid Burghush. CHAPTER III. HOW THE NILE QUESTION STOOD IN THE TEAR OF GRACE 1856. 'Avr?) jUfv ijoe Trjg nEpippvrov ^(^doyoc. This is tbe finial of th' encircling earth. Soph. Phil. In this chapter I propose briefly to place before the reader the various shiftings of opinion touching the Nile Sources, and especially to show what had been done for Zanzibar and her coast by the theoretical and practical men of Europe between a.d. 1825 and the time of our landing on the Sawtihil, or East African shores. The details given to Marinus of Tyre by the Arabian merchants, and their verification by the obscure Diogenes, together with the notices of the African lakes on the lower part of the Upper Kile, brought home about a.d. 60 by Nero's exploring Centurions, were never wholly for- OLD KNOWLEDGE. 39 gotten by Europe, which thus unlearned to derive with Herodotus the Nile from Western Africa.^ As the pages of Marco Polo show, not to quote the voyage of ' Sinbad the Sailor,' Arabs and Persians still frequented these shores ; and the Hindu Banyans, established from time immemorial upon the Zanzibar coast, had dif- fused throughout India some information touch- ing the wealthy land. The veteran geographer of Africa, Mr James Macqueen, has comment- ed upon the curious fact that the Padmavan of Lieut. Prancis Wilford (vol. iii. of the old Asiatic Researches, ' Course of the PJver Cali,' as supposed to be derived from the Puranas) is represented by the beds of floating water-lilies crossed by Captains Speke and Grant, and upon the resemblance between the Amara, or Lake of the Gods, with the Amara people on the N. E. of the so-called Nyanza Lake. These, however, ap- pear to be mere coincidences, or at best the re- sults of tales learned upon the coast by the Hindu trader. Before leaving Bombay I applied ' The 'Father of History' evidently held to the theory that the modern Bahr el Ghazal (explored of late by Mr Petherich and by the unfortunate Tinnt^ family) was the head reservoir of the White Nile. Nor is it impossible that in long-past ages the lakes or waters in question were fed by a watershed whose eastern declivities still discharge themselves into the hiirher basin. 40 GOOD GEOGRAPHY. to that eminent Sanskritist the Uev. J. Wilson, D.D., for any notices of East Africa which might occur in the sacred writings of the Hin- dus. He replied that there were none; and I had long hefore learned that Col. "Wilford him- self had acknowledged his pandit to have been an impudent impostor. At the end of the 15th century came the Portuguese explorers, with Strabo, Pliny, and Ptolemy, in their hands, and followed by a mul- titude of soldiers, merchants, and missionaries, who invested the intertropical maritime regions of Africa, east and west. The first enthusiasm, however, soon passed away. The Portuguese were supplanted by the Dutch, by the English, and by the Erench ; whilst Ptolemy and the Peri- plus were ousted by Pigafetta, Dapper, and other false improvers of their doctrines. The Ptole- meian Lakes were marched about and counter- marched in every possible way. The ' Mountain of the Moon,' prolonged across Africa under the name Jebel Kumri, really became ' Lunatic Mountains.' The change from good to bad geography is well illustrated by two charts pub- lished in 1860, by H. E. the Conde de Lavradio. The first is the fac-simile of a map in the British Museum, by Diogo Homem, in 1558. It makes GOOD GEOGRAPHY. 41 the Nile spring from two great reservoirs. But the second, bearing the name of Antonio Sances (1623), abeacly reduces these lakes to one cen- tral Caspian, which sends forth the Nile, the Congo, and the Zamheze, and Avhicli, greatly shrunken, still deforms our maps under the name of MaraA^e. Similarly, the ' Complete System of Geography,' by Emanuel Bowen (1747), places the Zambre Lake in S. lat. 4° — 11°, the ' centre from which proceed all the rivers in this part of Africa,' including the Nile. How popular the subject continued to be may be guessed from the fact that Daniel Defoe (IGGl — 1731), cast his African reading into a favourite form with him, the 'Adventures of Captain Singleton.' He lands his hero about March, 1701, a little south of Cape Delgado, causes him to cross several seas and rivers, the latter often flowing northwards, and after a year's wandering, brings him out at the Dutch settlements on the Gold Coast. Upon the general question of modern Nile literature the curious reader will consult the well-studied writings of M. Vivien do Saint- Martin. The valuable paper ' On the Kjiow- ledge the Ancients possessed of the Sources of the Nile,' by my friend W. S. W. Vaux (Trans- 42 MUSSES VAUX AND HOGG. actions of the Royal Society of Literature, vol. viii., New Series), treats of exploration up the river, beginning from the Ionian colony, estab- lished in tlie upper river by Psammetichus (circa A.c. 600), and extending to the present day. The learned article by Mr John Hogg, ' On some old Maps of Africa, in which certain of the Cen- tral and Equatorial Lakes are laid down in nearly their true positions,'^ (Transactions of the ^ In 1859 I liad written (Journal Eoyal Geographical Society, vol. sxix. 272) ' The Nyanza, as regards name, posi- tion, and even existence, has hitherto been unknown to Eurojjean geographers; but descriptions of this "sea" by native travellers have been unconsciously transferred by our writers to the Tanganyika of Ujiji, and even to the Nyassa of Kilwa.' Mr Hogg proposes to show that such was not the case. But the map by John Senex (1711) throws into one three or at least two waters. Mercator (KaufFman) lays the ' Garava ' lakelet almost parallel with the Zaflan (Zambeze) or Kilwa Lake. Walker (1811) and Lizars (1815) fit in the Tanganyika correctly, whilst the Nyassa is wholly incorrect. Of the five maps one only, that of John Senex, deserves consideration. ' This great lake placed here by report of the negroes,' alludes, I believe, to legends of the Bahari-ngo (the 'great sea,' vulgarly, Baringo), of which many East African travellers have heard. One Eumu wa Kikandi, a native of Uemba, described the water to Dr Krapf as lying five days' journey from Mount Kenia : in the Introduction to his last travels (p. xlviii.), however, the enterprising mission- ary identifies it with the so-called iNyanza or Ukerewe Lake. I was told of it by the Wakamba at Mombasah in 1857. The Pere L4on d' Avanchers (Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic, vol. xvii. 164) also collected, when travelling on the East African coast, in August, 1858, information concerning Baha- ACTUAL EXPLORATION. 43 Ptoyal Society of Literature, yoL viii.), supplies a compendium of old cartography. I proceed now to the practical part of this chapter, namely, the actual visits of inspection to Zanzibar, and their results. Until the end of the last century, our knowledge was derived almost entirely from those ' domini Orientalis Africge,' the Portuguese. The few exceptions were Sir James Lancaster, who opened to the English the Orient seas. He wintered at the . island in 1591 ; Captain Alexander Hamilton . (new account of the East Indies, 1688 — 1723, \ Hakluyt's Collection, viii. 258); and M. Saulnier de Mondevit, commanding the king's Corvette, La Prevoyance. The latter, who, in 1786, visited the principal points of Zanzibar, published a chart with * Observations sur la cote du Zan- gueibar ' (Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, vol. vi.), and recommended a Prench establishment at ' Mongalo.' In Pcbruary, 1799, Captain Bissel, P.X., com- manding n. M.'s ship Orestes, with the Leopard ringo, as he writes it. Senex finally disconnects it with the Nile, and indeed gives it no drainage at all. I cannot but think that Mr Hogg's learning and research have considerably strengthened my position, and that the so-called Nyanza Lake was, curious to say, the least known, and at the same time the nearest, to European geographers. 44. SMEE, HARDY, OWEN. carrying Admiral Blankett's flag, touched at the island for refreshments when beating up against the N. E. monsoon towards the Red Sea. He briefly but faithfully described its geography, and he laid down sailing directions which to this day are retained in Horsburgh. Since then many coasting voyages have been made by naval officers and others, who collected from natives, with more or less fidelity, details concerning the inner country. As early as 1811, Captain Smee and Lieutenant Hardy were sent by the Bombay government to gather information on the eastern seaboard of Africa, and they brought back sundry novel details (Transactions Bombay Geographi- cal Society, 1844, p. 23, &c.). Between the years 1822-1826 the whole coast line was surveyed by Captain (afterwards Admiral) W. F. Owen, and by his officers. Captains Vidal, Boteler, and others. Their charts and plans of the littoral, despite sundry inaccuracies, such as placing Zanzibar Island five miles west of its proper position, ex- cited general attention, and were justly termed by a modern author miranda tabularum series. During this Herculean labour, which occupied three years, some 300 of the officers and crew fell victims to the climate of the Coast, to the hardships of boat- work, and to the ferocity of MORESBY, HART. 45 the natives. In 1822 Sir Robert Townsend Fairfax, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Mauritius, after a crusade against the slave- trade in the dominions of Hadama, King of the Hovas, commissioned Captain (afterwards Ad- miral) Fairfax Moresby, of H. M.'s ship Menai, to draft a treaty between England and Maskat for limiting the traffic. The mission was suc- cessful. The sale of Somalis, a free people, was made piracy ; and the Sayyid's vessels were sub- ject to seizure by the Koyal, including the Com- pany's, cruizers, if detected carrying negroes ' to the east of a line drawn from Cape Delgado, passing south of Socotra and on to Diu, the west point of the Gulf of Cambay.^ In 1822, the Sayyid's assent having been formally accorded, Captain Moresby left the coast. In January, 1834, Captain Hart, of H. M.'s ship Imogene, visited Zanzibar, and submitted to the Imperial government brief notes, append- ing a list of the Sayyid's squadron then in the harbour, with their age, tonnage, armature, and other particulars. Still geographers declared that Zanzibar was a more mysterious spot to England and India than parts of Central Africa ' This 'restrictive treaty' was puhlislied in No. 21 of the Bombay Selection (1850), under the head of ' Persian Gulf.' 46 BOLLAERT, RUSCHENBERGER. and the shores of the Icy Sea.^ During the same year the energetic Mr W. Bollaert ma- tured the plan of an expedition, to be conducted by himself, from Zanzibar across the continent. It was laid before the Geographical Society in 1837, but it was not carried out, funds being deficient. In 1835 the U. S. frigate Peacock visited the island during a treaty-making tour, and was supplied with all her wants gratis, the port officials declaring that ' H. H. the Sultan of Muscat had forbidden them to take any re- / muneration.' The surgeon, Dr E-uschenberger (Narrative of a Voyage round the World in 1835 — 1837), left a realistic description of the city in those its best days. He acknowledges the hospitalities of ' Captain Hasan bin Ibrahim, of the Arab Navy,' superintendent of the ' Prince Said Carlid.' The latter was the late Sayyid Khalid, then 16 years old. The book, being written by a ' Dutch- American ' in 1835, is of course bitterly hostile to England. We are told that the keel of the Peacock, passing between Tumbatu Island and Zanzibar, scraped over coral reefs not in Owen's charts— which may be true. PolloAved the American Captains Pisher, ' We must not, however, forget that in 'all-enlightened England ' Smollett could complain of the ' people at the other end of the island knowing as little of Scotland as of Japan.' ROSS BROWN, CHRISTOPHER. 47 Drinker, Abbott, and Osgood, and Mr Ross Brown, then a young traveller in a trading- vessel. He also published a readable account of the rising settlement. "When Admiral Sir Charles Malcolm, a name endeared to eastern geographers, was giving energy and impulse to exploration in Western Asia, the late Lieut. W. Cliristopher, I. X., com- manding the H. E. I. C.'s brig-of-war Tigris, was sent to Zanzibar ; he made a practical sur- vey of the coast, and he touched at many places now famous — Kilwa (Quiloa), Mombasah, Brava, Marka, Gob-wen (or the Jub Biver), and Makdishu, or Hanir, by the Portuguese called Magadoxo. He explored the lower waters of a large stream, the "Webbe (Biver) Ganana, or Shebayli (Leopard), which he injudiciously named the Haines Biver ; and he visited Giredi and other settlements till then unknoAvn. He wrote (May 8, 1813) a highly interesting and comprehensive account of the seaboard, which ^ was published in the Journal of the Geographi- cal Society (vol. xiv. of 1811). His plans, charts, and other valuable memoranda were for- warded to the Bombay Government, and the enterprising traveller died in July, 1818, at the early age of 36, from the effects of a wound re- ceived before Multan. 48 ' MOMBAS MISSION: The honour of having made the first system- atic attempt to explore and to open up the Zan- zibar interior, is due to the establishment po- pularly known as the ' Mombas Mission ; ' its energetic members proved that it was possible to penetrate beyond the coast, and their discoveries excited a spirit of inquiry which led to the exploration of the Lake E^egions. In 18^2 the E-ev. Dr J. Lewis Krapf, being refused readmit- tance to Shoa, received a ' Macedonian call ' to East Africa; in other words, he undertook in 184^2, ■with the approbation of the Church Missionary Society, a coasting voyage to East Africa south of the line. Having visited Zanzibar Island he journeyed northwards (March 1844), and met Avith a kind reception at Mombasah where he accident- ally landed ; finally he established his head-quar- ters amongst the Wanyika tribe at Eabai Mpia near Mombasah, which then became the base of his operations. He was joined (June 1846) by the Eev. J. Eebmann of Gerlingen in Wiirtem- berg, and by Messrs Erhardt and Wagner — the latter a young German mechanic, who died shortly after arrival. In June 2, 1851, came Messrs Conrad Eiehlmann and Christian Efefferle, who soon died. They were follow^ed by three me- chanics, Hagemann, Kaiser, and Metzler, who M, EEBMAXX. 49 returned home, and by M. Deimler who retired to Bombay. M. Uebmann after visitini:? Kadiaro (Oct. 14, 1847) made in May 11, 1843 the first of three important journeys into the ' Jagga ' high- lands, and discovered, or rather rediscovered, the much vexed Kilima-njaro. The existence of this mountain bearing eternal snows in eastern inter- tropical Africa is thus alluded to in the Suma de Geographia of Fernandez de Enciso (1530) : 'West of this port (Mombasah) stands the Mount Olym- pus of Ethiopia, which is exceedingly high, and beyond it are the " Mountains of the Moon," in which are the sources of the Xile.' The discovery was confirmed by Dr Krapf, who after visiting (also in 1848) Euga, the capital of Usumbara, made tAvo journeys (in 1849 and 1851) into Ukambani. During the first he confirmed the position of Kilima-njaro, and he sighted an- other snoAvy peak, Kenia, Kegnia, or Kirenia. The assertions of the missionaries were vari- ously received. M. Vaux was thereby enabled to explain a statement in the Metereologica of Aristotle, where the first or main stream of the Nile is supposed to flow out of the mountain called Silver. Dr Eeke accepted the meridional snowy range, and here placed his Mountains of the Moon, a hypothesis first advanced in 184C. 50 MR COOLEY. The sceptics were headed hy Mr W. D. Cooley, who in 1854 had published his ' Claudius Ptole- my and the Nile.' He had identified the moun- tain of Selene (o-sXtjvtj) with the snowy highland of ' Semenai ' or ' Samien ' in northern Abyssinia, and thus by adopting a mere verbal resemblance he had obtained a system of truly ' lunatic moun- tains.' Some years before (Journal Ptoyal Geo- graphical Society, vol. xv. 1845) appeared his paper entitled, ' The Geography of N'yassi, or the great lake of Southern Africa investigated,' a complicated misnomer. The article was written in a clear style and a critical tone, showing am- ple reading but lacking a solid foundation of fact. It began as usual with Pigafetta and de Barros, and it ended with Gamitto and Monteiro ; the peroration, headed ' Harmony of Authorities,' was a self-gratulation, a song of triumph concerning the greatness of hypothetical discoveries, which were soon proved to be purely fanciful. Not one man in a million has the instincts of a good com- parative geographer, and the author was assured- ly not that exceptional man. His monograph did good by awaking the scientific mind, but it greatly injured popular geography. It unhap- pily asserted (p. 15) that ' in every part of east- ern Africa to which our inquiries have extended, •.TYASSi: 51 snow is quite unknown.' And the author having laid down his law bowed before it, and expected Fact as well as the Public to do the same ; he even attacked the text of Ptolemy, asserting that the passages treating of the Nile sources and the Lunar Mountains were an interpolation of a comparatively recent date. In June and Novem- ber 18G3 the late Baron von der Decken, accom- panied by Dr Kersten, an accomplished astrono- mical observer, ascended some 1300 feet, saw a clearly defined limit of perpetual snow at about 17,000 feet, and by a rough triangulation gave the main peak of Kilima-njaro an elevation of 20,065 feet. Still Mr Cooley, with singular want of candour, denied existence to the snow. It was the same with his ' Single Sea,' which under the meaningless and erroneous name ' N'yassi ' again supplanted Ptolemy's Lakes, and this want of acumen offered the last insult to African geography. Thus was revived the day when the Arab and Portuguese geographers made the three Niles (of Egypt, Magadoxo, and Xigritia) issue from one vast reservoir, and thus were the school maps of the world disfigured during half a generation. The lake also was painfully dis- torted, simply that it might ' run parallel to the line of volcanic action drawn through the Isle de 52 DR KRAPF. Bourbon, the north of Madagascar, and the Comoro Islands, and to one of the two lines pre- dominating on the coasts of southern Africa wherever there are no alluvial flats.' It abound- ed, moreover, in minor but significant errors, such as confounding ' Zanganyika,' a town or tribe, with Tanganyika, the name of the Lake. Of late years Mr Cooley has once more shifted his position, and has declared that he did not intend to provide central intertropical Africa between * Monomotapa ' and Angola with a single lake. The whole of his paper on the ' Geography of N'yassi ' means that if it mean anything. He is not, however, the only Proteus — hard to find and harder to bind — amongst African geographers. To conclude this notice of the ' Mombas Mis- sion,' Dr Krapf again visited Fuga, where he was followed by Mr Erhardt, and finally the two mis- sionaries ran down the coast, touched at Kilwa, and extended their course to Cape Delgado. In August 1855 Dr Krapf, after 18 years' residence in Africa, bade it farewell ; he did not revisit it except for a few months in 1867, when he acted dragoman to the Abyssinian Expedition. In January 1856 appeared, what has been called the ' Mombas Mission Map ' (Skizze nach J. Er- hardt' s Original), the result of exploration and of J/J/. ERHARDT AND REBMANN. 53 notices collected from the natives. It was ac- companied by a ' Memoir of tlie Chart of East and Central Africa, compiled by J. Erhardt and J. Eebmann.' This production was ' remarked upon' by Mr Cooley (Jan. 8, 1856), and in turn his remarks were remarked upon by Herr Peter- mann. Tlie peculiar feature of the chart was a * monster slusr '-like inland Sea extending? from the line to S. Lat. 14°, — an impossible Caspian some 840 miles long x 200 to 300 in breadth. I have already explained that this error arose by the fact that the three chief caravan routes from the Zanzibar coast abut upon three several lakes which, in the confusion of African vocab- ulary — Nyassa being corrupted to X'yassi, and Xyanza also signifying water — were naturally thrown into one. It was, however, to ascertain the existence of this slug-shaped article that the East African Expedition of 1856 — 59 was sent out. The most valuable results of Dr Krapf's labours are his works on the Zanzibarian lan- guages, and these deserve the gratitude of every traveller and student of African philology. The principal are, Messrs Krapf's and Isenbcrg's imperfect out- line of the Galla language (London, 1810). 54 PHILOLOGY. Messrs Krapf and Isenberg, ' Vocabulary of the Galla Language,' London, 18^0. Tentamen imbecillum Translationis Evangelii Joannis in linguam Gallorum, London, 1841. Messrs Krapf's, Isenberg's, and Mllhleisen- Arnold's Vocabulary of the Somali tongue (1843). (Three chapters of Genesis translated into the ' Soahilee ' language, with an introduction by "W. W. Greenhough : printed in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1847, liad appeared in the mean time.) Gospel according to St Luke translated into Kinika, 12mo, Bombay, 1848. Gospel according to St Mark translated into Kikamba, 8vo, Tlibingen, 1850. Outline of the elements of the Ki-suaheli language, 8vo, Tubingen, 1850. Vocabulary of 6 East-African languages, small folio, Tubingen, 1850. Mr Erhardt's vocabulary of the Enguduk Iloigob or Masai tongue, 8yo, Ludwigburg, 1857. Besides these there are (1860) in MSS., 1. the entire Xew Testament (Kisawahili) . 2. A com- plete Dictionary of Ki-suahili. 3. The Gospel according to St Matthew (Kikamba). 4. Matthew and Genesis in Galla, &c., &c., &c. Dr Krapf's last work, a relation historique. M. MAIZAN. 55 appeared in 1860 (Travels, Researches, and Mis- sionary Labours, &c., &c., with an Appendix by Mr P. G. Ptavenstein, E.R.G.S. London, Triibner and Co.). I venture to suggest that he might reprint with great advantage to African students his various journals, scattered through the num- bers of the ' Church Missionary Intelligencer.' We want them, however, printed textually, with explanatory notes embodying subsequent inform- ation. Meanwhile the difficulties of East African exploration were complicated by a terrible disas- ter. M. Maizan, an Ensigne de Yaisseau, re- solved to explore the inner lake regions via the Zanzibar coast, and in 1844 his projects were approved of by his government. After the rains of 1845 he landed at the little settlement Bag- amoyo, and when barely three days from the seaboard, he was brutally murdered at the vil- lage of Dege la Mhora, by one P'hazi Mazungera, chief of the Wakamba, a sub-tribe of the Waza- ramo. The distinguished hydrographer Captain Guillain was sent in the brig of war Lc Decou- edic, to obtain satisfaction for this murder, and the following sentence concludes his remarks upon the subject (Chap. 1, pp. 17 — 20) ; 'Tout ce que je veux, tout ce que je dois me rappeler de 56 ' CAPTAIN GUILLAIN: Maizan, c'est qu'il etait intelligent, instruit, cour- ageux, et qu'il a p^ri miserablement a la fieur de I'age (aet. 26) au debut d'une enterprise ou il aurait pu rencontrer la gloire.' I have also described (Lake Regions of Central Africa, 1. Chap. 3), from information collected on the spot, the young traveller's untimely end ; and it is still my opinion that the foul murder was caused more or less directly by the Christian merchants of Zanzibar. Dr Krapf s account of the cata- strophe (Travels, p. 421) abounds in errors. Cap- tain Guillain was also sent on a kind of baseman's tour, a hawker carrying echantillons of Erench cloth and other produce offered to the Arab mar- ket. Mayotta having been ceded in 1841 by the Sakalawa chief, Andrian Souli, to the Erench government, which occupied it militarily in 1843, the first idea was to make of it a second and a more civilized Zanzibar. The coasting voyages and afew short inland trips were thought worthy of being published in three bulky volumes (Docu- ments sur I'Histoire, la Geographic, et la Com- merce de I'Afrique Orientale, recuellis et r^dig^s par M. Guillain, &c.; publi(is par ordre du Gou- vernement. Paris, Bertrand). The additions to Captain Owen's survey are unimportant, but the Prench officer has diligently collected ' documents DR BEKE. 57 pour servir,' which will be useful when a liistoiy of the coast shall be written.' The worst part of the book is the linguistic ; a sailor, however, passing rapidly through or along a country, can hardly be expected to learn much of the language. Meanwhile an important theory concerning the Xile Sources was published by my friend, Dr Charles T. Beke. He had surveyed and explored (Xov. 1840 — May 1813) the Abyssinian plateau and the lowlands near the Ued Sea, and he had de- termined the water-parting of the streams which feed the Nile and the Indian Ocean (Journal Uoyal Geographical Society, vol. xii). Whilst Emitter (Erdkunde) and other geographers made the White River rise between N. lat. 7° and 8° and even 11°, whilst Messrs Antoine d' Abbadie and Ayrton were searching for the Coy Fountains in Enaria and Kaffa (X. lat. 7" 19' and E. long. 36*^ 2' 9") ; and whilst Mr James Macqueen located ' the sources of the chief branch of the Bahr-el-abiad in about X. lat. 3° ' (Preface xxiv. Geographical Survey of Africa, London, Fellowes, 1810), and 'at no great distance from the equator ' (Ibid. 235), Dr Beke announced at the Swansea meeting of the British Association, that he would carry the Caput Nili to S. lat. 2°— 3° and E. long. 31°; moreover that he would place it ' at a compara- 58 DR BIALLOBLOTSKY. tively sliort distance from the sea coast, within the dominions of the Imam of Maskat.' Kightly judging the eastern coast to be the easiest road into central intertropical Africa, Dr Beke, then secretary to the Geographical Society of London, collected a subscripion for exploring the Nile Sources, via Zanzibar, and sent out Dr Friedrich Bialloblotsky to attempt the discovery. This Professor of Hebrew and literary man presented in February 1849 his credentials to H. M. the Sayyid and to Lieut. -Colonel Hamerton. The latter, backed by Dr Krapf, sent back the explorer to Egypt, without allowing him even to set foot upon the East African shore, and he was justified in so doing. The recent murder of M. Maizan had thrown the coast into confusion, the assassin was at large, and the motives which prompted the deed were still actively at work within the Island of Zanzibar. Dr Bialloblotsky could speak no eastern tongue, at least none that was intelligible in S. Africa ; he was completely un- trained to travel, he collected ' meteoric ' dust during a common storm at Aden — magno cum risu of the Adenites ; he did not know the difference between a sextant and a quadrant, and he asked Lieut. -Colonel Hamerton what a vouns^ cocoa- nut was. DR BEKE. Dr Beke, iu liis character of ' Theoretical Dis- coverer of the Nile Sources,' has published the following studies. ' On the Nile and its Tributaries,' a state- ment of his then novel views (Oct. 28, 1846, and printed in the Journal Royal Geographical Society, vols, xvii., xviii. of 1847-8). 'The Sources of the Nile : being a General Survey of the Basin of that Biver, and of its Head-streams, with the History of Nilotic Discovery ' (London, Madden, 1860). The appendix contains a sum- mary of Dr Bialloblotsky's projected journey. ' On the Mountains forming the eastern side of the Basin of the Nile, and the origin of the designation, " Mountains of the Moon," applied to them.' This paper, being refused by the Boyal Geographical Society, was read (August 30, 1861) before the British Association at Manchester. ' Who discovered the Sources of the Nile ? ' A letter to Sir Boderick I. Murchison (Mad- den, Leadenhall-street, 1863). ' On the Lake Kurd of Arabian Geographers and Cartographers.' This paper argues that the equatorial Lake Kura-Kawar, drawn by an Arab, and published in Lelewel's " Geo- graphic du Moyen Age," represents the lakes and marshes of N. lat. 9°. GO NEW NILE SOURCE. Di" Beke, it appears, doubly deserves the title ' Theoretical Discoverer of the Nile Sources.' He has lately transferred the Caput from S. lat. 2°— 3° to S. lat. 10° 30'— 11", and from E. long. 31° to E. long. 18° — 19°, making the stream pass through 13° of latitude, and measuring diagon- ally one-eighth of the circumference of the globe. (' Solution of the Nile Problem,' Athe- naeum, Eeb. 5, 1870). The Nile is thus identified with the Kasai, or Kassavi, the Casais of P. J. Baptista (the Pombeiro), the Casati of Douville, the Casasi of M. Cooley, the Cassabe of M. J. B. Graca, the Kasaby of Mr Macqueen, and the Kasye or Loke of Dr Livingstone. These ' New Sources ' are in the ' primaeval forests of Olo- Yihenda and Djikoe or Ivibokoe (the Quiboque of the Hungarian officer Ladislaus Magyar), in the Mossamba Mountains, about 300 miles from the coast of Benguela. Mr Keith Johnston, jun. believes that the Lufira-Luapula river is the lower course of the Kassavi or Kassabi, which is usually made to rise in S. lat. 12°, near the Atlantic seaboard, and after flowing N. E. and N. as far as about S. lat. 8°, to turn eastward instead of continuing to the N. W. and W. He makes it, however, the true head of the Congo, not of the Nile. SIR RODERICK MURCHISON. 61 Amongst minor explorations, I may mention that of Mr Henry C. Arcangelo, who in 1847 ascended the Jnba or Govind E^iver. It is, liowever, doubtful how far his explorations ex- tended. He was followed in 1849 by Captain Short. In November, 1851, a party of three Moors or Zanzibar Arabs landed at ' Bocamoio ' (the Bagamoyo roadstead village where M. Maizan disembarked), travelled with 40 carriers to the Lake 'Tanganna' (Tanganyika), crossed it in a boat which they built, visited the Muata Cazembe, and reached, after six months, the Por- tuguese Benguela. The late Mr Consul Brand communicated, through the Eoreign Office, this remarkable journey, in which Africa had been crossed, with few difficulties, from sea to sea, and it excited the attention of the Royal Geo- graphical Society (Journal, vol. xxiv. of 1854). In 1852 Sir Roderick I. Murchison pro- pounded his theory of the basin-shaped struc- ture of the African interior. This was an important advance upon the great plateau of Laccpede (Memoire, etc., dans les Annales du Musee de I'Histoire Nat., vi. 284), and it abol- ished the gardens and terraces of Ritter (Erd- kunde, le Plateau ou la Haute Afriquc). About the same time Col. Svkes recommended that an 62 COLONEL SYKES. expedition be sent from Mombasah to explore the ' Arcanum Magnum,' opining that the discovery of Kilima-njaro and Kenia had limited the area of the head- waters between S. lat. 2° — 4° and E. long. (G.) 32*^ — 36°, almost exactly the southern- most position of the Nyanza Lake. In March, 1855, Lieut. -Colonel Hamerton forwarded con- cise but correct notices, ' On various points con- nected with the H.M. Imam of Muskat,' which Avas published in the Bombay Selections (No. 24). In Dec. 10, 1855, followed Mr James Mac- queen's paper on the ' Present state of the Geo- graphy of some parts of Africa (read at the Royal Geographical Society, April 8 and June 10, 1850), with 'Notes on the Geography of Central Africa,' taken from the researches of Livingstone, Monteiro, Graca, and others (Jour- nal Royal Geographical Society, vol. xxvi. 109). They show great critical ability. The map ac- companying, the memoir se2:)arated the 'Tangan- yenka ' from the Xyassa Lake ; moreover, it disposed the greater axes of these several waters as they should be, nearly upon a meridian. Maps still suffered from that incubus the N'yassi or Single Sea, stretching between S. lat. 1° — 12", and distorted by its 'historien geographe' from the X. S. position occupied by the half-dozen lakes MR MACaUEEN. 63 which compose it ^ to a N. W. and S. E. rhumb. As afterwards appeared, Mr Macqueen had con- fused the Tanganyika and Nyanza Avaters by placing the centre of the former in long. (G.) 29''. This, however, was not suspected when my excellent and venerable friend gave me the rough proofs of his paper, which travelled with me into Central Africa. Mr Macqueen has also done good by editing (Journal Royal Geographi- cal Society, vol. xxx.) the Journeys of Silva Porto with the Arabs from Benguela to Ibo and Mozambique, and by other labours too numerous to be specified. A pause in East African exploration followed the departure of Dr Krapf. M. Erhardt, whose project of entering via Kilwa was not supported, had joined his brother missionaries in India. M. Rebmann alone remained at Rabai Mpia. ' The 'Xyassi' is, in fact, a general reservoir into which are thrown the Lakes Tariganyika, the X3assa, tlie Shirwa, and the four smaller waters, the Lieinba, the Baugweolo, the Moero of the great river Chambeze, and the Liemba drained by the Lufira-Luapula stream. The latter, lying between S. lat. 10" — 12", have lately been reported by Dr Livingstone (Map of the Lake Region of Eastern Africa, showing the Sources of the Nile recently discovered by Dr Livingstone, with notes, «S.'C., by Keith Johnston, jun. (Johnston); and we havea Sketch ]\rap of Dr Livingstone's recent Explorations — Eiiic Karten- skizze, &c. Erom Dr I'etermann's Geographische Mittheilun- gen, Part V., for May, 1870 (Gotha, Perthes). G4 NOTE. And whilst under IT. H. Abbas Pasha a larsre and complete Egypto-Eiiropean expedition was, after the old fashion, organized to ascend the stream, ' ad investigandum caput Nili ' (Seneca, Nat. Qusest. vi. 8), the new and practicable route from the Zanzibar coast seemed to liave been clean forgotten. During this lull we landed, as the reader has been told in the last chapter, upon the African isle ' Menouthias.' NOTE. I may be excused in here alluding to an as- sertion often repeated by the ' Geographer of N'gassi,' in his Memoir on the ' Lake Regions of East Africa reviewed ' (London, Stanford, 1864) . He makes me ' the easy dupe of the most trans- parent personal hostility, which wore the respect- able mask of the Royal Geographical Society,' and he assures me that I left England 'indoc- trinated ' as to what lake or lakes I should find in Central Africa, and so forth. This fretfulness of mortified vanity would not have been noticed by me had it not been so un- fair to the Royal Geographical Society. In the preface of my Memoir (pp. 4 — 8, Journal Royal Geographical Society, vol. xxix.), I was careful to print all the instructions of the Expedi- tionary Committee, and I only regretted thai: they were not more detailed. It is absurd to as- P.S. 65 sert of a traveller that lie 'visited the lake re- gions with a confirmecl inclination to divide the lake.' What interest can he have in brinsrinsr home any but the fullest and most exact details ? The petty differences between himself and the lloyal Geographical Society, which Mr Cooley assumes all the world to know, were utterly un- known to me when I left England in 1856 ; and, greatly despising such things, I have never since inquired into the subject. Returning home in 1859, I learned with surprise that the ' Com- parative Geographer ' still stood upon his ' Single Sea,' and considered any one who dared to make two or three of it his personal enemy. That such should be the mental state of a gentleman who has not, they say, taken leave of his T\its, was a phenomenon which justified my wonder ; nor could I believe it till the pages of the Athencvum proceeded to give me f)roof positive. It is melancholy to see a laborious literary man, whose name might stand so high, thus display the caput mortuum of his intellect. P.S. Another mortuary notice ! My good old friend Mr Macqueen has also passed away at a ripe age, leaving behind him the memory of a laborious and useful life, especially devoted to the cause of Africa and the Africans. \ VOL. I. CHAPTER IV. A STROLL THROUGH ZANZIBAR CITY. ' E clahi se foi a Ilba de Zanzibar, que lie aqueni de Mombaca vinte leguas e tao pegada a terra firma que as naos que passa- rem per eutre ellas, hao de ser vistas.' — De Baeeos, 1, vii. 4. And first of the Port. Zanzibar harbour is a fine specimen of the true Atoll, barrier or fringing reef, built upon a subsiding foundation, probably of sandstone. The original lagoon, charged with sediment and washings from the uplands, must have burst during some greater flood, and split into narrow water-ways the one continuous coralline rim. The same influences may account for the gaps in the straight-lined reef whose breach gave a name to Brazilian Pernambuco. The port varies in depth from 9 to 13 fathoms, with overfalls, and the rise of the tide is 13 feet. Here the Hormos Episalos (statio fluctuosa, or open roadstead of the Periplus, ISLETS. 67 chap. 8) has been converted into a basin by the industry of the lithophyte. These ants of the ocean have built up an arc of ' Sea-girt isles, That, like to rich and various gems, inlay The unadorned bosom of the deep.' There is a front harbour and a back bay. The latter enables ships landing cargo to avoid the heavy swell of the N.E. monsoon. The two are separated by Bas Changani ' — Sandy Point. The name, corrupted to Shangany, has attached itself in our charts to the whole city. These coral-based islet clumps are readily made in these seas. The rough ridges of a 'wash,' where currents meet, are soon heaped with sea-weed, with drift-wood, and with scatters of parasitical testacege, which decaying form a thin but fruitful soil. Seeds brought by winds, waves, and birds then germinate ; and matter, ^ Changa (large sands), in the plural Michanga, sands (of great extent). Mchanga (sand generally), at Mombasah and on the coast which preserve the older dialect, becomes INItanga, and means a sandy place. The islanders of Zanzibar, for instance, will say Xti (the land or earth), the continentals, Nchi : these prefer Ku Changanyika (to meet together), those Ku Tanganyika. Foreigners often confound ehysi with jya, and pronounce, for instance, IVrsijyanii for Msichytiua — a lass. The Arabs, who cannot articulate the ch, convert it into their familiar sh, e. g. Ku Shimba for Ku Cliiniba (to dig). 68 CHAMPANI. animal as well as vegetable, is ever added till a humus-bed is formed for thick shrubbery and trees. Unless deposition and vegetation con- tinue to bind the rock, it is liable to be under- mined by the sea, when it forms banks danger- ous to navigation. Dr E-uschenberger, repeated by a modern traveller, informs us that there are ' four minor reefs, looking like great arks, whose bows and sterns hang bushing over the waters.' As all the plans show, there are five. The northern- most link of the broken chain is Champani (not * Chapany '), the Isle des Fran^ais of Prench charts. It became a God's-acre for Europeans, whose infidel corpses here, as at Maskat, and in ancient Madeira before the days of Captain Cook, had during less latitudinarian times the choice of the dunghill of the cove, or of a hole in the street. Eormerly it was frequented by turtle-fishers and egg-seekers : ' black Muhogo,'^ however, has been scared away by visions of fever- stricken, yellow-faced ghosts rising ghastly from the scatter of Christian graves. The bit of sandy bush, distinguished from its neighbours by ab- sence of tall trees, is frequented (1857) by naval and commercial Nimrods, with ' shooting irons ' ^ Manioc, often erroneously written Mahogo. KIBONDIKO. 69 and * smelling dogs,' curs with clipped ears and shorn tails, bought from bumboat men : en hon chasseurs, they shoot the Sayyid's little antelopes which troop up expecting food ; and sometimes these sportsmen make targets of certain buff- coloured objects imperfectly seen through the bushes. The mouldering sepulchres in their neglected clearings make the prospect of a last home here peculiarly unsavoury, almost as bad as in Brazilian Santos. Yet there are traditions of French picnics visiting it to eat monkey — a proceeding which might have been interrupted en ville. Westward the line of natural breakwaters is prolonged by Kibondiko, Le Ponton, or the Hulk. A mere mass of jungle, it has never been utilized. The eye, however, rests with pleasure upon the sheet of sparkling foam tumbling white over its coralline outliers, backed by dark purple-blue distance, and fronted by tranquil, leek-green shoal water. Connected with its neighbour by a reef practicable at low tides, it is separated from Changu, or Middle Island, by ' French channel,' deep enough for men-of-war. The shoals about it supply a small rock-oyster. The Crustacea, however, is uncultivated, and amongst Moslems it is cscargot to the typical John 13ull. 70 BAWL The most important is Bawi or Turtle Island, a low, dry bank, slightly undulated, Avith a beau- tifully verdant undergrowth, fringed and tasseled with the tallest cocoas. The Chelonian (K'hasa) of the East coast, eaten in April and May, by no means equals that of Pernando Po or of Ascen- sion ; moreover, here no man is master of the art and mystery of developing callipash and cal- lipee. Turtle, cooked by a ' cook-boy,' suggests the flesh of small green Saurians (Susmar), which the haughty Persians of Pirdausi thus objected to their Semitic neighbours — ' Cau tlie Arab's greed thus have grown so great, Trorn his camels' milk and his lizards' meat, That he casts on Kayyanian crowns his eye ? Fie on thee ! thou swift-rolling world, O fie ! ' The tortoise-shell, so often mentioned in the Periplus as an export from Menouthias (chap. XV.) and Khapta (chap, xvii.), has until lately been neglected. Like Bombay Calabar, and our Isle of Dogs in the olden time, the few acres of Turtle Island were used to 'keep antelopes, goats, and other beasts of delight,' while vicious baboons were deported to it from the city. Below it is the celebrated ' Harpshell Bank,' now mercilessly spoiled. Southernmost is C'humbi Island, alias La Passe, which, mistaken for the CHUMBI. 71 Turtle, has caused many a wreck. These mis- haps are not always accidental. One day Lieut. - Colonel Hamerton saw, through his glass, the master of a Erenchman deliherately stow himself and his luggage in the gig, put off, and leave his ship to run her nose upon the nearest reef. These islands form the well-known ' Passes,' channels intricate with lithodom-reefs and mol- lusk-heds. They numher four, namely, the northern or English Pass, between Champani and Zanzibar; the N. "W. or Prench Pass, between Kibondiko and Changu ; the great or middle, be- tween Changu and Bawi ; and the western, south of Bawi. The principal entrance was buoyed by the late Sayyid, but these precautions soon disappeared. Within the line of break- waters is the anchorage, which may be pro- nounced excellent ; ships ride close to shore in 7 to 8 fathoms, and the area between the islets and the island may be set down at 38 square miles. It presents an animated scene. Mosquito fleets of ' ngarawa ' or monoxyles cut the wavelets like flying proas, under the nice conduct of the sable fishermen, who take advantage of the calm weather. The northerners from about Brava have retained the broad-brimmed straw hat, big as an average parasol. Like that of Mala- 72 NATIVE CRAFT. bar, Morocco, and "West Africa, it was adopted by their Portuguese conquerors. The machua or ' little boats ' of the Lusiads, which De Barros calls ' Sambucos,'^ are still the same, except that a disproportioned sail of merkani (American domestics), based upon a pair of outriggers, noAV supplies the primitive propeller, ' d'humas fulhas de palma bem tecidas.' The outrigger is rarely neglected. Here and there a giant shark shoots up from the depths, and stares at the fishermen with a cruel, fixed, and colourless eye, that makes his blood run cold. Only the poorest of poor devils will ven- ture into a ' dug-out,' which is driven before the wind or paddled with a broad, curved, spoon- like blade. These Matumbi, or hollowed logs, form a curious national contrast with the launches and lighters that land European mer- chandise; ponderous and solid squares, their build shows nothing graceful or picturesque. The N. E. monsoon is now (December) doing its duty well, and bringing various native craft ^ I have described (Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah) the modern Sambuk of the Red Sea, and find the word ' Son- bouk ' in the French translation of Ibu Batutah. Sir Gardner "Wilkinson quotes Athenteus, who makes the * Sambuca ' (a musical instrument) 'resemble a ship with a ladder placed over it.' THE MTEPE. 73 from. Madagascar, Mozambique, tlie minor islands of the Indian Ocean, Bombay and Guzerat, the Somali coast, the E-ed Sea, Maskat, and tbe Persian Gulf. Numbering 60 to 70, they anchor close in shore — Semites and Hamites, won- drously apathetic ! — where the least sea would bump them to bits. About half a mile outside the ' country shipping,' ride, in 5 to 6 fathoms, half a dozen square-rigged merchantmen — Americans, Prench, and Hamburgers ; Eng- land is not represented. What with bad water, and worse liquor, the Briton finds it hard to live at Zanzibar. All are awaiting cargoes of copal and ivory, of hides, and of the cowries whicli we used to call ' blackamoor's teeth.' The quaintest and freshest local build is to us the Mtepe, which the Arabs call Muntafiyah.^ This lineal descendant of the Ploaria Bhapta (Naviculae Consutse, Periplus, chap. IG), that floated upon these seas 20 centuries ago, is a favourite from Lamu to Kilwa. The shell has a beam one-third of its length, and swims the tide buoyantly as a sea-bird. This breadth, com- bined with elasticity, enables it to stand any ' It is written Mutaifiyah in the Arab Chrouicle of Momb- aaah History, translated and included in Captain Owen's work (Voyages to Africa, vol. i. -IKj, Arabia, etc., London, Bentley, 1833). 74 THE BADAN. amount of grounding and bumping, nor is it ever beached for the S. W. monsoon. It is pegged together, not nailed, and mostly, as the old traveller says, ' sewn, like clothes, with twine.' The tapering mast, raking forwards, carries any amount of square matting, by no means air-tight, and the stern is long and pro- jecting, as if amphisbsenic. The swan-throat of the arched prow is the cheniscus of the classical galley-stem. Necklaced with strips of hide and bunches of talismans, it bears a red head ; and the latter, as in the ark of Osiris and in the Chinese junk, has the round eyes painted white, — possibly, in the beginning holes for hawsers. The ' Mtepe ' carries from 12 to 20 tons, and can go to windward of everything propelled by wind. The Badan, from Sur, Sohar, and Maskat, has a standing plank-covering, and being able to make 11 knots an hour is preferred by passen- gers, Arab loafers, and sorners, one being al- lowed per ton in short trips. Descried from afar through the haze, her preposterous sail has caused the Zanzibarites to fly their flags in anticipation of home news; nearer, the long, narrow, quoin-shaped craft, with towering stern- post and powerful rudder, like the caudal fin of THE DAU. 75 some monstrous fish, presents an exceptional physiognomy. The uncouth Arab Dau (dow) dates probably from the days of the Phoenicians, and is found all over the Indian Ocean. She ranges from 50 to 500 tons, and her sharp pro- jecting bow makes her deck nearly a quarter longer than the keel, giving her, when under weigh, a peculiar stumbling, shambling, totter- ing gait. The open poop is a mass of immense outworks, and there is the normal giant steer- ing-tackle, often secured only by lashings : a sin- gle mast is stepped a little ahead of amidships ; it rakes forward, as is the rule of primitive craft, and it supports a huge square sail of coarse material. The Kidau (small dow) is similar, but Avith open stern-cabins ; it is generally sewn together with coir or rope of cocoa fibre, and caulked Avith the 'same. The bottom is paid over with a composition of lime and shark's-oil, which, hardening under water, preserves the hull from sea-worms. Tlius sheathed, ships which have made two feet of leakage become tight as if newly coppered. Similarly, the Irish fishermen coat their craft with marl and oil. Talc and tallow are employed in difl'erent parts of Europe : and the Chinese use a putty of oil and burnt gypsum ; according to others, a com- 76 THE ' grab: position of lime and resin of the Tongsliu-tree applied over the oakum of bamboo (Astley, 4, 128). The ' Grab ' (properly ' Ghurab,' meaning a raven) is an overgrown Pattimar. A model of the latter craft, primitive and Hindu, was sub- mitted to the British public during the Great Exhibition. E^igged barque-like, it is wondrous ark-like and uncouth. Baghlahs (she-mules) and Ganjas (Ghancheh), from Cutch, are old tubs with low projecting prows and elevated sterns, elaborately carved and painted. Low down in the fore, their lean bows split like giant w^edges the opposing waves, which hiss and seethe as they fly past in broad arrow-heads. Dangerous in heavy seas, these coffins are preserved by popular pre- judice for the antique and by the difficulty of choosing other models. Add sundry Batelas, with poop-cabinets, closed and roomy, some with masts struck, others ready to weigh anchor — I am not writing, gentle reader, a report on Moslem naval architecture — and you have an idea of the outlandish fleet, interesting withal, which bethrongs the port of Zanzibar. The much-puffed squadron of the late Sayyid, stationed during his life at Mto-ni, and now being divided amongst the rival heirs, flanks THE SQUADRON. 77 with its single and double tiers of guns these peaceful traders, of whom, hy-the-by, some are desperate pirates. The number is imposing; but the decks have no awnings against the weather, the masts are struck and stripped to save rigging, the yards lie fore-and-aft upon the booms, the crews consist of half-a-dozen thievish, servile ' sons of water ' (M'ana Maji) ; rats and cockroaches compose the live stock ; the am- munition is nowhere, and though the quarter and main decks are sometimes swept, everything below is foul with garbage and vermin. The ex- teriors are dingy ; the interiors are so thoroughly rotted by fresh water that the ships are always ready to go down at their anchors. The whole thing is a mistake amongst Arabs, who are fitted only for a ' buggalow,' or at best a ' grab.' The late Sayyid once attempted English sailors, who behaved well as long as they did what they pleased, especially in the minor matters of 'baccy and grog ; but when the dark-faced skipper began loud speaking and tall threats, they incon- tinently thrashed him upon his own quarter- deck, and were perforce ' dismissed the service.' Every captain in the 11. N. Maskat, besides im- pudently falsifying the muster-rolls, will steal the fighting-lanterns, the hammocks, and other H. m:s consulate. articles useful at home ; whilst the care-takers sell in the bazar, junk, rope, and line; copper bolts, brass-work, and carpenter's chests bearing the government mark. When a ship is wanted an Arab IN'akhoda (here called Nahoza), a Mu- allim or sailing-master, and a couple of Suk- kanis (pilots), are sent on board with a crew composed of a few Arab non-commissioned officers and ' able seamen,' Baloch, Maskatis, and slaves. The commander, who receives some 50 dollars per lunar month, kills time with the cognac bottle ; the sailing-master (7 dollars) dozes like a lap-dog in his own arm-chair on the quarter-deck ; and the seamen do nothing, Jack helping Bill. One of these vessels sent to Eng- land a few years ago lost, by want of provisions and bad Avater, 86 out of its crew — 100 men ; and can we wonder at it ? A single small screw- steamer, carrying a heavy gun, and manned and commanded by Europeans, would have been more efficient in warfare, and far more useful in peace, than the whole squadron of hulks. It is, however, vain to assure the Arab brain that mere number is not might ; and, indeed, so it is when people believe in it. The high and glassless windows of TI. M.'s Consulate enable us to prospect the city. Zan- ZANZIBAR CITY. 79 zil3ar, in round numbers 6° south of the line, occupies the western edge and about the midway length of the coral reef that forms the island. The latter is separated by a Manche or channel from the continent, a raised strip of blue land, broken by tall and remarkable cones all rejoicing in names still mysterious enough to flutter the traveller's nerves. The inclination of the island from N.N.W. to S.S.E. shelters the harbour from the Indian Ocean, whilst the bulge of the mainland breaks the force of dangerous Hippalus, the S.W. monsoon. The minimum breadth of the Manche is 16 geographical miles ; from the Fort to the opposite coast there are 24, and from the bottom of Menai Bay 35. The Periplus gives to the Menouthian Channel about 300 stadia, in round numbers 30 geographical miles : GOO common stadia correspond, within a fraction of the real measurement, with a degree of latitude (l''=3j„ of the earth's circumference). Marinus of Tyre and Ptolemy, however, unduly reduced the latter to 500 stadia. Zanzibar city is built upon a triangular spit, breaking the line of its wide, irregular, and shal- low bay. The peninsula is connected with the island by an isthmus some 300 yards wide, and it is backed by swamp and lagoon, bush and forest. 80 ON THE SHORE. Arc-sliaped, with the chord formed hy the sea- frontage, and the segment of the circle facing landwards, its greatest length is from N.E. to S.W., and it is disposed beach ways, like the sea- ports of Oman. The front is a mere ' dicky,' a clean show concealing tmcleanness. Instead, however, of a neat marine parade and a T-shaped pier, the foreground is a line of sand fearfully impure. Corpses float at times upon the heavy water ; the shore is a cess-pool, and the younger blacks of both sexes disport themselves in an ab- sence of costume which would startle even Mar- gate. Round-barrelled bulls, the saints of the Banyans, and therefore called by us ' Brahmani,' push and butt, by way of excitement, tJie gangs of serviles who^arry huge sacks of cowries , and pile high their hides and logwood. Othe rs wash and sc rape ivor y j_which suggested to a young travel- ler the idea that the precious bone, here so plenti- ful, is swept up by the sea. At night the front often flares as if on fire. The cause is lime-burn- ing on the shore, in small, round, built-up heaps. Another evil, arising from want of quay and breakwater, is that the sea at times finds its way into the lower parts of the town. The nuisance increases, as this part of the Island appears to be undergoing depression, not an uncommon pro- POPULATION. 81 cess in fictile madrepore formations. Off Chan: fflini Poi nt, where in 1823 stood a hiit-chim p nnx l a mosque, four fathoms of water now roll. The British Consulate, formerly many yards distant from the surf, must be protected by piles and rub- ble. Some of the larger houses have sunk four, and have sloped nine feet from terrace to ground, owing to the instability of their soppy founda- tions. The ' Tree-island ' of our earliest charts has been undermined and carried away bodily by the waves ; whilst to the north the sea has en- croached upon Mto-ni, where the Sayyid's flag- staff has four times required removal. On the other hand, about 15 years ago, the ' Middle Shoal ' of the harbour was aAvash ; now it is high and dry. In 1835 Dr Pwuschenberger estimated the census of Zanzibar at 12,000 souls, of whom two- thirds were slaves. In ISIJ^ Dr Krapf proposed 100,000 as the population of the island, the greater number living in the capital. Captain/ Guillain, in 18IG, gave 20,000 to 25,000, slaves' included. I assumed tlie number, in 1857, as 25,000, which during the N.E. monsoon, when a large floating population flocks in, may rise to 40,000, and even to 15,000. The Consular re- port of 1819 asserts it to be ' about 00,000.' 82 THE WEST END. *4l The city is divided into 18 quarters (Mali- allat), each having its own name; and when travellers inform ns that it is called ' Hamnz,' Moafilah, or Baur, they simply take a part for the whole.^ The west-end boasts the best houses, chiefly those which wealthy natives let to stranger merchants. The Central, or Port quar- ter, is the seat of government and of commerce, whilst few foreigners inhabit the eastern extrem- ities, the hottest and the most unhealthy. The streets are, as they should be under such a sky, deep and winding alleys, hardly 20 feet broad, and travellers compare them with the threads of a tangled skein. In the west-end a pavement of Chunam, or tamped lime, is provided with a \ gutter, which secures dryness and cleanliness — ' The quarters, beginning from Changani, the most western, are, the Baghani, which contains the English Consulate ; the Mnazi-iMoya to the south, with a grave-yard, and a bazar where milk and grain are sold ; the Fuga adjoining it, the Zamba- ranijthe Kajifichemi, the Kunazemi, and the Nambo to the south- east ; the Gurayzani, containing the fort ; and the Furdani with the Custom Hoiise ; the Kipondah, where the French Consulate is ; the Ziwani (Mitha-pani of the Hindus) further to the south ; the Suk Muhogo, where manure and fish are sold ; the Me- lindi, or Melindini, occupied by Hindus, and boasting a bazar ; and lastly the Mnawi, the Kokoni, and the Fungu extend to the easternmost quarter, the Malagash, where the Lagoon, an inlet of the sea, bounds the city. I did not hear any of the three names mentioned in the text ; they are probably now obsolete. / THE EAST EXD. 83 it is the first that I have seen in an African city. As we go eastward all such signs of civili- zation vanish ; the sun and wind are the only engineers, and the frequent green and black puddles, like those of the filthy Ghetto, or Jews' quarter, at Damascus, argue a preponderance of black population. Here, as on the odious sands, the festering impurities render strolling a task that requires some resolution, and the streets are unfit for a decent (white) woman to walk through. I may say the same of almost every city where the negro element abounds. As in the coast settlements of the E,ed Sea and of Madagascar, the house material is wholly coral rag, a substance at once easily worked and durable — stone and lime in one./ The irregularity of the place is excessive, and it is by no means easy to describe its peculiar phy- siognomy. The public buildings are poor and mean. The mosques which adorn Arab towns with light and airy turrets, breaking the mono- tony of square white tenements, magnified claret- chests, are here in the simplest Wahhabi form. About 30 of these useful, but by no means orna- mental, * meeting-houses ' are scattered about the city for the use of the ' established church.' They are oblong rooms, with stuccoed walls, and 84 THE MOSQUE. matted floors; the flat roofs are supported by dwarf rows of square piers and polygonal columns ; whilst Saracenic arches, broad, pointed, and lanceated, and windows low-placed for con- venience of expectoration, with inner emargina- tions in the normal shape of scallops or cres- cents, divide the interior. Two Shafei mosques, one called after Mohammed Abd el Kadir, the other from Mohammed el Aughan (Afghan), have minarets, dwindled turrets like the steeples of Brazilian villages; another boasts of a diminu- tive cone, most like an Egyptian pigeon-tower ; and a fourth has a dwarf excrescence, suggesting the lantern of a light-house. The Shiahs, who are numerous, meet for prayer in the Kipondah quarter, and the Kojahs have a ruined mosque outside the city. The best houses are on the Arab plan familiar to travellers in Ebro-land and her colonies. The type has extended to Prance and even to Galway, where we still find it in the oldest buildings. A dark narrow entrance leads from the street, and the centre of the tenements is a hypsethral quad- rangle, the Iberian Patio or Quintal. We miss, however, the shady trees, the sweet flowers, and bright verdure with which the southern Euro- pean and the Hispano- American beautify their THE HOUSE. 85 /I dwellings. Here the ' Dar ' is a dirty yard, paved or unpaved, usually encumbered with piles of wood or hides, stored for sale, and tenanted by poultry, dogs, donkeys, and lounging slaves. A steep and narrow, dark and dangerous staircase of rough stone, like a companion-ladder, con- nects it with the first floor, the ' noble-quarter.' There are galleries for the several storeys, and doors opening upon the court admit light into the rooms. Zanzibarian architecture, as among ' Orientals ' generally, is at a low ebb. The masonry shows not a single straight line ; the arches are never similar in form or size ; the floors may have a foot of depression between the middle and the corners of the room ; whilst no two apartments are on the same level, and they seldom open into each other. Jomj3r^s wgxk and iron-work must both be brought from India. *^he ' azoteas' ^ flat roofs, or rather terraces, are supported by mangrove-trunks, locally called * Zanzibar rafters,' and the walls, of massive thickness, are copiously ' chunam'd.' Here the inmates delight to spread their mats, and at suitable seasons to ' smell the air.' Banda or ban- dani, pent-roofed huts of plaited palm-leaf (ma- ' The Iberian name (in Arabic ^'''— J^, El Sat'h) of the flat roof-terrace, borrowed from tlic di-y lands of Western Asia. 86 THE DOOR. kuti or cajan) garnish the roofs of the native town. Europeans do not patronize these look- outs, fires heing frequent and the slaves danger- ous. Some foreimers have secured the comfort of a cool night by building upper cabins of planking, and have paid for the enjoyment in rheumatism, ague, and fever. Koranic sentences on slips of paper, fastened to the entrances, and an inscription cut in the wooden lintel, secure the house from witchcraft, like the crocodile in Egypt ; wliilst a yard of ship's cable drives away thieves. The higher the tenement, the bigger the gateway, the heavier the padlock, and the huger the iron studs which nail the door of heavy timber, the greater is the owner's dignity. All seems ready for a state of siege. Even the little square holes pierced high up in the walls, and doing duty as ventilators, are closely barred. As heat prevents the use of glass in sleeping-rooms, shutters of plain or painted plank supply its place, and persiennes deform the best habitations. The northern Euro- pean who sleeps for the first time in one of these blockhouses fairly realizes the first sensations of a jail. Of course the object is defence, there- fore the form is still common to Egypt and Zan- zibar, Syria and Asia Minor. THE ROOM. 87 Arabs here, as elsewhere, prefer long narrow rooms (40 feet x 15 to 20), generally much higher than their breadth, open to the sea- breeze, which is the health-giver ; and they close the eastern side-walls against the 'fever- wind,' the cool, damp, spicy land-draught. The Sala or reception -hall is mostly on the ground- floor. It contrasts strongly with our English apartments, where the comfortless profusion and confusion of furniture, and where the undue crowding of ornamental ornaments, spoil the proportions and 'put out' the eye. The pro- tracted lines of walls and rows of arched and s hallow niches, which take the place of tables ^ 3.nd__consoles, are unbroken save by a few weapons. Pictures and engravings are almost unknown ; chandeliers and mirrors are confined to the wealthy ; and the result, which in Eng- land would be bald and barn-like, here sug- gests the coolness and pleasing simplicity of an Italian villa — in Italy. A l)right-tinted carj)et, a gorgeous but tasteful Persian rug for the dais, matting on the lower floor, which is of the usual chunam; a divan in old-fashioned houses; and, in the best of the modern style, half a dozen stiff chairs of East Indian blackwood or China-work, compose the upholstery of an Arab 'palazzo.' THE FORT. In the rooms of the few who can or will afford such trifles, ornaments of porcelain or glass- ware, and Prench or Yankee knicknacks fill the niches. Of course the inner apartments are more showily dressed, but these we may not ex- plore. About half way down the front of the city we debouch upon the ' Gurayza ' or fort. The material is the usual coral-rag, cemented with lime of the same formation, rudely burnt, and the style as well as the name (Igreja — Ecclesia) recall to mind the Portuguese of the heroic sixteenth century. It is one of those na'ive, cre- nelated structures, flanked by polygonal towers, each pierced for one small gun, and connected by the comparatively low curtains, in which our ancestors put their trust. A narrow open space runs round it, and it is faced by a straight-lined detached battery, commanding the landing, and about 12 vards Ion 2^. The embrasures of this outwork are so close that the first broadside would blow open the thin Avail; and the score of guns is so placed that every bullet striking the fort must send a billet or two into the men that serve them. A ^ place d'' amies,'' about 50 feet wide, divides the two, and represents the naval and military arsenal — two dozen iron car- THE FORT. 89 ronades lying piled to the right of the first entrance, and as much neglected and worm- eaten as though they belonged to our happy colony, Cape Coast Castle. Amongst the guns of different calibre we find a few fine old brass pieces, one of which bears the dint of a heavy blow. They are probably the plunder of Hor- muz or of Maskat, where the small matter of a ' piece of ham wrapped up in paper ' ^ caused, in the middle of the seventeenth century, a general massacre of the Portuguese.' The gateway is the usual intricate barbican. Here in olden times, after the prayers of el Asr (3 P.M.) the governor and three judges, patri- archs with long grey beards, unclean white robes, and sabres in hand, held courts of justice, and distributed rough-and-ready law to peaceful Banyans, noisy negroes, and groups of fierce Arabs. The square bastion projecting from the curtain now contains upper rooms for the Ba- loch Jemadar (commandant). The ground-floor is a large vestibule, upon whose shady masonry- benches the soldiery and their armed slaves lounge and chat, laugh and squabble, play and chew betel. On the left of the outer gate is a ' Chap. 7. Captain Hamiltou's ' Isew Accouut of the East ludies.' 90 THE JAIL. Cajan slied, where native artists are setting up carriages for the guns whose lodging is now the hot ground. The experiment of firing a piece was lately tried ; it reared up and fell back- wards, smashing its frail woodwork and killing two artillery ' chattels.' Travellers have observed that a launch could easily dismantle this stronghold. It Avas once, the legend runs, attacked and taken by a single ' Jack,' for the honour of whose birthplace Europe and America vainly contend. Deter- mined to liberate two brother-tars from the ignoble bilboes, he placed himself at the head of a party consisting of a Newfoundland dog. He fell upon i^iQ guard sahre au fwing^ and, left master of the field, he waved his bandanna in vinous triumph from the battlements. Sad to relate, this Caucasian hero succumbed to Hamitic fraud. The discomfited slaves rallied. Hold- ing a long rope, they ran round and round the enemy, till, wound about like a windlass or a silk cocoon, he was compelled to surrender at discretion. / The interior of the fort is jammed Avith soldiers' huts, and divided into courts by ricketty walls. Here, too, is the only jail in Zanzibar. The stocks (Makantarah), the fetters, the iron THE PRISONER. 91 collars, and the heavy waist-chains, do not pre- vent black man from conversationizing, singing comic songs, and gambling with pebbles. The same was the case with our gruel-houses — * Kanji-Khanah,' vulgo ' Conjee-Connah ' — in British India. The Sepoys laughed at them and at our beards. The Bombay Presidency jail is known to Arabs as El Bistan (El Bostan, the Garden), because the courts show a few shrubs, and with Ishmaelites a 'Bistan' has ever an arriere jjcnsee of Paradise. But the most mutin- ous Avhite salt that ever floored skipper would ' squirm ' at the idea of a second night in the black-hole of Zanzibar. Such is the Oriental beau-ideal of a prison — a place whose very name should develope the goose-skin, and which the Chinese significantly call ' hell.' In my day foreigners visited the prison to see its curio, a poor devil cateran who had beaten the death-drum whilst his headman was tor- turing M. Maizan. An Arab expedition sent into the interior returned with this wretch, de- claring him to be the murderer in chief, and for two years he lay chained in front of the Erench Consulate. Since 1S47 he was heavily ironed to a gun, under a mat-shed, where he could neither stand up nor lie down. The fellow looked fat 92 THE SALT MARKET. and well, but he died before our return from the interior in 1859. Below the eastern bastion of the ' Gurayza ' is the most characteristic spot in Zanzibar city, the Salt Market, so called from the heaps of dingy saline sand offered for sale by the Maskati Arabs and the Mekranis. Being near the Cus- tom House, it is always thronged, and like the bazars of Cairo and Damascus it gives an ex- aggerated idea of the population. There are be- sides this three other ' Suk.' The Suk Muhogo, or Manioc market, to the south of the city, supplies the local staff of life. It is the sweet variety of Jatropha, called in the Brazil Aypim, or Macacheira, and known to us as white cas- sava : it will not make wood-meal, called xar' l^o^-t]v, farinha, the flour. The poisonous Manioc (Jatropha Manihot) must be soaked in water, or rasped, squeezed, and toasted, to expel its dele- terious juice, which the Brazilian ' Indians,' and the people of the Antilles, convert by boiling into sugar, vinegar, and cassareep for 'pepper-pot ' — I heard of this ' black cassava ' in inner East Africa. The Suk Muhogo sells, besides the negro's daily bread, cloth and cotton, grain and paddy, vegetables, and other provisions. The shops are the usual holes in the wall, raised a THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 93 foot above the street, and the owners sit or squat, writing upon a knee by way of desk, with the slow, absorbing reed-pen and the clotted clammy fluid called ink. Behind, and hard by, is the fish-market, which is tolerably supplied between 4 and 6 p.m. — in the morning you buy the remnants of the last day. Further eastward, in the Melindini quarter, is the Suk Melindi, where the butchers expose their vendibles. As in most hot countries, the best articles are here sold early, at least before 7 a.m. A scarcity of meat is by no means rare at Zanzibar, and some- times it has lasted four or five months. In the Furzani quarter, eastward of and close to the salt bazar, stands the Custom House. This is an Arab bourse, where millions of dollars annually change hands under the foulest of sheds, a long, low mat-roof, supported by two dozen rough tree-stems. From the sea it is con- spicuous as the centre of circulation, the heart from and to which twin streams of blacks are ever ebbing and flowing, whilst the beach and the waters opposite it are crowded with shore-boats, big and small. Inland, it is backed by sacks and bales, baskets and packages, hillocks of hides, old ship's-tanks, piles of valuable woods, heaps of ivories, and a heterogeneous mass of waifs and 94 THE PALACE. strays ; there is also a rude lock-up, for ware- housing the more valuable goods. A small ad- jacent square shows an unfinished and dilapi- .. dated row of arches, the fragments of a new Custom House. It was begun 26 or 27 years ago (1857), but Jayaram, the benevolent and superstitious Hindu who farmed the customs it is said for $150,000 per annum, had waxed fat under the matting, and was not sure that he AYould thrive as much within stone and lime. This is a general idea throughout the nearer East. The people are full of saws and instances concerning the downfall of great men who have exposed themselves to the shafts of misfortune by enlarging their gates or by building for them- selves two-storeyed abodes. But the hat it seems has lately got the better of the turban, and there will be a handsome new building, half paid by the Prince and half by his farmer of Customs. An open space now leads us to the finest building in the city, the palace of the late Say- yid, which we visit in a future chapter. I may remark that it is the workhouse style, though hardly so ignoble as that of H. Hellenic Ma- !jesty; but at Zanzibar the windows are far higher up, and the jail-like aspect is far more * pronounced. Beyond it commences the east-end, M. COCHET, M. BERARD. 95 and here lives my kind friend M. Cocliet, Consul de Erance. He came, expecting to find civiliza- tion, whist in the evening, ladies' society, and the pianoforte : he had been hoaxed in Paris about Colonel Hamerton's daughters. He is I thoroughly disgusted. Even the Consular re- I sidencfiisJiha meanest of its kind. T\ o wonder that M. Le Capitaine Guillain was ' froisse dans son amour-propre national ' when he en- tered it. Ear better, and more open to the breeze, is the house of the hospitable M. Bc^rard, agent to Messrs E,abaud Ereres, of Marseille. The one disadvantage of the site is the quantity of Kho- prii, or cocoa-nut meat, split and sun-dried. It evolves, especially at night-time, a noxious gas, and the strongest stomachs cannot long resist the oily, nausea-breeding odour which tarnishes silver, and which produces fatal dysentery. The Zanzibar trade, with the exception of cloves, is not generally aromatic. Copal, being washed in an over-kept solution of soda, smells not, as was remarked to the * Dragon of Wantley,' like bal- sam. And ton upon ton of cowries, strewed in the sun, or piled up in huge heaps till the mol- lusc decays away, can hardly be deemed Saba^an or even commonly wholesome. 96 'BLACK town: To our right, in rear of the fronting ' dicky,' and at both flanks of the city, is the native town, — a filthy labyrinth, a capricious arabesque of disorderly lanes, and alleys, and impasses, here broad, there narrow ; now heaped with offal, then choked with ruins. It Avould be the work of weeks to learn the threading of this planless maze, and what white man would have the heart to learn it ? Curiosity may lead us to it in earliest morning, before the black world returns to life. During the day sun or rain, mud or dust, with the certain efB.uvia of carrion and negro, make it impossible to flaner through the foul mass of densely crowded dwelling-places where the slaves and the poor ' pig ' together. The pauper classes are contented with mere sheds, and only the mildness of the climate keeps them from starving. The meanest hovels are of palm- matting, blackened by wind or sun, thatched with cajan or grass, and with or without walls of wattle-and-dab. They are hardly less wretched than the west Ireland shanty. Internally the huts are cut up into a ' but ' and a ' ben,' and are furnished with joots, gourds, cocoa rasps, low stools hewn out of a single block, a mortar similarly cut, trays, pots, and troughs for food, foul mats, and kitandahs or cartels of palm-fibre THE HUT. 97 rope twisted round a frame of the rudest carpen- ter's work. The better abodes are enlarged boxes of stone, mostly surrounded by deep, projecting eaves, forming a kind of verandah on poles, and shading benches of masonry or tamped earth, where articles are exposed for sale. The win- dows are loop-holes, and the doors are miracles of rudeness. Lastly, there are the wretched / 1 shops, which supply the few wants of the popula- ^ tion. We are now at the mouth of the Lagoon, which, at high tides, almost encircles the city. I am told that of late years the natives have built all round this backwater. In 1857 the Eastern or landward side was bush and plant- ation. As the waters retired they left behind them a rich legacy of fevers and terrible dis- eases ; especially in the inner town, a dead flat, excluded from the sea breeze, and exposed to the pestiferous breath of the maremma. Ships anchoring off this inlet soon stock Prench Islet. The whalers and American and Ilamburg vessels, that prefer Changani Point and the west end of the city, often escape with- out a single case of sickness. Similarly at Ila- vannah, crews exposed to breezes from the Man- grove swamps have lost half their numbers by 98 DRINKING WATER. io^ pr ff' yellow fever ; and the history of our West Indian settlements proves, if proof be required, how fatal is night exposure. Zanzibar, city and island, is plentifully sup- plied with bad drinking water. Below the old sea-beach, and near the shore, it is necessary only to scrape a hole in the soft ground. Throughout the interior the wells, though deep, are dry during the hot season, and the people flock to the surface- draining rivulets. West Africans gener- ally will not drink rain-water for fear of dysen- tery; and so with us — when showers fell in large drops men avoided it, or were careful to consume it soon lest it should putrefy. The purest element is found at Kokotoni, a settlement on the N. W. coast of the island, and in the ,/vi "^ /Bububu, a settlement some five miles north of \^ \^ I . . . ^\^'* I ^^^ ^^^J> where Sayyid Suleyman bin Hamid, '* I once governor of Zanzibar, had a small establish- I ment, and where Hasan bin Ibrahim built a large house called Chuweni or Leopard's Place. So at Sao Paulo de Loanda the drinking water must be brought from the Bengo river. The best near the city is from a spring which rises behind the royal Cascine, Mto-ni. Here the late Sayyid built a stone tank and an aqueduct 2000 yards long, which, passing through his establishment, THE WELL. 99 came out upon the beach. Casks could then be filled by the hose, but soon the masonry channel got out of repair, and sailors will not willingly drink water flowing through a dwelling-house. The produce of the town greatly varies. Some wells are hard with sulphate and carbonate of lime, whilst others are salt as the sea itself ; and often, as in Sind and Cutch, of two near together one supplies potable and the other undrink- able water. A few to the south of the city are tolerably sweet. The pits are numerous, and a square shaft, usually from 12 to 15 feet deep, may be found at every 40 or 50 yards. There are no casings ; the edges are flush with the filthy ground about them, and the sites must frequently be changed, as the porosity of the coral rock and the regular seaAvard slope direct the drainage into them. Similarly, nearer home the bright sparkling element is not unfrequently charged with all the seeds of disease. When rain has not fallen for some time the water be- comes thick as that of a horsepond, and when allowed to stand it readily taints. I could hardly bear to look at the women as they filled with cocoa-shells the jars to be carried off upon their heads. Pormcrly Europeans were not allowed, for 100 CASK FILLING. religious reasons, to ship water from the wells near the town. Also, cask-filling was carried on at low tide, to prevent the supply of the Mto-ni being brackish, and the exhalations of the black mud were of course extra-dangerous. It is no wonder that dysentery and fever resulted from the use of such a ' necessary.' The Prench frigate Le Berceau, after watering here, was visited by the local pest, and lost 90 men on her way home. Even in January, the most whole- some month, Lieut. Christopher had 16 deaths amongst his scanty crew. In this case, however, the lancet, so fatal near the Line, and the deadly Zerdmbo, or toddy -brandy, were partly to blame. As early as 1824 Captain Owen condemned the supply of Zanzibar, as liable to cause dysentery. It has this effect during and after heavy rains, unless allowed to deposit its animal and ve- getable matter. During the second visit of H. M. S. Andromache, in August, 1824, Com- mander Nourse and several of his officers spent one night in a country house, after which the former and the greater number of the latter died. The water, as well as the aii% doubtless tended to cause the catastrophe. In the dry season the element sometimes produces, accord- ing to natives and strangers, obstinate costive- FEVER. 101 ness. Between Zanzibar and the Cape, five brigs lost collectively 125 men from fever, dysen- tery, and inflammation of the neck of the vesica; whilst others were compelled to start their casks, and to touch at different * aguadas ' en route. Hence skippers learned to fear and shun Zan- zibar. During her 14 months' exploration of the island and the coast the Ducouedic lost 16 men ; and to keep up a crew of 122 to 128, no less than 226 hands were transferred to her from the naval division of Bourbon and Mada- gascar. Each visit to Unguja was followed by an epidemic attack. Formerly as many as seven whalers lay in harbour at one time ; now (1857) they prefer to water and refresh at Nossi-beh, Mayotta, and especially at the Seychelles, a free port, with a comparatively cool and healthy climate, where supplies are cheap and plentiful. Besides the lagoon and the water nuisances^ JrA^ViA^^ there is yet another. The drainage of the Zan- A^i zibar water-front is good, owing to the slope of - ' ^ta-^ the site seaward. But at low tides, and after dark, when the sulphuretted hydrogen is not raised from the sands by solar heat, a veil of noxious gas overhangs the shore, whose whole length becomes exceedingly offensive. This is caused by the shironi (latrinai) opening upon 102 DRAINAGE. the water edge. ' Intermural sepulture ' is also here common, though not after the fashion of West African Yoruba ; and the city contains sundry unenclosed plots of ground, in which dwarf lime-plastered walls, four to five feet long, fancifully terminated above, and showing, in- stead of epitaph, a china saucer or bits of por- celain set in the stone, denote tombs. Drainage and cleanliness are panaceas for the evils of malaria where tropical suns shine. Drainage of swamps and lagoons can improve S'a Leone, and can take away the stink from South African barracks. Zanzibar city, I con- tend, owes much of its fatality to want of drain- age, and it might readily be drained into com- parative healthiness. But the East African Arab holds the possibility of pestilence and the pro- bability of fever to be less real evils than those of cutting a ditch, of digging a drain, or of open- ing a line for ventilation. The Dollar-hunters from Europe are a mere floating population, ever looking to the deluge in prospect, and of course unwilling to do every man's business, that is — to drain. Such was Zanzibar city when I first walked through it. Though dating beyond the days of Arab history, and made, by its insular and cen- THE MISSIONS. 103 tral situation, the depot of the richest trade in Eastern Africa, its present buildings are almost all modern. At the beginning of this our nineteenth century it consisted of a fort and a ragged line of huts, where the * Suk Muhogo ' now stands. Dr Ruschenberger (1835) satisfied himself that *the town of Zanzibar and its in- habitants possess as few attractions for a Chris- tian stranger as any place and people in the wide world.' As late as 1842 this chief em- porium of a most wealthy coast boasted but five store-houses of the humblest description, and the east end was a palm plantation. Since my departure the city, as the trade returns show, has, despite unfavourable political circumstances, progressed. A Catholic mission, sent by Prance, has established an hospital, and two schools for boys and girls, and the English Central African Mission has followed suit. These establishments must differ strangely from the normal thing — the white-bearded pedagogue, hugging his bones or rocking himself before a large chintz-covered copy of the Koran, placed upon a stand two feet high, so as to be above man's girdle, and, when done with, swathed in cloth and stowed away. A change, too, there must be in the pupils; formerly half a dozen ragged boys, some reciting 104 THE PEOPLE. with nasal monotonous voices sentences to be afterwards understood by instinct, others scrap- ing the primitive writing-board with a pointed stick. We will now return to the centre of attrac- tion, the Salt Bazar, aud prospect the people. The staple material is a double line of black youth and negresses sitting on the ground, with legs outstretched like compasses. At each apex of the angle is a little heap of fruit, salt, sugar, sun-dried manioc, greasy fritters, redolent fish, or square 'fids' of shark-flesh,^ the favourite * kitchen ' with Wasawahili and slaves ; it brings from Maskat and the Benadir a gout so high that it takes away the breath. These vendors vary the tedium of inaction by mat-making, plait- ing leaves, 'palavers,' and 'pow-wows,' which argue an admirable conformation of the articu- lating organs and a mighty lax morality. Sellers, indeed, seem here to double the number of buyers, and yet somehow buying and selling goes on. Motley is the name of the crowd. One ofiicer in the service of His Highness stalks down the ^ The Arabs here call the shark 'jarjiir,' the Wasawahili p'hapa. I do not know why Captain Guillain (ii. 391) says, ' le requiu, nomnie par les Arabs lehah — ' Lebah is the Somali name for a lion. THE ARAB. 105 market followed by a Hieland tail, proudly, as if he were lord of the three Arabias. Negroes who dislike the whip clear out like hawk-fright- ened pigeons. A yelloAV man, with short, thin beard, and high, meagre, and impassive features, he is well-dressed and gorgeously armed. Ob- serve that he is ' breek-less ' : trow^sers are ' un- Arab,' and unpopular as were the servile braccse amongst the E-omans. The legs, which, though spare, are generally muscular and well-turned, appear beneath the upper coat, which falls to the knee. He adheres to the national sandals, thick soles of undyed leather, with coloured and spangled straps over the instep, whilst a narrow thong passes between the big toe and its neigh- bour. The foot-gear gives him that peculiar strut which is deemed dignified, and if he has a long walk before him — a very improbable con- tingency — he must remove his chaussure. I never yet saw a European w^ho could w^ear the sandal without foot-chafing. E-ight meek by the side of the Arab's fierce- mess appears the Banyan, the local Jew. These i men are Bhattias from Cutch in western India ; unarmed burghers, with placid, satisfied coun- tenances, and plump, sleek, rounded forms, sug- gesting the idea of happy, well-to-do cows. Such 106 THE BANYAN. is the effect of a diet which embraces only bread, rice, and milk, sweetmeats, vegetables, and clari- fied butter. Their skins are smoother and their complexions are lighter than the Arabs' ; their features are as high though by no means so thin. They wear the long mustachio, not the beard, and a Chinese pig-tail is alloAved to spring from the poll of the carefully shaven head. These top-knots are folded, when the owners are full- dressed, under high turbans of spotted purple or crim- son stuff edged with gold. The latter are com- plicated affairs, somewhat suggesting the oldest fashion of a bishop's mitre ; bound round in fine transverse plaits, not twisted like the Arabs', and peaked in the centre above the forehead with a manner of horn. Their snoAvy cotton coats fit close to the neck, like collarless shirts ; shawl- girt under the arms, they are short-waisted as the dresses of our grandmothers ; the sleeves are tight and profusely wrinkled, being nearly double the needful length, and the immaculate loin-cloth displays the lower part of the thigh, leaving the leg bare. Their slippers of red leather are sharp-toed, with points turning up- wards and backwards, somewhat as in the knightly days of Europe. ' Another conspicuous type is the Baloch mer- THE BALOCH. 107 cenary from Mekran or Maskat. A comely, broAvn man, with regular features, lie is dis- tinguished from the Arab by the silkiness and the superior length of his flowing beard, which is carefully anointed after being made glossy with henna and indigo. He adheres to his primitive matchlock, a barrel lengthened out to suit the weak powder in use, damascened with gold and silver, and fastened to the frail stock by more metal rings than the old Erench ' Brown Bess ' ever had. The match is about double the thick- ness of our whipcord, and is wound in many a coil round the stalk or stock. A curved iron, about four inches long, and forked in the upper part to hold the igniter, plays in a groove cut lengthways through the wood and the trigger, a prolongation of the match-holder, guides the fire into the open priming-pan. AYhen the match is not immediately wanted it is made fast to a bat- ten under the breeching. (A parenthesis. Were I again to travel in wet tropical lands, I should take with me two flint-guns, which could, if necessary, be converted into matchlocks. Of course they would shoot slow, but they would not want caps, and they would prove serviceable when the percussion gun and the breech-loader would not.) This mercenary carries also two 108 ISHMAEL. powder- gourds, one containing coarse material for loading, the other a finer article, English, if possible, for priming. He is never without flint, steel, and tinder ; and disposed about his person are spare cartridges in reed cases. His sabre is of the Persian form ; his dagger is straighter and handier than that of the Arab ; and altogether his tools, like his demeanour, are those of a dis- ciplined, or rather of a disciplinable, man. The wildest and most picturesque figures are the half-breeds from the western shores of the Persian Gulf — light brown, meagre Ishmaels and Orsons, who look like bundles of fibre bound up in highly-dried human skin. Their unkempt elf-locks fall in mighty masses over un- clean, saffron-stained shirts, which suggest the ' night-gown ' of other days, and these are ap- parently the only articles of wear. Their straight, heavy swords hang ever ready by a strap passing over the left shoulder ; their right hands rest lovingly upon the dagger-hafts, and their small round targes of boiled hippopotamus hide — one of the ' industries ' of Zanzibar — apparently await immediate use. Leaning on their long match- locks, they stand cross-legged, with the left foot planted to the right of the right, or vice versa, and they prowl about like beasts of prey, as they THE KHOJAHS. 109 are, eyeing the peaceful, busy crowd with a greedy cut-throat stare, or with the suspicious, side-long glance of a cat o' mountain. These barbarian ' Gulf Arabs ' differ sins^u- larly from the muscular porters of Hazramaut, in whose Semitic blood there is a palpable African mixture. They hobble along in pairs, like the Hammals of Constantinople, carrying huge bales of goods and packs of hides suspended from a pole, ever chaunting the same monoton- ous grunt-song, and kicking out of the way the humped cows that are munching fruit and vege- tables under the shadow of their worshippers, the Banyans. Add half a dozen pale-skinned 'Khojahs,' tricky-faced men with evil eyes, treach- erous smiles, fit for the descendants of the ' As- sassins,' straight, silky beards, forked after the fashion of ancient Rustam, and armed with Chinese umbrellas. Complete the group by throw- ing in a European — how ghastly appears his blanched face, and how frightful his tight garb ! — stalking down the streets in the worst of tem- pers, and using his stick upon the mangy ' pariah dogs ' and the naked shoulders of the ' niggers ' that obstruct him. At times the Arabs, when their toes or heels are trampled upon, will turn and fiercely finger their daggers ; but a fear 110 THE SLAVE. which is by no means personal prevents their going further. Such is the aristocracy of the land. As in all servile societies, every white man (i.e. non-negro) is his white neighbour's equal ; whilst the high- est black man (i.e. servile) ranks below the lowest pale-face. Par more novel to us is the slave population, male and female. What first strikes every stranger is the scrupulous politeness and the ceremonious earnestness of greetings when friends meet. The idea of standing in the broil- ing sun to dialogue as follows is not a little re- markable : A. Yambo (pronounced Dyambo) or Hali gana ?^ — The state ! B. Yambo Sana — My state is very (good). A. Siyambo (or amongst the Arabized Wasa- wahilij Marhaba) — Eight welcome ! B. Hast thou eaten and slept ? A. I have made my reverential bow ! B. Yambo ? A . Siyambo Sana ! B. Like unto gold ? A. Like unto gold ! B. Like unto coral ? A. Like unto coral ! POLITENESS. Ill B. Like unto pearl ? A. Like unto pearl ! B. The happiness — Kua-heri ! (farewell !). A. In happiness let us meet, if Allah please ! B. Hem! A. Hem ! (drawn out as long as possible). The fact is they are going about ' Ku amkia,' to salute their friends, and to waste time by run- ning from house to house. Even freemen gener- ally begin their mornings thus, and idle through the working hours. The males tie, for only garb, a yard of cotton round the waist, and let it fall to the knees; bead necklaces and similar trash complete the costume. Like all nei?roes thev will wear, if possible, the shock-head of wool, Avhich is not pierceable by power of any sun ; and they gradu- ally unclothe down to the feet, which, requiring most defence, are the least defended — ' Fashion ' must account for the anomaly. To the initiated eye the tattoo distinguishes the vast confusion of races. The variety of national and tribal marks, the stars, raised lumps and scars, the beauty- slashes and carved patterns, further diversified by the effects of pelagra, psoris, and small-pox, is a Chinese puzzle to the new-comer. Domestic slaves, bearing their burdens on the head, not on 112 THE SLAVE GIRL. the shoulder, are known by a comparatively civilized aspect. They copy their masters, and strangers remark that the countenance is cheer- ful and not destitute of intelligence. The Bozals, or freshly -trapped chattels, are far more original and interesting. See those Nyassa-men, with their teeth filed to represent the cat or the croco- dile, chaffing some old Shylock, an Arab dealer in human flesh and blood ; or those wild Uzegura- men, with patterned skins and lower incisors knocked out, like the Shilluks to the west of the Nile, scowling evilly, and muttering curses at the Nakhuda (skipper) from Siir, the professional kidnapper of their kind. The ' fairer ' half of black world is not less note-worthy. There is the tall and sooty-skinned woman from TJhiao, distinguished by the shape of her upper lip. A thorn-pierced hole is en- larged with stalks of green reed till it can admit a disk of white-painted wood nearly as big as a dollar. The same is the system of the Dors, the tribe dwelling north of the equator and west of the Nile ; their lip-plates equal the thick end of a cheroot ; and the ' pelele ' of the southern re- gions is a similar disk of bamboo, ivory, or tin, which causes the upper lip to project some two inches beyond the nose-tip, giving it an anserine THE 'SPOONBILL: 113 proportion. In the elder women the ornament is especially hideous. As a rule, the South Ameri- can ' Indians ' pierce for their lahrets the lower lip, evidently the more unclean fashion — no wonder that kissing (should I say osculation ?) is unknown. Yet even amongst the Somal, if you attempt to salute a woman — supposing that you have the right — she will draw back in horror from the act of incipient cannibalism. Often the lip- disk is absent, and then through the unsightly gap a pearly tooth is seen to gleam, set off by the outer darkness of ' Spoonbill's ' skin. This woman, broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, is almost as stalwart as her Mhias, whose tattoo (chale) is a single line forked at both ends : ^ in others the cuticle and cutis are branded, worked, and raised in an intricate embroidery over all the muscular trunk. An abnormal equality of strength and stature between the sexes prevails amongst many • Uhiao is the luo of 'Slv Cooley, vi-lio calls the people ]S['yau (Mhiao) and Mi)'ao (Wahiao). They are the ' Monjou ' of Salt, and the Mujao of the Portuguese. M. Macqueen (On the Geography of Central Africa) says, ' The inhabitants on the ■west side of the Lake are called Toah, and are IMohammedans.' They are still pagans. Capt. Guillain (1, 390) remarks, ' Les historiens Portuguais nous paraisseut avoir donne au pays le uom que les indigenes donnent ji ses habitants. Moudjiiou, ou plutot ]\roniao ct, par contraction, M'iao signifie un homme du pays de lao.' Uhiao would be the country ; Mhiao and Wahiao (singular and plural), its people. 114 THE HALF-CASTE. African tribes, especially the agricultural, where women are the workers. The same may be ob- served in parts of North Britain and of northern Europe. The difference in this matter between the Teutonic and the Latin races never struck me so strongly as when seeing German families land at Pdo de Janeiro. The half-caste Zanzibar girl enviously eyes the Arab woman, a heap of unwashed cottons on invisible feet, with the Maskat masque exposing only her unrecognizable eyeballs. The former wears a single loose piece of red silk or che- quered cotton. Her frizzly hair is twisted into pigtails ; her eyelids are stained black ; her eye- brows are lengthened with paint; her ear-rims are riddled with a dozen holes to admit rings, wooden buttons, or metal studs, whilst the slit lobes, distended by elastic twists of coloured palm-leaf, whose continual expansion prodigi- ously enlarges the aperture, are fitted with a painted disk, an inch and a half in diameter. The same device was practised (according to the missionary Gumilla) by the Aberne tribe of the Orinoco. If pretty, and therefore wealthy, she wears heavy silver earrings run through the shell of the ear ; her thumbs have similar decorations, and massive bangles of white metal adorn, like 'SMALL fry: 115 manacles and fetters, her wrists and ancles. One wing of her nose is bored to admit a stud — even the patches of Europe were not more barbarous. The Zanzibarian slave s-irl shaves her head smooth, till it shows brown and shiny like a ATell-j)olished cocoa-nut; and she drags along her ' hopeful ' — she has seldom more than one — a small black imp, wholly innocent of clothing. The thing already carries on its head a water- jar bigger than its own * pot-belly,' and it screams Xa-kuja (I come !) to other small fry disporting itself more amusinsrlv. CHAPTEE y. GEOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL. ' To my surprise, the information concerning Zanzibar and the N. E. coast of Africa scarcely contains meagre phrases destitute of precision.' — (CoL Sykes' Journal, R. G. S., vol. xxiii. 1853.) He for- gets that entering from the coast is like jumping from the street into the window.— (R. I. B.) Section 1. Africa, East and "West — '• Zanzibar ' explained — Meuou- tbias — Position and Formation — The East African Current — Navigation — Aspect of the Island. It is an old remark that Africa, the con- tinent which became an island by the iinion of the twin seas in the year of grace ISOQ^ despite her exuberant wealth and her wonderful powers of reproduction, is badly made — a trunk without limbs, a monotonous mass of painful symmetry, wanting opposition and contrast, like the uni- form dark complexion of her sons and of her fauna — a solid body, like her own cocoa-nut, INTERTROPICL AFRICA. 117 hard to penetrate from without, and soft within ; an 'individual of the earth,' self -isolated by its savagery from the rest of the world. This is especially true of intertropical Africa. The western coast was, until the last four centuries, cut off from intercourse with mankind by the storm-lashed waters of the northern ap- proach ; and to the present day the unbroken seaboard, so scanty in good harbours, and the dangerous bars and bores which defend the deadly river mouths, render it the least pro- gressive part of the old world. The more fortunate north-eastern and sub- tropical shores Avere enabled by their vast cre- vasse, the E-ed and riverless Sea, to communicate with Western Asia, whilst the rich productions, gold and ivory, tortoise-shell and ambergris, the hot sensuous climate — which even now induces the northern sailor to ship in the fatal West African squadron — and the amene scenery of the equatorial regions, invited, during pre-historic ages, merchants, and even immigrants, from rugged Persia and sterile Arabia. Between the two upper coasts, eastern and western, there is, as might be expected, great similarity of grim aspect. The northern sea- boards offer, for the space of a thousand miles, 118 THE DESERTS. the same horrid aspect ; deceitful roadsteads and dangerous anchorages, forbidding lines of chalky cliflp and barren brown sandstone bluff; flat strands and white downs, hazed over by the spray of desert sand; and lowlands backed by maritime sub-ranges, masses of bald hill and naked mountains, streaked with dry wadis and water-courses, that bear scatters of dates and thorns, and which support miserable villages of tents or huts. The fierce and wandering tribes, Berber, Arab, and Arabo- African — an especially ' crooked and perverse generation,' — are equally dangerous to the land traveller and to the ship- wrecked mariner. As sterile and unlovely for the same cause — the absence of tropical rains — are the southern regions of the great Nineteenth Century Island. Good harbours are even rarer than in the north, and the seas about the Cape of Hope, sweep- ing up unbroken from the South Pole, are yet more perilous. The highlands fringing the south- ern and eastern coasts arrest the humid winds, and are capable of supporting an extensive popu- lation ; but the interior and the western coast, being lowlands, are wild and barren. The South African or Kafir family, which has overrun this soil, is still for the most part in the nomade EQUATORIAL AFRICA. 119 state, and its 'evident destiny' is to disappear before the European colonist. The central and equatorial land, 34'^ deep, including and bordering upon the zone of almost constant rain, is distinguished by the oppressive exuberance of its vegetation and by the con- sequent insalubrity of its climate. The drain- age of the interior, pouring with discoloured efflux to the ocean, in large and often navigable channels, subject to violent freshes, taints the water-lines with deadly malaria. The false coasts of coralline or of alluvial deposits — a modern formation, and still forming — fringed with green- capped islets, and broken by sandy bays and by projecting capes, are exposed to ^swells and roll- ers, to surf and surge, to numbing torrents and chilling tornadoes, whilst muddy backwaters and stagnant islets disclose lagoon-valves or vistas through tangled morass, jungle, and hardly penetrable mangrove-swamp. This maremma, the home of fever, is also the seat of trade, but the tribes which occupy it soon die out. The true coast has already risen high enough above the w^aters to maintain its level ; and the vegetation — calabashes, palms, and tamarinds — offers a contrast to the swampy growth below. Inland of the raised seaboard are high and 120 EAST AND WEST COAST. jungly mountains and coast-range or gliant, in many parts yet unvisited by Europeans. Beyond these sierras begins the basin-shaped plateau of Central Equatorial Africa. The inhabitants are mostly inland tribes, ever gravitating towards the coast. They occupy stockaded and barri- caded clumps of pent-houses or circular tents, smothered by thicket and veiled, especially after the heavy annual rains, with the ' smokes,' a dense white vapour, moisture made visible by the earth beinsr cooler than the saturated air.^ I have elsewhere remarked (The Lnke Re- gions of Central Intertropical Africa ; Abeokuta and the Camaroons Mountains, &c.) the striking geological contrast between the two equatorial coasts, eastern and western. The former, south of the Guardafui granites, offers to one proceed- ing inland from the ocean a succession of coral- lines, of sandstone and of calcaires, which appear to be an offset from the section of that great zone forming the Somali country. The west- ern coasts, after quitting the basalts and lavas ^ Dr Livingstone (Zambezi Expedition, x. 213) confounds these African 'smokes ' with the blue hazy atmosphere of the ' Indian summers ' in America, often the result of grass-burn- ing and prairie fires. During an August on the Syrian coast and a December in the Brazil, I have seen the African ' smokes ' as well developed as at Fernando Po. PRODUCTIONS. 121 of the Camaroons, are composed chiefly of the granites and syenites with their degradations of schiste, gneiss, and sandstone. Similarly, m the great Austro- American continent, one shore, that of the Brazil, is granitic, whilst the other. Chili, mainly consists of the various por- lihyries. The negroes and negroids of both these in- hospitable coasts, an undeveloped and not to be developed race — in this point agreeing with the fauna and flora around them — are the chief ob- stacles to exploration, and remarkably resemble each other. The productions of the east and west are similar. The voracious shark SAvims the seas, turtles bask upon the strands and islets, and the crocodile and hippopotamus haunt the rivers. The forests abound in apes and mon- keys, and the open plains support the giraffe, the antelope, and the zebra, hog and wild kine (Bos Caffir and B. Brachyceros), herds of elephants and scatters of rhinoceros. The villagers breed goats and poultry. In the healthier regions they have black cattle and sheep, Avhilst one tribe has acclimatized the ass. The exceeding fertility of the rain-drenched plains gives an amazing lux- uriance to cassava and rice, maize, and holcus, cotton, sugar-cane, and wild indigo, banana, 122 COAL. lime and orange, ground-nuts and coffee. The hills and torrent-beds yield gold and copper, antimony, and abundance of iron. On both sides of the continent there are rich deposits of the semi-mineral copal. Coal was found by the Portuguese at Tete and in the Zambeze Val- ley, as related in Dr Livingstone's First Expedi- tion (Missionary Travels, &c., xxxi. 633-4). His second prolonged the coal-field to beyond the Yalley of the Uufuma (Hovuma) river (xxi. 440), and it will probably be found to extend still further. Dr Krapf declares (Travels, &c., p. 465) that he discovered coal, 'the use of which is still unknown to the Abessinians,' on the banks of the Kuang, a river said to rise in the Dembea Province, near Lake Tsana (Coloe Palus). Pinally, to judge from the analogy of the South American continent, the valuable mineral will yet be struck near the western coast, south of the equator. Prom time immemorial, on both sides of Africa, the continental Islands, like Aradus and Sidon, Tyre and Alexandria, have been favourite places with stranger settlers. They have proved equally useful as forts, impregnable to the wild aborigines, and as depots for exports and imports. Zanzibar: 12.3 Second to none in importance is Zanzibar, and the future promises it a still higher destiny. And first, of the name, which does not occur in Strabo, Pliny, or the Periplus. The log-book attributed to Arrian, of Nicomedia, calls the whole shore, 'Continent of Azania;' probably an adapta- tion, like Azan,and even Ajan, of the Arabic, Barr el Khazain, or the Land of Tanks,^ the coast between Ra'as Hafun and E.a'as el Khayl. So Pliny (vi. 28 and 34) speaks of the 'Azanian Sea ' as communicatino" with the ' Arabian Gulf.' Ptolemy, however (I. 17, sec. iv. 7), has the fol- lowing important passage: 'immediately following this mart (Opone) is another bay, where Azania be- gins. At its beginning are the promontory Zin- gis {K'iyyis, Zingina promontorium) , and the tree- topped Mount Phalangis.' The name may have extended from the promontory to the coast, and from the coast to the island. Dr Krapf speaks of a tribe of the ' Zendj ' near the Uufiji river, but I could not hear of it. It is easy to show that the Pelusian geographer's Opone is the bay south of Ua'as, or Jurd Ilafun. Like Pomponius ' Dr Krapf (112, Missionary Travels) tells us ' the Somali coast, from Cape Guardafui southwards, is designated by the Arabs "Dar Ajani," not "Ajan" or " Azan," as the maps wrongly have it, because no Arabic is spoken in it.' Dar Ajam is, I believe, a modern and incorrect phrase. 124 'ZANZIBAR: Mela, Ptolemy evidently made his great point de depart the Aromata Promontoriiim et emporium in Barharico sinu (Cape Guardafui), and he placed it N. lat. 6° 0' 0", instead of N. lat. 11° 50'. This error threw the whole coast 6° (in round numhers, more exactly 5° 50') too far south, and made the world douht the accurate position of the Nile lakes. Thus, to his latitude of Opone N. 4P add 5° 50', and we have N. lat. 9° 50', the true parallel of Hafun being N. lat. 10° 26'. Amongst late authors we find the word Zan- zibar creeping into use. The Adulis inscrip- tion (4th century) gives ' Zingabene ' ; and its copier, the Greek monk Cosmas Indicopleustes, who proved the globe flat (6th century), calls the * unnavigable ' ocean beyond Berberia, the ' Sea of Zenj,' and the lands which it bathes ' Zingi- um.' It is found in Abu Zayd Hasan, generally known as Hunayn bin Ishak (died a.d. 873) ; in El Mas'udi, who describes it at some length (died A.D. 957) ; in El Bayruni (lltli century), and in the learned ' Nubian Geographer,' the Sherif El Idrisi (a.d. 1153). Marco Polo (a.d. 1290), who evidently wrote his 37th chapter from hearsay, makes Zanzibar a land of blacks ; and, confounding insula with peninsula (in Arabic both being Jezireh), supplies it with a 'ZANJ: 125 circumference of 2000 miles, and vast numbers of elephants. The India Minor, India Major, and India Tertia of the mediaeval Latin travellers are the Sind, Hind, and Zinj of the Arabs. Ibn Batuta (a.d. 1330, 1331), the first Arab traveller who wrote a realistic description of his voyage, has accurately placed Kilwa, which he calls ' Kulua,' in the ' land of the Zunuj.' Finally, we meet with it in El Xowayri, and in Abulfeda, the ' Prince of Arab Geographers,' who both died in the same year, a.d. 1331. The word Zanj (^;), corrupted to Zinj, whence the plural 'Zuniij,' is evidently the Per- sian Zang or Zangi (^0;)? a black, altered by the Arabs, who ignore the hard Aryan 'Gaf ' d^f ), the ' G ' in our gulf. In the same tongue bar means land or region — ^not sea or sea-coast — and the compounded term would signify Xigritia or Blackland. In modern Persian Zangi still means a negro, and D' Herbelot says of the ' Zenghis ' that ' they are properly those called Zingari,' and, by some, Egyptians and Bohe- ^ IVfy learned and accomplished friend, Dr II. S. Charnoch. (The Peoples of Transylvania : London, Triibner, 1870, p. 28), agrees with D'llerbelot, and from Zangi derives the racial gipsy names Czigany, It. Zingari, Var. Cingaui, Zingara, Cingari, Port. Ciganos, Gr. Zigeuner. But the Zangi were and are ne- groes, Wasawahlli, whereas tlie gypsies never were. 1 2 3 PERSIAN NA VIGA TORS. mians.' Scholars have not yet shown why the Arab, so rich in nomenclature, borrowed the purely Persian word from his complement the ' Ajam.' They have forgotten that the Persians, who of late years have been credited with the unconquerable aversion to the sea which belongs to the Gallas and the Kafirs, were once a maritime people. ' The indifference or rather the aversion of Persians to navigation ' (M. Guillain, i. 34, 35) must not be charged to the ancient 'Purs.' Between a.d. 531 — 579, when Sayf bin Dhu Yezin, one of the latest Himyarite rulers, wanted aid against the Christian Abyssinians, who had held southern Arabia for 72 years, he applied to Khusrau L, better known as Anushirawan, the 23rd king of the Sassanian dynasty, which began with Ardashir Babegan (a.d. 226), and which ended with Yezdegird III. (a.d. 641), thus lasting 415 years. The ' Just Monarch ' sent his fleet to the Boman Port ' (Aden), and slew Masruk. In his day the Persians engrossed, by means of Hira, OboUah, and Sohar, the rich tracts of Yemen and Hindostan ; while Basrah (Bassorah) was founded by the Caliph Omar, in order to divert the stream of wealth from the Bed Sea, a diversion which will probably soon be repeated. In a.d. 758 the Persians, together EMOZAYDIS: 127 with the Arabs, mastered, pillaged, and burnt Canton. Much later (I7th century) Shah Abbas claimed Zanzibar Island and coast as an appa- nage of the suzerainty of Oman. East Africa still preserves traditions of two distinct colonizations from Persia. The first is that of the ' Emozaydiys,' or ' Emozeides ' (Amm Zayd), who conquered and colonized the sea-board of East Africa, from Berberah of the Somal to Comoro and Madagascar, both in- cluded. A second and later emigration (about A.D. 1000) occupied the south Zanzibarian coast, and ruins built by the ' Shirazian dynasty which still lingers, are shown on A^arious parts of the sea-board. Of these Persian occupations more will be found in the following pages. (Part 1, Chap. 1, and Part 2, Chap. 2.) Persia has left nothing of her widely ex- tended African conquests but a name. In mo- dern days she has become more and more a non-maritime power. She has wholly retired from the coast ; and Time, who in those lands works with a will, presently obliterated almost every trace of the stranger. A few ruins at Aden and Berberah, and the white and black sheep of Ormania (Galla-land) and of Somali land, are almost the only vestiges of Persian presence 128 PEBSIAN REMAINS. north of the Equator. On the Zangian main- land wells sunk in the rock, monuments of a form now obsolete ; mosques with elaborate minarets and pillars of well- cut coralline ; forti- fied positions, loopholed enclosures, and ruined cities whose names have almost been forgotten, are the results of the civilization which they brought with them southwards. The limits assigned by the Arab geographers to the ' Land of the Zinj ' are elastic. While some, as Yakut, make it extend from the mouths of the Jub Eiver (S. lat. 0° 14' 30") to Cape Cor- rientes (S. lat. 24° T o") and thus include Sofala ; others, with El Idrisi, separate from it the latter district, and unjustly make its southern limit the Rufiji River (S. lat. 7° 38'), thus excluding Kilwa. It should evidently extend to Mozam- bique Island (S. lat. 15° 2' 2"), where the Wasa- wahili meet the ' Kafir ' races. The length Avould thus be, in round numbers, 15°= 900 geo- graphical miles, whilst the breadth, which is every- where insignificant, can hardly be estimated. The Arabs, who love to mingle etymology with legend and fable, derive the word ' Zanzi- bar ' from the exclamation of its pleased ex- plorers, 'Zayn zaT barr ! ' (fair is this land!). Similar stories concerning Brazilian Olinda and SAWAHIL. 129 Argentine Buenos Aires are well known. 'El Sawaliil,' the shores, evidently the plural of Sa- hil, is still applied to the 600 miles of maritime region whose geographical limits are the Juh Eiver and Cape Delgado (S. lat. 10" 41' 2", and whose ethnographic boundaries are the Somal and the ' Kafir ' tribes. Others derive it from El Suhayl, the beautiful Canopus which, sur- rounded by a halo of Arab myth, ever attracts the eye of the southing mariner. The ' Wasawa- hlli,'^ or slave tribes, are fancifully explained by ' Foreigners — Arab, Persian, and Indian, — call them Sa- waliili. They call themselves Msawahili in the singular, and "Wasawahili in the plural, always accenting the penultimate syllable. In the Zangian tongues a prefixed M is evidently an abbreviation of Mti, a tree, e. g. JS^azi, a cocoa-nut, Mnazi, a cocoa-nut tree, or of Mtu, a man. Before a vowel it is eupl.o- niously exchanged to Mu, e. g. Muarabu, an Arab. The plural form is Wa, a contraction of Watu, men. ' Wa ' also is the sign of the personal, or rather of the rational animate plural opposed to ' Ma,' and must not be confounded with the possess- ive pronoun ' Wa,' of. Mr Cooley (Memoir of the Lake Ee- gions, &c., Eeviewed, Stanford, 18GI), asserts that ' Wa mtu,' * of a man,' becomes by rejection of the singular prefix, ' Watu,' men (des hommes) : ' consequently it is an error to call the coast people Wamrima and the mountaineers Wakilima. If 80, it is an error made by every Kisawahili-speaking man. There are, however, tribes, for instance the Kabai and the Do- ruma, that do not prefix the normal ' Wa,' to_form a plural. A prefixed ' Ki,' possibly contracted from ' kitu,' a thing, denotes the language, e. g. Kisawahili : it also acts diminutive, e. g. Kigito, a little mto, or river ; and it appears to have at times an adjectival sense. Opposed to it is ' Ji,' an augmentative form, VOL. I. "fil 130 THE ISLAND. ' Sawwa liilali,' lie ' played tricks,' — rascals all. The coast races who, like their neighbours the Somal, have their own African names for places, call Zanzibar Island by the generic term Kisiwa — insula. It is thus opposed to Mpoa-ni, the coast, and to Mrlmd, the mainland.^ The latter, e. g. Jito, a big mto. U, possibly derived from an obsolete root whicb survives in the Kinyika ' Uatu ' (a place), denotes the country, e. g. Uzaramo, Usagara, and TJzungu — Europe the land of the Wazungu. Some names arbitrarily refuse this locative, for instance, Khutu, Karagwah, Sanga, Bondei, and others : we never hear Ukhutu, and so forth. ' U ' is also a sign of abstract words, e. g. Mzuri, a handsome man ; Uzuri, beauty ; Mtajiri, a merchant ; Utajiri, merchandise ; Eefu, long ; Urefu, length. I may here remark that Captain Speke's analysis of Uzaramo and Usagara into U-za-ramo and U-sa- gara, the country of E-amo and Gara, making them ' obviously triple words,' is wholly inadmissible. The root of national and tribal names, whatever it may be, is used only exceptionally amongst the Zangian races. Upon this point I shall presently offer a few observations. ^ Captain Guillain (vol. iii. p. 107, et passim) is correct upon the subject of the word ' Mrima.' Mr Cooley (Memoir on the Lake Eegions, &c., p. 8) informs us that ' AVam- rima' (the maiuland people) signifies 'of the mainland; for it is a mistake to suppose that Mrima is but a dialectic variation of Mlima (read, Mlima) hill, in its primary sense, cultivable ground ; it is, in truth, a corruption of the Arabic word Mara'im, signifying the land to the west, or under the setting sun. When the early Portuguese navi- gators told us that the Querimba Islands were peopled by the Morimos, we must understand by this name the people of the mainland.' This is an excellent illustration of how dangerous a thing is a smattering of philology. The 'Arabic word Mara'im' is absolutely unknown to the Arabs of Zanzibar. It is evidently THE 'MRIMA: 131 however, is properly speaking limited to the maritime uplands between Tanga and the Pan- coined out of tlie dictionary from '';;' observavit occiden- tern soleni.' I would also ask bow ' Comazinghi is Arabic?' (Geograpby, art. 15). Similarly, we find (Journal Royal Geo- grapbical Society, xix. 190) tbe Somali ' Aber' (error for Habr) derived from tbe Arabic (Hebrew ?) Bar, and explained by Beuii (sons), wben it really signifies motber or old woman. It may be noted tbat in tbe Kisawabili of Zanzibar, INIrima is applied to the coast generally, especially between Mtangata and the Eufiji River, and it is mo.-itly synonymous with the Arabs' ' Bar el Moli,' whereas Mlima means a mountain. Prom tbe latter comes the diminutive Kilima, a hillock, also synon- ymous in composition with the French mont. It enters into many East African proper names, e.g. Kilima-njaro, Kilima-ui, &c. I cannot agree witb Messrs Norris and Beke, despite their authority as linguists, in stripping the national and racial names of their inflections, e. g. Sagara for Usagara, Zaramo ibr Uzaramo. Mr Cooley is equally wrong in stating that the ' Sawahily and the Arabs write Nika, Zeramu, and Gogo. The Arabs may, the Wasawahili do not, thus blunder. Captain Guil- lain, I have remarked, is no authority. He confounds (vol. i. ]). 231) the land of Wak-wak (the Semitic Gallas) with the South African Wamakua; and, worse still, with the 'Vatouahs.' And (vol. i. p. 281) he writes the well-known 'Abban' of the Somal, ' Hebban.' He also unduly neglects the peculiar initial quiescent consonant M, e. g. (i. p. 450) ' Foumo ' for ' Mfumo.' The bare root-word, I repeat, is never used by the people, who always qualify it by a prepositive. This, in our language Brit or Brut may be the monosyllable upon which Briton and British are built, but it is evidently barbarous to employ it without suffix. In the Zangian tongues the prefixes are clearly primitive words ; nouns, not as the Rev. J. L. Dochne explains them in his Zulu-Kafir Dictionary (Cape Town, 1857), ' pronouns, in the present state of the language, used as nominal forms compounded with other words. 132 MENOUTHIAS. gani river. Zanzibar city is Unguja (pronounced Unguclya, not Auggouya). The word appears in an ancient settlement on the eastern coast of the island, and the place is still called Unguja Mku, Old Unguja. Some still call it Lunguja, appa- rently an older form. We find 'Lendgouya' in the Commercial Traveller Yakut (early thirteenth century) ; hut ' Bandgouia ' (Ahd el E,ashid bin Salih el Bakui, a.d. 1403) is clearly a corruption. Einally, Zanzibar has been identified by pa- Iseogeographers with the Ptolemean Msvon^iag or M.Bvorjbsfriag (iv. 9), and with the Msvou^ia^ of the Periplus (Geog. Grseci Minores of E/. Muller, Paris, 1855), in some copies of which Menouthe- sias also occurs. Its rivals, however, for this honour are Pemba, Mafiyah (the Monfia of our maps) and Bukini, the northern and north- western parts of Malagash or Madagascar.^ Ptolemy, it may be observed, places the two im- portant sites, Menouthias and Prasum (or Pras- sum) in a separate chapter (iv. 9), whereas his principal list of stations is in Book iv. chapter 7. He lays down the site of Menouthias in S. lat. ^ ' What Booken (Bukini) meaDs I do not know.' Wake on the Madecasses. Journal, Anthrop. Soc. ]S"o. 28, xxxi., Dr Krapf (Kisuaheli Grammar, p. 106) uses Bukini as Madagascar generally. MENOUTHIAS. 133 12°, and nearly opposite the Lunar Mountain, and the Lakes whence the Nile arises (S. lat. 12*^ 30'). The mouth of the Ehapta river and Rhapta, the metropolis of Barharia, are in S. lat. 7°, the Rhapta promontory is in S. lat. 8" 20' 5", and the Prasum promontory in S. lat. 15'^. By ap- plying the correction as before, we have for Me- nouthias S. lat. 6° (the capital of Zanzibar being in S. lat. &" 9' 6") ; for the Lakes, & 30', which would nearly bisect Tanganyika ; for Rhapta river and city, S. lat. V (or more exactly, S. lat. 1° 10'); the mouth of the Jub river being in S. lat. 0° 14° 30'; the Rhapta promontory in S. lat. 2° 30', corresponding with the coast about Patta ; and finally, for Prasum S. lat. 9° 10' — Cape Delgado being in S. lat. 10° 41' 12." The account given of Menouthias in the Peri- plus (written between a.d. 6 i, Vincent, and a.d. 210, Letronne^) is that of an eyewitness : 'After two nychthemeral days (each of 100 miles) towards the west [here the text is evidently corrupt] comes Menouthias, altogether insulated, distant from the land about 300 stadia (30 geo- ' Captain Guillain (vol. i. 121 — 1.39, et passim) contends, and with much show of reason, that the Periplus was written after the days of Ptolemy (a.d. 139 and a.d. 161). ' Tant de lacunes dans ToDuvre du grand goographe grec, ne semhlent-elles pas assignor ;i son travail line place toute naturelle entre les t'crits do Marin de Tyr et le Pcriple ? ' 134 RHAPTA. graphical miles), low and tree-clad. In it are many kinds of birds and mountain tortoises (land turtle?). It has no other wild beasts but crocodiles (iguanas), and these do not injure man. There are in it sewn boats and monoxyles (canoes), which they use for salt-pans [here the text is defective] and for catching turtle. .In this island they trap them after a peculiar fashion with baskets (the modern wigo) instead of nets, lettino; them down at the mouth of stonv inlets' (chap. i. 15). The next chapter informs us : ' Erom which (island) after two runs (each 50 miles) ^ lies the last emporium of the continent of Azania, called Ta E^hapta, thus named from the before-men- tioned sewn-together vessels. In it are much ivory and tortoise-shell. The men, who in this country are of the largest size, live scattered (in ^ The daily run (\ „^) of native craft varies from 40 to 50 knots per. diem, and 50 may be assumed as an average. Captain Guillain estimates it higher, from 48 to 60. Abulfeda gives the Majra or Spofiog rvyQr]yiipoc, 100 Hashemi miles = 170 of our geographical miles, here too high a rate unless aided by currents. Other Arab authors propose 100,000 paces = 100 Eoman or Arab miles = 80 geographical miles. The pilot Theophilus (Ptol. i. 9) rated the day and night run in these seas at 1000 stadia = 100 miles, or two Ptolemeian degrees ; the Pelusian geographer having, 1 have said, reduced the degree to 500 instead of 600 stadia. RHAPTA. ' 135 the mountains ?), and each tribe in its own place is subject to tyrants ' (' tyranneaulx ' or x^etty chiefs). Here, then, we have Ehapta 33 leagues (100 miles = 1° -10') beyond Menouthiks. Captain Guillain (Prem. Partie, p. 115) would make the former correspond with the debouchure of the Oufidji river (Rufiji or Lufiji), in S. lat. 7'' 50'. But the Periplus, unlike Ptolemy, alludes only to a port, not to a river mouth, nor does the coast-line here show any promontory. Others have proposed Point Puna (S. lat. 7° 2' 42"), the south-western portal of the Zanzibar manche, near the modern trading port of Mbu- amaji, which in former ages may have been more important. D'Anville, Vincent, and De Prober ville boldly prefer Kilwa (in round num- bers S. lat. 9"), which is distant 157 geographical miles from the southernmost point of Zanzibar, and I think they are right. It is safer in such matters to suspect an error of figures and of distances than of topography, especially where the geographical features are so well marked and cannot be found in other places. Computa- tions of ancient courses and log-books can have little value except when they serve to confirm commonly topographical positions. Kilwa has 136 GEOGRAPHY OF ZANZIBAR. ever been a central station on the Zanzibar coast, and the slaves brought from the interior are still remarkable for size. Moreover, as Dr Beke well observes (Sources of the Nile, p. 69), ' In attempt- ing to fix in the map of Africa the true position of Ptolemy's lakes and sources of the Nile, we must discard all notions of their having been determined ahsolutely by means of astronomical observations, special maps of particular localities, or otherwise, and regard them simply as derived from oral information, and as laid down relatively to some well-known point or points on the coast.' ^ v^ Zanzibar, the principal link in the chain of islets which extends from Makdishu (Magadoxo), in the Barr el Benadir or Haven-land, to Cape Corrientes, is a long narrow reef, with the major axis disposed from N. N. W. to S. S. E., and subtending a deep bight or bend in the coast, justly enough called the Barbaric Gulf. The length is 48'25 geographical miles from Ba'as Kunguwi, the northern (S. lat. 5° 42' 8" Baper), to Ba'as Kizimkaz, the southern, extremity (S. lat. 6° 27' T Baper). The breadth is 18 miles from the Port in E. long. 39° 14' 5" Baper's cor- rection, to the continental coast in E. long. (G.) 1 See Part II. chap. 11. THE FORMATION OF ZANZIBAR. 137 SQ** 32' 5'. French travellers assume a max. length of 83 kilometres, and a max. breadth of 33. The capital (S. lat. 6° 9' 6") corresponds in parallel with the Pernambucan proyince to the west and with Java and central New Guinea to the east. The corrected longitude (laid down by Captain Smee in 1811 as E. lat. 39° 15') gives a difference of Greenwich time 2'^- 36™- and 56"-. From Southampton round the Cape the run is usually laid down at 8500 miles, via Suez 6200. The Lesseps Canal has shortened the dis- tance from Marseille by 2000 leagues, and thus has placed Zanzibar within 1600 leagues of the great port — in fact, about the distance of the Gaboon ex-colony. The formation of the island is madrepore, resting upon a core or base of stratified sand- stone grit, disposed in beds varying from 1*5 to 3 feet thick. The surface gently inclines towards the sea, and the lines of fracture run parallel with the shores. Three distinct formations oc- cur to one crossing the breadth.^ The fii'st is a ^ Dr Eusclienberger, I know not on what authority, says that the island is undulated and crossed by three principal ridges, whose most elevated points are 500 feet high. My in- formation, derived from hearsay, however, not from actual inspection, assures me that the waves of ground are disposed north and south. 138 FORMATION. band of grit-based coralline, which runs meridion- ally, and is most remarkable on the eastern side. This portion, featureless and thinly inhabited, is protected from the dangerous swell and the fury of the Indian Ocean by a broad reef and scat- tered rocks of polypidoms. The band thins out to the north and south : in the centre, where it is widest, the breadth may be three to four miles, and the greatest height 400 feet. The coral-rag is mostly white and of many shapes, like fans, plants, and trees : the most usual form is the mushroom, with a broad domed head rising from a narrow stem. The texture is exceedingly re- ticulated and elastic; solid masses, however, occur where neighbouring rocks meet and bind — hence the labyrinth of caverns, raised by secular upgrowth and preserving the original formation. The ground echoes, as in volcanic countries, hol- low and vault-like to the tread ; the tunnels are frequently without issue for drainage, and when the rain drips in, the usual calcareous pheno- mena, stalactites and stalagmites, appear. Many of these* caves are found on the coast as well as on the island. The carbonate of lime is very pure, and contains brown or yellow-white crystals. A stony valley, sunk below the level of both flanks, is said to bisect the island from north FORMATION. 139 to south. Into this hasin fall sundry small streams, the Mohayra and others, which are lost through the crevices and caverns, and in the cracks and fissures of the grit. There are other drains, forming, after heavy downfalls, swamps and marshes, whence partly the great insalubrity of the interior. The western part of Zanzibar, with its wealth of evergreen vegetation, appears by far the most fertile. It is a meri- dional band of red clay and sandy hills, running parallel with the corallines of the eastern coast. Here are the most elevated grounds. I found the royal plantation Sebbe or Izimbane, 400 feet (b.p.) above sea-level, or a little higher than the Bermudas. The least productive parts are those covered with dark clay. Heavy rains deposit arenaceous matter upon the surface, and the black humus disappears. On this side of the island also many streamlets discharge into the sea, bearing at their mouths mangrove beds, whose miasmas cause agues, dysenteries, diar- rhoeas, and deadly fevers. The rule established by Dampier and quoted by Humboldt directs us to expect great depth near a coast formed by high perpendicular moun- tains. Here, as in the rest of the Zanzibarian archipelago, the maritime line, unlike the west 140 THE WINDWARD COAST. Atlantic islands Tenerife and Madeira, is com- posed of gently rolling hills. Yet seven fathoms are often found within a stone-throw of the land, whilst the encircling ledges are steep -to, marked in the charts 4 and lio. Evidently, then, the corallines are perched upon the summits of a submarine range which rises sharp and abrupt from abysmal hollows and depressions. As usual too in such formations, the leeward shore line of the island, where occur the lagoon entrances, is more varied and accidented than the eastern. At Pemba this feature will be even more re- markable. The windward coast, in common with many parts of the continental seaboard, suffers espe- cially from June to August from the Ras de Maree (Manuel de la Navigation et la Cote occi- dentale de I'Afrique), a tide race, supposed to result from the meeting of currents. It is a line of rollers neither far from nor very near the shore. The hurling and sagging surf is described to resemble the surge of a submarine earth- quake ; and the strongest craft, once entangled in the send, cannot escape. It would be useful to note, as at West African Lagos, the greater or less atmospheric pressure accompanying the phe- nomenon, and to seek a connection between it THE CURRENT. U\ and the paroxysms of the neighbouring cyclone region. At all times sailors remark the ' short- ness ' of the waves and the scanty intervals be- tween their succession. This peculiarity cannot be explained in the usual way by shoals and shallow water causing a ground-swell. With respect to the great East African ocean- current, which has given rise to so many fables gravely recorded by the Arab geographers,^ the best authorities at Zanzibar are convinced, and their log-books prove, that both its set and drift, like the Brazilian coast-stream, are in the present state of our knowledge subject to the extremes of variation. The charts and Horsburgh lay it down as a regular S.W. current ; and so it is in the southern, whilst in the northern part it is hardly perceptible. Between Capes Guardafui and Delgado it flows now up then down the coast ; here it trends inland, there it sets out to sea. Dr Buschenberger relates that on Sept. 1, ^ The Balir el Kharab, or Bad Sea, the mountains El Mix- lattam (the lashed or beaten), El Nidameh (of repentance), and El Ajrad (the noisy) ; the Mountains of Magnet, and the ' Blind Billows' and 'Enchanted Breakers' which, says El Masudi, make the Oniani sailor of the tribe of Azd sing — ' O Berberah and Jafuni (Ra'as Hafun), and thy warlock waves ! Jafuui and Berberah and their waves are these which thou Beest ! ' U2 THE CURRENT. 1835, his ship, when south of Zanzibar, was carried 50 miles in 15 hours, and was obliged to double the northern cape. The same happened to Captain Guillain in August 1846, when he lost five days. This resulted from the superior force of the S.W. monsoon, which often drives vessels to the north 30 to 40 miles during the day and night. Lieut. Christopher (Journal, Jan. 5, 1843) reported it to be variable and vio- lent, especially close in shore, and observed that it frequently trends against the wind. It is usually made to run to the S.W. between De- cember and April, at the rate of 1*3 miles per hour, from Ha'as Hafun to Ha'as Aswad, and two to three miles per hour between Capes Aswad and Delgado. Shipmasters at Zanzibar have assured me that when this coastal current covers three knots an hour there is a strong backwater or counter-flow, which, like the Gulf-stream, trends to the north, and against which, with light winds, native vessels cannot make way. This counter-current lias extensive limits ; usually it is considered strongest between Mafiyah and Pomba. The ship St Abbs, con- cerning which so much has been said and writ- ten of late years, was wrecked in 1855 off St Juan de Is'ova of the Comoro group (S. lat. NAVIGATION. 143 17° 3' 5"), and pieces of it were swept up to Brava (N. lat. T 6' 8"), upwards of 1000 miles. The crew is supposed still to be iu captivity amongst the Ahghal tril)e ; and in 1865 an Arab merchant brought to Zanzibar a hide marked with letters which resembled N E B X. A writer in the Fall Mall opined the letters to be ' Wasm ' or tribal brands, justly observing that ' all the Bedawin have these distinguishing marks,' but forgetting that he was speaking of the analpha- betic Somal, to whom such knowledge does not extend. As we might expect, the Mozambique stream, south of Cape Delgado, always flows southerly with more or less westing. The rate is said to vary from 20 to 80 miles a day. Our hydrographical charts are correct enough to guide safely into and out of port any ship- master who will sound, and can take an angle. As, however, the navigation is easy, so accidents are common. Any land-lubber could steer a ship from Bombay to Karachi (Kurrachee), and yet how many have been lost ! Often, too, it is in seamanship as in horsemanship, Avhen the best receive the most and the heaviest falls. In May 1857 the Jonas, belonging to Messrs Yidal, was sunk by mistaking Chumbi Island for its neigh- bour Bawi. Three or four davs afterwards the 144 NAVIGATION. Storm King of Salem, Messrs Bertram, ran aground whilst hugging Chumhi in order to dis- tance a rival. The number of reefs and shoals render it always unadvisable to enter the port at night, and in the heaviest weather safe riding- ground is found between Zanzibar Island and the continent. Vessels from the south making Zanzibar in the N.E. monsoon, the trade-wind of December to March, leave Europa Island to the west, and the Comoro group and S. Juan de Nova on the east. Keeping well in mid-channel, they head straight for Mafiyah. They hug Point Puna, avoiding Latham's Bank,^ and they w'ork up by Kwale and the Chumbi Island. Ships from the north have only to run down the mid-channel, between Pemba and the continent, and then to pass west of Tumbatu. Those sailing southward from Zanzibar at this season pass along-shore, down the Mozambique Channel. Vessels from the south making Zanzibar in May to September, the height of the S."W. monsoon — the anti-N.E. trade — sail up the same passage. They must be- ware of falling to leeward ; and those that neg- ' At Latham's Isle was found guano, which Captain Cogan, I.N., obtained permission to export. In 1847, however, it was washed away by a ' Ras de Maree.' ASPECT OF ZANZIBAR. 145 lect ' lead and look-out ' are ever liable to be carried northwards to Pemba by the counter- current before mentioned, which may, however, now be a wind-current. At this season ship-mas- ters missing the mark have sometimes made 3® to 4" of easting, and have preferred beating down to Mafiyah and running up again, rather than face the ridicule of appearing via the northern pass- age. Those leaving the Island in the S.W. monsoon stand north up channel, well out in E. Ion. 9° 42' to 43', beat south of Cape Del- gado, pass between the Comoro group and the mainland, and thus catch the Mozambique gulf- stream. The brises solaires blow strongest off Madagascar in June and July. They fall light in August and September. The aspect of Zanzibar from the sea is that of coralline islands generally — a graceful, wavy outline of softly rounded ground, and a surface of ochre-coloured soil, thickly clothed with foli- age alternating between the liveliest leek-green and the sombrest laurel, the only variety that vegetation knows in this land of eternal verdure. Everywhere the scenery is similar ; each mile of it is a copy of its neighbour ; and the Avant of variety, of irregularity, of excitement, so to spcnk, soon makes itself felt. Zanzibar ignores VOL. I. 10 14G ASPECT. the exliilaration of pure desert air, and the exalt- ation produced hy the stern aspect of mountain regions or by a boundless expanse of Pampa and Sahara. "Without a single element of sublimity, soft and smiling, its sensuous and sequestered scenery has no power to spur the thought, to breed an idea within the brain. The oppressive luxuriance of its growth combined with the ex- cess of damp heat, and possibly the abnormal proportion of ozone, are the most unfavourable conditions for the masculine. The same is the case in Mazanderan, Malabar, Egypt, Phoenicia, California, and other Phre-kah — lands of the sun. And the aspect of that everlasting, beginning- less, endless verdure tends, as on the sea-board of the Brazil, to produce sensations of melancholy and depression. We learn at last to loathe thee, ' gay green, Thou smiling Nature's universal robe ! ' Landing upon the island, you find a thin strip of bright yellow sand separating the sea from a curtain of vegetation, which forms a con- tinuous wall. In some parts madrepore rock, looped and caverned by the tide, and covered with weeds and testacese, whose congeners are fossilized in the stone, rises abruptly a few feet above the wave. At other places a dense growth ASPECT. 147 of tangled mangrove jungle exposes during the ebb a sheet of black and sticky mire, into Avhich man sinks knee-deep. The regularity of the out- line is broken by low projecting spits and by lagoons and backwaters, which bite deep into the land. Their pestilential, fatal exhalations veil the low grounds with a perpetual haze, and the excess of carbon is favourable to vecretable as it is deleterious to animal life. Passing over the modern sea-beach, with its coarse grasses, creepers, and wild flowers — mostly the Ipomsea — and backed by towering trees, cocoas, mangos, and figs, we often observe in the interior distinct traces of an old elevation, marked by lines of water-worn pebbles and by coarse gravels overlying greasy blue clay. This is the home of the copal. Beyond it the land rises imperceptibly, and breaks into curves, swells, and small ravines, rain-cut and bush-grown, sometimes 40 feet deep. The soil is now a re- tentive red or yellow argile, based upon a detritus of coralline, hardened, where pressed, into the semblance of limestone, or upon a friable sand- stone-grit of quartz and silex. The humus of the richest vegetable substance, and excited by the excess of humidity and heat, produces in abundance maize, millet, and various panicums ; 148 - VEGETATION. tomatoes and naturalized vegetables, muliogo (the cassava), and Palma Christi; coffee, cot- ton, and sugar-cane ; clove, nutmeg, and cin- namon trees ; foreign fruits, like the Brazilian Caju, the passion-flower and the pine-apple ; the Chinese Leechi; bananas and guavas, the P^a- phia and the cocoa, twin queens of the palms ; limes and lemons, oranges and shaddocks, the tall tamarind, the graceful Areca, the grotesque calabash and Jack-tree, colossal sycamores and mangos, whose domes of densest verdure, often 60 feet high and bending, fruit-laden, to the earth, make our chesuuts, when in fullest dress, look half-naked and in rao:s. The uplands, especially in the western part of the island, are laid out in Mashamba or plant- ations, whose regular lines of untrimmed clove- trees are divided by broad sunny avenues. Here and there are depressions in the soil, where heavy rains slowly sinking have nursed a tangled growth of reeds and rushes, sedge and water-grass. About the Mohayra and the Biibubu — the prin- cipal of the 7rora[xoi ttT^skftoi of the Periplus — mere surface-drains, choked with fat juncacese and with sugar-cane growing wild, there is a black soil of prodigious fertility, whose produce may, so to speak, be seen to grow. This sounds 'MANGROVE HEAVINESS.' 149 like exaggeration ; but I well remember, at Hyderabad, in Sind, that durinq; the inundation of the Indus we could perceive in the morning that the maize had lengthened during the night, and the same is the case with certain ' toad- stools ' and fungi in the Brazil. Upon this waste of rank vegetation the sun darts an oppressive and malignant beam. In the driest season the ' mangrove heaviness ' of the western coast and the cadaverous foetor announce miasma ; after the rains the landscape is redolent of disease and death. The cottages of small proprietors and slaves strew the farms. They are huts of wattle and rufous loamy dab, to which large unbaked bricks of red clay are sometimes preferred. The usual cajan pent-roof forms deep dark eaves, propped by untrimmed palm-boles. These dwellings are unwholesome, because none boast of a second storey ; they are not even built upon piles, and thus their sole defence against the surrounding malaria is the shrubbery planted by nature's hand. Sickness seems generally, both in the island and on the continent, to follow turning up fresh soil, and the highlands are often more subject to miasma than the lowlands. The lines of communication consist of mere 150 VEGETATION. footpaths, instead of the broad roads required for the ventilation of the country. When the produce of the land is valuable the lanes are lined with cactus, milk-bush (euphorbia), and succulent plants, whose foliage shines with me- tallic lustre. Set in little ridges, the hedge-rows of pine-apple, with its large pink and crimson fruit, passing, when ripe, into a reddish-yellow, form a picturesque and pleasant fence. At a distance from the town the paths become rough and solitary. Nearer, they are well beaten by negroes of both sexes and all ages, carrying fuel or baskets of fruit upon their heads, or bringing water from the wells, or loitering under shady trees to cheapen the cocoa-nut, manioc, and broiled fish, offered by squatting negresses for their refection. Section 2. Meteorological Notes — The Double Seasons, &c. The characteristic of meteorology at Zanzi- bar, as generally the case in the narrow equa- METEOROLOGY. 151 torial zone, is the extreme irregularity of its phenomena. Here weather seems to be all in confusion ; hardly two consequent years resemble each other. In 1853-4, for instance, the seasons, if they may so be called, were apparently in- verted ; heavy showers fell during the dries, and a drought occupied the place of the wet monsoon. Sometimes the rains will begin with, this year (1857) they ended with, a heavy burst. Now April is a fine month, then the downfall will last through June. I may also remark one great difference of climate between the eastern and western coasts of intertropical Africa. Whilst Zanzibar is super- satured with moisture, Angola, on the same parallel, is a comparatively dry, sandy, and sun- burnt region. Kilwa, upon the eastern coast, and in S. lat. 8° 57', is damp and steamy. S. Paulo de Loanda, upon the opposite shore (S. lat. 8*^ 18'), suffers from want of water. We find the same contrast in the South American continent. The middle Brazil is emphatically a land of rains, whilst Peru and Chili require artificial irrigation supplied by melted snow. Evidently the winds charged with moisture, the N. E. and S. E. trades and their modifications, discharge them- selves upon the windward sides of continents' 152 THE THERMOMETER. especially when these are fringed with cold sierras, which condense the vapour and render the interior a lee land. In 1847 the Geographical Society of Bombay sent a barometer to Zanzibar, and requested that a meteorological register might be kept. Their wishes were not immediately carried into effect ; but after a time the Eurasian apothecary in charge of the Consulate filled up in a rude way during nine months a weather-book, with observa- tions of the barometer, of two thermometers attached and unattached, of wet and dry bulbs, of evaporation and of rainfall. In the Journal of the Hoyal Geographical Society (xxiii. of 1853), Colonel Sykes published a 'record, kept during eleven months in 1850, of the indications of several intertropical instruments at Zanzibar,' unhappily without those of pressure.^ The result of nine months' observations is that ^ The temperature of the island as observed by Prench travellers is — Mas. (April 6 a.m. 2 mom.) 89° (F.)— Colonel Sykes— SS" (F. in shade) Min. (October, midnight and 6 a.m.) 73o ditto TS" Mean temperature of the year 79" 15 ditto 79'90 (extreme range IS'-lOo) The following are the results of the evaporating disb : — January, 1857 . . Total of month, inches. .. 2-36 Greatest in one day of montli. inches. 009 Least in one day. inches. 0-04 February „ .. .. 219 010 05 March „ .. .. 2-49 009 06 April „ .. 176 010 03 THE BAROMETER. 153 the thermometer shows a remarkably limited range of temperature and an extreme variation of only 18" — ^19". A storm, however, will make the mercury fall rapidly through 6° — T. The climate is far more temperate than the in- experienced expect to find so near the equator. It is within the limits of the true Trades. The land and sea breezes laden with cool mois- ture blow regularly, and the excessive humidity spreads a heat-absorbing steam-cloud between sun and earth. The medium temperature of January is 83" 30' ; of Pebruary, the hottest month, 85" 86' (according to Colonel Sykes 83" 40'); and of March, 82" 50'. This high and little- varying mean then gradually declines till July, the coolest month (77" 10'). The mean average of the year is 79" 15' — 90'. In September and October the climate has been compared with that of southern Europe. On the other hand, the atmosphere supports an amount of moisture unknown to the dampest parts of India. The barometer, so near the equator, is almost uniformly sluggish and quiescent. Its range diurnal and annual is here at a min. It seldom, except under varying pressure of storms or tor- nadoes, rises or falls al)Ove or below 30 inches at sea level, and a few tenths represent the max. 154 VARIATION. variation. It must be observed, however, on both coasts of Africa, within 6° — 7° of the Line, this instrument requires especial study for nautical purposes. Here it is an imperfect indicator, because, affected from great distances, it rises without tine weather and it falls without foul. At Zanzibar the case of a whaling captain is quoted for wasting in vain precautions nearly two months. Moreover, sufficient observations have not yet been accumulated in the south- ern hemisphere. Where there is so little ex- pansion in the mercurial column the convexity and concavity of the column-head must be care- fully examined with a magnifying-glass, and by a reflecting instrument the smallest change could be correctly measured. The trembling of the aneroid needle, sometimes ranging through a whole inch during the gusts of the highly elec- trical tornado, also calls for observation. The sympiesometer is held to be even more sensitive than the mercurial barometer, especially before storms, and ignorance of its peculiarity has often ' frightened a reef in ' at unseasonable times. The same was found to be the case, in high lati- tudes, by Lieut. E^obertson, U.N., when sailing under Captain Ross (1818), between N. lat. 51° 39' and 76° 50'. METEORS. 155 Observations with the altitude and azimuth determined the variation of the needle in 1857 to he between 9° — 10° (W.). If this be correct, it is gradually easting. In 1823 Captain Owen found it to be 11° T (W.).^ So, upon the oppo- site coast, the variation laid down in our charts of 1816 as 20° (W.) has gradually declined to between 18° 30' and 19° (W.). Of exceptional meteoric phenomena I can speak only from hearsay, no written records ex- isting upon the island. A single earthquake is remembered. In the early rains of 1816, at about 4 P.M., a shock, accompanied by a loud rumbling sound, ran along the city sea-front, splitting the Sayyid's palace, the adjacent mosque, and the side- walls of the British Consulate, in a direction perpendicular to the town. It was probably the result of igneous disturbance below the coralline, audit tends to prove that the island was originally an atolll some, however, have explained it by a land-slip. Three meteors are known since 1813. In December of that year a ball of fire was visible from windows facing the north ; it disappeared without a report. The most remarkable was a bolis, which, about ^ The Consular report of 1859 gives Captain Owen's vari- ation. 156 STORMS. 6 P.M. on October 25, 1855, took a N.W. by W. path, burned during ten or eleven minutes, and frightened the superstitious burghers into fits. Water-spouts commonly appear during the month of April, and in the direction of the mainland : the people disperse them by firing guns. Erost and snow are of course unheard of at Zanzibar, and hail, not uncommon in the inte- rior, never (?) falls upon the island or the coast. During the wet season generally, especially when the heats are greatest, the hills of Terrafirma are veiled with clouds, and sheet-lightning plays over the horizon. The islanders assure the stranger that storms of thunder and lightning are rare, and that few accidents happen from the electric fluid. M. Alfred May, for instance, de- clares that thunder is heard only three or four times a year. The same is said in West African Yoruba, in parts of the Brazil, and even in Northern Syria — Damascus, for instance. It would be curious to inquire w^hat produces this uniform immunity under climatic conditions so different. At Zanzibar, however, the phenome- non is irregulaT as the seasons. I was told of several deaths by the ' thunderbolt,' and in the year 1857 the S.W. monsoon was ushered in almost daily by a tempest. Lieutenant- Colonel TORNADOS. 157 Hamerton, when sailing about the island, lost by lightning his Baloch Sarhang (boatswain) ; he himself felt a blow upon the shoulder like that of a falling block. No blood appeared upon the side, but it was livid to the hip, and for some days the patient Avas decidedly ' shaky.' Some explained his escape by his wearing flannel ; others by his standing near the davits of a long- boat, which were twisted like wax by the electric fluid. The mainlands of Zanzibar and of Mozam- bique are suliject, as might be expected, to tornados, which much resemble those of the West African coast. Accompanying the forma- tion and the dispersion of the nimbus, they are often violent enough to wreck small craft. Caught in a fine specimen, I was able to observe all the normal phenomena, — the building up of the warning arch, the white eye or gleam under the soffit, the wind blowing olT shore, the appar- ent periodicity of throbs, and tlie frantic rage of the short-lived squall. The cyclones and hurri- canes of the East Indian Islands rarely extend to Zanzibar. During 14 years there was but one tourbillon strong enough to uproot a cocoa-tree. It passed over the city about midnight, over- throwing the Mdbandani or roof-sheds, and it was 158 DEW. followed by a burst of rain. Colonel Sykes (loco cit.) remarks, philosopliically explaining the why, 'Another peculiar feature in the climato- logy of Zanzibar is that there is seldom any dew experienced.' The reverse is the case, as might be known by the strength of the nightly radia- tion. Captain Guillain (i. 2, 72) declares that the ros^es which accompany the rains are suffi- cient for watering the ground, and observes (p. 94), I presume concerning those who remain in the open air, ' Ptester a terre entre huit heurs du soir et le lever du soleil c'est s'exposer a une mort tres probable, sinon certaine.' The sunset, never followed by twilight, is accompanied by a sudden coolness which, as in equatorial, and even sub-tropical regions generally, causes a rapid precipitation of vapour. The dews are cold and clammy, and the morning shows large beads in horizontal streaks of moisture on perpendicular surfaces. I often remarked the deposition of dew when light winds were blowing ; of course it did not stand in drops, but it whetted the cloth- ing. This I believe is an exception to the general rule. At sunset the old stager will not sit or walk in the open air, although, as in Syria, he will expose himself to it at nine or ten p. m., when the night has acquired its normal temper- DOUBLE SEASONS. 159 ature. As in the west coast squadron, so here, there is an order that all men on deck after sun- set must wear their hlanket-coats and trowsers, and many an unfortunate sailor has lost his life by sleeping in the streets, thus allowing the dew to condense upon his body while under the in- fluence of liquor. Experienced travellers have taught themselves, even in the hottest seasons of the hottest equinoctial regions, to air the hut with a ' bit of fire ' before sundown and sunrise, and it is doubtless an excellent precaution against ' chills.' Zanzibar Island, Ipng in S. lat, G°, has the sun in zenith twice a year ; the epochs being early March and October; more exactly, March 4 and October 9. Hence it has two distinct summers ; the first in February, the second in September. It has double rains ; the ' Great Masika ' in April to June, and the ' Little ]Ma- sika ' in October to November. It has two Avinters ; the shorter in December, and in July the longer, which is much more marked than the former. There are only three months of N.E. trade (Azyab)' to nine of S.E. and S.W. (Kausi). ' Azyat) is the classical Arab term for Cajcias (Kaikias) the N.E. wind — according to Firuzabadi it is the S.E. ; Sciron, the N.W., is the Arab ' Shursb'; Lips, the S.W., is 'Labash'; and Euros, the S.E., ' Sh'luk' (scirocco, which is in many places a 160 THE TRADE WINDS. The regularity of these seasons is broken by a variety of local causes, and there is ever, I re- peat, the normal instability of equinoctial cli- mates. Theory appears often at fault upon these matters. A fair instance is Mr Cooley's assertion, that about Kilima-njaro the ' rainy season is also the hot season.' Theoretically, of course, the period of the sun's northing and of the great rains should be, north of the equator, the hot season ; but where tropical downfalls are heavy, the excessive humidity intercepting the solar rays, and the valleys and swamps refrigerated by the torrents, make the rainy season the cold weather. Erom June to September the natives of Fernando Po (N. lat. 4") die, like those of eastern intertropical Africa, of catarrh, quinsey, and rheumatism. Even in India the Goanese call the rains ' o inverno,' and Abba Gregorius makes the wet weather the winter of Abyssinia. About Kilima-njaro the hot and dry season opens with the end and closes with the beginning of the hot monsoon. The natives of Zanzibar distribute the year due east wind). The N.E. is still commonlj called ' Barraui '; in vulgar Arabic, however, men would say, Bayn el Shimal w'el Gharb. A.t Zanzibar the east wnnd is called by the Was- hawahili Za jii — of above, and the west Phepo Mande or Um- aude — of dew or mist. THE KASKAZI. 161 into five seasons. A far simpler division here applicable, as in Western India, is made by those local trades the monsoons, between whose two unequal lengths are long intervals of calms and of variable winds. These are the Mausim or N.E. monsoon, and the Hippalus or S.W. 1. The Kaskazi or Kazkazi (vulgarly Kiz- kazi), to which the Arabs limit the term El Mausim (Monsoon), is the season during which the Azyab (, o jO or N.E. trade blows. The wind begins about mid-November; from mid-Decem- ber to mid-February its strength is greatest, and it usually ends about mid-March. In 1857, however, the Kaskazi opened with light showers, and continued in full force till March 24; usually the last vessels from Cutch and Bombay enter port about March 10. This is the first of the two hot seasons, and midsummer may be placed in Eebruary and March. A fine, cool sea-breeze from the N.E. usually prevails between 8 a.m. and late in the afternoon. When it is absent the weather is sultry and oppressive, the northerner feels sufi'ocated; the least exertion brings on profuse perspiration, and the cuticular irritation produces boils and 'prickly heat.' The nights arc close and stifling enough to banish rest and sleep. As has been shown, the thermometer TOL. I. 11 162 GREATER RAINS. does not stand high, but the frequent flashes of sheet-lightning playing over the northern and western sky show a surcharge of electricity. The public health would suifer severely but for the frequent cooling showers which, especially at the end of the Kaskazi, are succeeded by several days of pleasant weather. This is the agricul- turist's spring. Sesamum, holcus, rice, and other cereals, are sown upon lands previously burned for manure. It is the traveller's opportunity for visiting the interior of the island and the worst parts of the coast, but — ' bad is the best.' 2. The Msika (or Masika) Mku, Greater rain or rains. About the end of March the change of monsoon is ushered in by heaiy squalls from the S.E. and by tornados blowing off land. Presently the Hippalus breaks, and extends from early May into October. In May native craft make India after a run of 20 to 25 days ; after the end of August they rarely attempt the voyage. This Kausi or Hippalus is usually called S.W. mon- soon, but it has mostly an eastern deflection, possibly modified by the westerly land-breezes. The Arabs divide it, as will be seen, into three portions. First, the Kaus proper,^ in Kisawa- ^ I can onlj suggest that tliis term is borrowed from the zodiacal ^\"ti Sagittarius. THE RAINS. 163 hili Kausi ( ^y), from mid- April to early August, the period of the greatest strength. Second, Ki- pupwe or first winter — July and early August ; and third, the Dayman, which ends the Kausi. Presently appear the rains which have fol- lowed the northing sun. The same observation was made by the Austrian mission on the White Kiver in N. lat. 4*^ 30'. On the coast we can dis- tinctly trace their progress. In 1857 the down- fall began in Feb. 15, at Usumbara (S. lat. 5**), where the clouds are massed and condensed by a high plateau, leading to lofty, snow-capped mountains. In 1854 I found that the rainy season opened at Berberah of the Somal (N. lat. 10'' 25') on April 15 ; and in early June they reach Bombay (N. lat. 18" 53'). Concerning the movement of the wet season in inner intertropi- cal Africa I liave already written in the Journal of the Boyal Geographical Society (xxix. 207). The heaviest rains at Zanzibar Island begin the wet season about mid- April, and last 30 to 40 days; they do not end, however, till early June. Some observers remark that the fall is greatest at low water and during the ebb-tides of the Syzygies. It is, however, rare to have a week of uninterrupted rain, as in eastern India and sometimes in the Brazil. The discharge is 164 RAINFALL. exceedingly uncertain. Some years number 85 inches, others 108. During the first eight months of 1857 and the last four months of 1858, we find a total of 120-21 inches. In 1859 it reached 167, doubling the average of Bombay (76'55), and nearly trebling that of Calcutta (56" 83). "We may compare these figures with those of Europe and the United States. England has 31-97 inches ; Erance, 25*00 ; Central Germany, 20-00 ; Hungary, 16-93; Boston, 38*19 (about the same at Beyrut in Syria) ; Philadelphia, 45-00 ; and St Louis, Mo., 31-97. Of these 167 inches (1859), 104-25 feU during the Msika Mku. The number of wet days ranges from 100 to 130 per annum. According to the people, rain has diminished of late years ; perhaps it is the result of felling cocoas, and of disforesting the land for cloves. In 1857, the Great Msika was preceded by a few days of oppressive heat, which ended (March 24) in a highly electrical storm, like those which usher in the rains of western India, and suddenly the cool S.W. began to blow. Eor some time we had daily showers, now from the N.E., then from the S.W., with high winds and loud thunderings ; the rains, however, did not show in earnest before April 10. The islanders like the Msika to open with IRREGULARITIES. 165 showers strong enougli to bind the land, but not so violent as to carry ofip the manure de- posited by the year's decayed vegetation. After this the water should fall in heavy ropy tor- rents, with occasional breaks of sunshine and fine weather; when this lasts thirty days, and is succeeded by frequent showers, good crops are expected. The downfall is heavier in the interior of the island than about the city, which, situated upon a point, escapes many a drench- ing. It must, however, be borne in mind that the phenomena of the rains, like those of the sea and air, are essentially irregular. In some seasons there will be only half-a-dozen rainy afternoons; in others as many rainy mornings. There are years of great drought, and there are seasons when the sun does not appear for six weeks in succession. Usually heavy rain is not expected after 11 a.m., and showers are rare after 2 p.m. As I subsequently remarked in the east African interior — the Fluminenses of the Brazil still preserve the tradition — there is a curious regularity and periodicity in the hours of downfall, often extending over many days. This phenomenon may have done much towards creat- ing the ' rain-doctor.' During the Msika the horizon is obscured, 166 'SMOKES: dangerously indeed for ships : the wind veers round to every point of the compass ; the sky is murky and overcast ; huge purple nimbi, like moving mountains, float majestically against the wind, showing strong counter-currents in the upper aerial regions. Erom afar the island ap- pears smothered in blue mist, and often the cloud- rock splits into two portions, one of which makes for the coast. Even during the rare days of sunshine the distances, owing to the con- tinuous humidity, are rarely clear, and the ex- halations make refraction extensive. A high tension of vapour is the rule. For the first three hours after sunrise the land is often obscured by ' smokes,' a white misty fog, often deepening to a drizzling rain; this lasts until 10 a.m., about which time the sea-breeze begins to blow. The Msika is much feared by the native population, and the interior of the island be- comes a hot-bed of disease. The animal creation seems to breathe as much water as air. The want of atmospheric weight, and consequently of pressure upon the surface of the body, renders the circulation sluggish, robs man of energy, and makes him feel how much better is sleep than waking. Europeans, speaking from effect, com- plain that the 'heavy' air produces an unnatural DAMPNESS. 167 droAYsiness — it is curious to see how many of our popular books make humidity increase the weight of the atmospheric column. During this season the dews of sunset are deemed especially fatal to foreigners. At times the body feels cold and clammy when the thermometer sug- gests that it should be perspiring : super-satura- tion is drawing off the vital heat. The lungs are imperfectly oxygenized, and, in general belief, positive is exchanged for negative electricity. The hair and skin are dank and sodden ; indeed, a dry cutis is an unattainable luxury. Iron oxydizes with astonishing rapidity ; shoes ex- posed to the air soon fall to pieces ; mirrors are clouded with steam; paper runs and furniture sweats; the houses leak; books and papers are pasted together ; ink is covered with green fur ; linens and cottons grow mouldy, and broadcloths stiffen and become boardy. This excess of damp is occasionally varied by the extreme of dryness. The hot wind repre- sents the Khamasin of Egypt, the Sharki (or Sh'luk) of Syria, the Harmattan of west Africa, and the Norte of the southern Brazil, Para- guay, and the Argentine Confederation. At such times the air apparently abounds in oxygen and in ozone. Cotton cloth feels hard and crisp ; even 168 THE SEASONS. the water is cooled by the prodigious evapora- tion. Books and papers curl up and crack, and strangers are apt to suffer from nausea and fainting fits. 3. The Kipupwe, first winter or cold season — July and early August. The bright azure of the sky, the surpassing clearness of the water, and the lively green colours of the land, are not what we associate with the idea of the • disease of the year.' The Kausi or S.W. mon- soon still blows, but in this second or post- pluvial phase its strength is diminished. As on the western coast the mornings are misty, tlib effect of condensation and of excessive evaporation, the sun pumping up vapour from the rapidly desiccating ground ; but about four hours after sunrise a strong sea-breeze sets in, giving a little life and elasticity to the ex- hausted frame. When the ' doctor ' fails the heat is oppressive, and the sunsets are often accompanied by an unpleasant closeness. The beginning of the Kipupwe is held to be univer- sally sickly. The Hindus, who declare that all cold coming from the south is bad, suffer from attacks of rheumatism and pneumonia. The charms of the season induce Europeans to de- spise the insidious attacks of malaria : they THE LITTLE RAINS. 169 commit imprudences and pay for tliem in severe fevers. The rare but heavy showers that now fall are termed ' Mcho ; ' they separate the greater from the lesser Msika. 4. Dayman (in Kisawahili Daymani) ends the Kausi or S. W. monsoon, and extends through August and part of October. Though the sun is nearly perpendicular the air is cooled by strong south-westerly breezes. At this time yams, manioc, and sweet potatoes grow, making it a second spring, whilst the harvest of rice and holcus assimilates it to the temperate autumn. 5. The Yuli (Fuli)^ or Msika Mdogo, second rains or Little Msika. This season lasts but three weeks, begiuning shortly after the sun has crossed the zenith of Zanzibar in the south- ern declination, and embracing part of October and November. It is not considered a healthy time by the islanders. The autumnal rains are sometimes wanting upon the continent, and the land then suffers as severely from drought as northern Syria does when the ' former rain ' fails. After the Vuli recommences the Kaskazi, and the ' V aad F are often interchanged, as Mpumbafu (a fool), and Mfulana (a youth), for Mpumbavu and Mvulana. Gene- rally the Arabs of Oman and other incorrect speakers prefer the latter, and the Wasawahili the former, a sound which does not exist in Arabic. 170 UNHEALTHY TIMES. N. E. trade again blows. The sun is distant, tlie thermometer does not range high, yet the tem- perature of houses sheltered from the breeze becomes overpowering, and without the ' doctor ' the city would hardly be habitable. At times the Trade freshens to a gale that blows through the day. The Hindus suffer severely from this 'Biiord' (blast), and declare that it brings on fits of 'Mridi' (refroidissement), here held dan- gerous. During the whole of the Azyab mon- soon the people prefer hot sun and a clear, which is always a slightly hazy-blue, sky. They dis- like the clouds and heavy showers called Mvua^ ya ku pandia, or harvest rains, which are brought up at times by the N. N. West wind. On the other hand, when the Kausi or S. West monsoon blows, they hold an overcast sky the best for health, and they dread greatly the 'rain-sun.' The peasants take advantage of the dryness, and prepare, by burning, the land for maize, sesa- mum, and rice. The Wasawahili, like the Somal and many other races, have attempted to conform the lunar with the solar year, a practice which may ^ Or ]\rbua, the B and V being confounded, like F and V. Similarly, in the Prakrit dialects of Indra, vikh becomes bikh (poison). THE MONTHS. 171 date from the days Trlien the Persians were rulers of the Zanzibar coast. They also give their own names to the lunar months of the Moslem ; and, curiously enough, they begin the year, not with Muharram, but with the ninth month (Shaw wal), which they call ' Mfunguo Mosi,' or First Month. The next, Zu'l Ka'adeh, is Mfunguo Mbili, Second Month, and so on till E-ajab, Shaa'- ban (or Mlisho) and Ramazan, which retain their Arab names. ^ Amongst the Somal, five months, namely, from the second to the fifth, are known by the old Semitic terms. The month, as amongst all savage and semi-civilized tribes, be- gins with sighting the moon ; and the "Wasawahili reckon like the Jews, the modern Moslems, and the Chinese, 12 of 29 and 30 days alternately. ' The complete number of months with God' being, says the Koran, * twelve months,' good followers of the Prophet ignore the Ye-adar, second or em- bolical Adar, which the Hebrews inserted after every third year, and retain their silly cycle of 351 days. The "Wasawahili add 10 to 12 days to the Moslem year, and thus preserve the or- derly recurrence of the seasons. The sage in ^ This is ignored by Captain Guillain (Appendix, vol. iii.), wlio makes the AV'asawahili retain all the names of the Arab mouths. 172 NEW YEAR'S DAT. charge of the local almanac is said to live at Tumbatu : he finds his New Year's Day by look- ing at the sun, by tracing figures upon the ground, and by comparing the results with Arab- ic calendars. Their weeks begin, as usual with Moslems, on Friday (Ejiima for Juma), the Sa- turday being Juma Mosi, or one day after Friday, and so forth. Thursday, however, is Khamisi. This subdivision of time, though suggested by the quarters of the earth's satellite, is known only to societies which have advanced toward civilization. Thus in Dahome we find a week of four days ; and even China ignores the seven-day week. 'The universal festivals,' says the late Pro- fessor H. H. Wilson (Essays on the Eeligion of the Hindus, ii. 155), ' are manifestly astronom- ical, and are intended to commemorate the revo- lutions of the planets, the alternations of the seasons, and the recurrence of cyclical intervals of longer or shorter duration.' The Nau-roz (j^jy) or New Year's Day, here, as in Syria, locally pronounced Nay-roz, was established in ancient Ariana, according to Persian tradition, by Jamshid, King of Kings, in order to fix the vernal equinox.^ It is the Holi of the Hindus, ^ In 1870, for instance, it was kept in Syria on the 11th of * Adar ' (March), old style, and on Adar 23rd, new style. THE EMBOLISMAL DATS. 173 and after the East has kept this most venerable festival for 3000 years, we still unconsciously celebrate the death and resurrection of the eternal sun-god. The Beal-tinne is not yet for- gotten in Leinster, nor is the maypole wholly obsolete in England. As early as the days of the Kuraysh, there was an attempt to reconcile the lunar with the solar year, and the Nau-roz, though palpably of Pagan origin, has been adopted by all the maritime peoples professing El Islam. Even the heathen-hating Arab bor- rowed it for his convenience from the Dualists and Trinitarians of Ears and Hindustan. Hence the a3ras called Kadmi and JelaK. In this second solar sera the Nau-roz was transferred by the new calendar from the vernal equinox to Sept. 14, A.D. 1079, and was called Nau-roz i Mizan (^U>^j^jy)- Amongst the Wasawahili it is knoAvn as Siku Khu ya Mwaka, the Great Hay of the year. Eor the purpose of a stable date, necessary both to agriculture and to navigation, and also for the determination of the monsoons, the people who ignore the embolismal month, and who have no months for the solar year, add, I have said, 10 to 12 days to each lunar year, the true dilTercncc being 16 days 9 hrs. min. and 174 SUPERSTITIONS. 11-7 sees. Thus the contrivance is itself rude ; moreover the Wasawahili often miscalculate it. Between a.d. 1829 and a.d. 1879, it would fall on 28-29 August. In 1844 they made it com- mence at 6 p. m., August 28, immediately after full moon : in 1850-2 they began it on August 27, and in 1856 in August 26.^ Sundry quasi superstitious uses are made of the 10 embolismal days following the Nau-roz. Should rains — locally called Miongo — fall on the first day, showers are prognosticated for the tenth ; if on the second, the twentieth will he wet ; and so forth till the tenth, which if rainy suggests that the Kausi or S.W. monsoon will set in early. The seasons of navigation are thus reck- oned. The Vuli rains are supposed to begin 30 days, counting from the twentieth, after Nau- ' According to Captain Guillain, in 1S4G-7 it corre- sponded with August 29 (tlie New Tear's Day of Abyssinia and Egypt in 1844) ; in 1848 with August 28 ; and in 1850, 51, 52 with August 27. He was also informed tliat the Vuli began 20 days after the Xau-roz, and lasted 30 (Sept. 20 to Oct. 20), that the Msika (which he writes Mouaka) begins 90 days after the 110th (Dec. 20 to March 20), and that the Mcho'o commences 20 days after the 280 (June 10 to July I). That author, moreover, remarks that as the new Persian calen- dar adds to every century 22 days, instead of our 24 days, the Nau-roz thus falls behind ours 48 hours in each hundred years. Thus between 1829 and 1879, the New Year's Day should occur between the 28th and 29th August. PROVERBS. 175 roz. On the eightietli (some say the ninetieth) day are expected thunder, lightning, and heavy rains at the meeting of the monsoons (mid- November), and so forth. Possibly this may be a reflection of the Hindu idea which represents the Garbhas to be the fetuses of the clouds, and born 195 days after conception. With us the people mark the periods by saints' days. The Bernais say — Apres le jour de la Sainte Luce, Les jours s'allongent le saut d'une puce. The Escuara proverb declares — Sanct Seimon etu Juda, Negua eldu da. (' At St Simon and St Jude, water may be viewed.') The basis of the following calculation is thoroughly Kisawahili — S'el pleut le jour de Saint M^dard, (June 8) II plcut quarante jours plus tard. Nor is our popular doggrel less so — Saint Swithin's Day, if tliou dost rain, For forty days it will remain. Saint Swithin's Day, if thou be fair, For forty days 'twill rain nae mair. The Wasawahili also calculate their agricul- tural seasons from the stars called Kilimia, a name probably derived from Ku lima, to plough. 176 MORTALITY. I believe them to be Pleiades, but my sudden de- parture from the coast prevented my making especial inquiries. When this constellation is in the west at night the peasants say, ' Kilimia, if it sets during the rains, rises in fair weather,' and vice versa. Also Kilimia appearing in the east is a signal for the agriculturist to prepare his land. Section 3. Climate continued — IVotes on the IVosology of Zanzibar — Effects on Strangers. The climate of Zanzibar Island is better than that of the adjacent continent. Here many white residents have escaped severe fever ; but upon the coast the disastrous fate of Captain Owen's surveyors, the loss of life on board our cruisers, and the many deaths of the 'Mombas Mission,' even though, finding the sea-board dangerous, they built houses on the hills which lead to the mountain region of TJsumbara, prove that malaria is as active in eastern as in western Africa. Colonel Hamerton once visited the MORTALITY. 177 Pangani river during the month of August : of his 19 men, three died, and all but one suffered severely. Perhaps we should not find a similar mortality in the present day, when the lancet has been laid aside for the preventive treatment by quinine and tonics. It has, however, been as- serted that the prophylactic use of the alkaloid, Avhich was such a success in western Africa, did not prove equally valuable on the eastern coast. Yet Zanzibar, with its double seasons and its uniformly heated and humid atmosphere, accords ill, even where healthiest, with the irritable tem- perament of northern races. Here, contrary to the rule of Madagascar, the lowlands over which the fresh sea-breeze plays are the only parts where the white stranger can land and live ; the interior is non habitabilis a^stu. Lieut. -Colonel Ilamerton, called upon in March, 1844, by Sir George Arthur, governor of Boml^ay, to report upon the island, wrote in September of the same year, * The climate of the [insular] coast is not unhealthy for Europeans, but it is impossible for white men to live in the interior of the island, the vegetation being rank and appearing always to be going on ; and generally fever contracted in the interior is fatal to Europeans.' Colonel Sykcs (loco cit.) questions tliis assertion as being VOL. 1. 12 178 HEALTH AT ZANZIBAR. ' contrary to all other testimony.' Every tra- veller, hoAvever, knows it to be correct. As in tlie lovely climates of the Congo River and the South Sea Islands, corporal lassitude leads to in- dolence, languor, and decline of mental energy, which can he recovered only by the bracing influence of the northern winter. Many new arrivals complain of depressing insomnia, with alternations of lethargic sleep : I never enjoyed at Zanzibar the light refreshing rest of the de- sert. Yet the island is a favourable place for the young African traveller to undergo the in- evitable ' seasoning fever, which upon the coast or in the interior might prove fatal. The high- lands, or the borders of the great central basin, are toleralily healthy, but an invalid would find no comforts there — hardly a waterproof roof. He should not, however, risk after recovery a second attack, but at once push on to his goal ; otherwise he will expend in preparation the strength and bottom required to carry out his explorations. With a fresh, sound constitution, he may work hard for three years, and even if driven home by ill health he may return in comparative safety within a reasonable time. No European, unless thoroughly free from organic disease, should venture to remain longer HEALTH AT ZANZIBAR. 179 than three or four years at Zanzibar : the same has been observed of Baghdad, and of the Eu- phrates valley generally. Lurking maladies will be brought to a crisis, and severe functional de- rangements are liable to return. The stranger is compelled to take troublesome precautions. He may bathe in cold water, sweet or salt, but he must eschew the refreshment of the morninsr walk : during the rains, when noxious mists overhang the land, the unpleasant afternoon is the only safe time for exercise. Flannel must always be worn despite the irritability of the ever-perspiring skin : even in the hottest weather the white cotton jackets and overalls of British India are discarded for tweeds, and for an American stuff of mixed cotton and wool. Extra warm clothing is considered necessary as long as the ' muggincss ' of ' msika- weather ' lasts. Sudden exposure to the sun is considered dangerous, and the carotid, jugular, and tem- poral arteries must be carefully protected from cold as well as from heat. Hard work, either of mind or l)ody, is said to produce fever as surely as sitting in draughts or as wearing insufficient clothing. The cliarming half-hour following sunset is held dangerous, especially in hot Aveather; yet most tantalizing is the cool deli- 180 DIET. cious interval between the burning day and the breathless night. Natives of the country rarely venture out after dark : a man found in the streets may safely be determined to be either a slave or a thief — probably both. Directions for diet are minute and vexatious. The stranger is popularly condemned to 'lodg- ing-house hours ' — breakfast at 9 a.m., dinner at 3 P.M., tea at 8 p.m., bed at 10 p.m. He is told also to live temperately but not abstemiously, and never to leave the stomach too long empty. I should prescribe for him, contrary to the usual plan, an abnormal amount of stimulants, port and porter, not claret nor Rhine-wine. It is evident that where appetite is wanting, and where nourishing food is not to be obtained, the ' patient ' must imbibe as much nutriment as he safely can. In these lands a drunkard outlives a water-drinker, despite Theodoret, 'vinumbibere non est malum, sed intemperanter bibere perni- ciosum est ' ; and here Bacchus, even ' Bacchus uncivil,' is still 'Bacchus the healer.' As usual old stagers will advise a stranger recovering from fever to strengthen himself with sundry bottles of port, and yet they do not adopt it as a preventive — ' exparto crede Bicardo.' The said port may be Lisbon wine fortified with cheap BACCHUS THE HEALER. 181 spirits, liquorice, and logwood — in fact, what is regimentally called ' strong military ditto ; ' yet I have seen wonders worked by the much-de- based mixture. Again, Europeans are told to use purgatives, especially after sudden and strong exercise, Avhen the ' bile is stirred up.' As an amateur chronothermalist — thanks to my kind old master, the late Dr Dickson — I should sug- gest tonics and bitters, which often bring relief when the nauseous salts and senna aggravate the evil. Also, in all debilitating countries, when the blood is ' thin,' laxatives must be mild, otherwise they cause instead of curing fever; in fact, double tonics and half purgatives should be the rule. Above all things convalescents should be aided by change of air, if only from the house of sickness to that of a neighbour, or to a ship in port. The most long-lived of white races are the citizens of the United States: they are superior to others in mental (or cerebral) energy ; they arc men of spare, compact fibre, and of regular habits ; they also rarely reside more than two or three years at a time on the island. On the other hand, the small French colony has lost in 15 years 26 men : they lived imprudently, they drank sour Bordeaux, and when attacked with fever they killed themselves by the abuse of 182 AGUE AND FEVER. quinine. Swallowing large doses upon an empty stomach, they irritated the digestive organs, and they brought on cerebral congestion by ' heroic practice ' when constipated. Accordincf to the Arabs and Hindus of Zan- zibar, ague and fever are to be avoided only by perspiring during sleep under a blanket in a closed room — a purgatory for a healthy hot- blooded man in this damp tepid region. I found the cure-almost-as-bad-as-the-disease precaution adoj)ted by the Spanish colonists at my salu- brious residence — Pernando Po, West Africa. Only two officers escaped ' chills,' and they both courageously carried out the preventive system : on the other hand, it was remarked that they looked more aged, and they appeared to have suffered more from the climate, than those who shook once a month with 'rigors.' There is certainly no better prescription for catching ague than a coolth of skin during sleep : having purchased experience at a heavy price, it is my invariable practice when awaking with a chilly epiderm to drink a glass of water ' cold with- out,' and to bury myself for an hour under a pile of blankets. Every slave-hut has a cartel or cot, and the savages of the coast, like those of the Upper Nile, carry about wooden stools for EUROPEAN WOMEN. 183 fear of dysentery. I have mentioned how our sailors dig their graves. So much for the male sex. European women here, as in the Gulf of Guinea, rarely resist the melancholy isolation, the want of society, and the Nostalgia — Heimweh or Home- sickness — so common, yet so little regarded in tropical countries. Under normal circumstances Equatorial Africa is certain death to the Eng- landerin. I am surprised at the combined folly and brutality of civilized husbands who, anxious to be widowers, poison, cut the throats, or smash the skulls of their better-halves. The thing can be as neatly and quietly, safely and respectably, effected by a few months of Afri- can air at Zanzibar or Fernando Po, as by the climate of the Maremma to which the enlight- ened Italian noble condemned his spouse. The nosology of Zanzibar is remarkable for the prevalence of urinary and genital diseases ; these have been roughly estimated at 75 per cent. Syphilis spreads wide, and where pro- niiscubus intercourse is permitted to the slaves it presents formidable symptoms. The ' black lion,' as it is popularly called — in Arabic El Tayr or El Earaiij ; in Kisawahili, Bubcli, Kiswendi, or T'hego — will destroy the part affected in three 184 DISEASES. weeks : secondaries are to be feared ; noses dis- appear, the hair falls off, and rheumatism and spreading ulcers result. Gonorrhoea is so com- mon that it is hardly considered a disease. Pew strangers live long here without suffering from irritation of the bladder, the result, it is said, of hard lime-water : and the common effect of a cold or of stricture is severe vesical catarrh. Sarcocele and hydrocele, especially of the left testis, according to the Arabs, attack all classes, and are attributed to the relaxing climate, to unrestrained sexual indulgence, and sometimes to external injury. These diseases do not always induce impotence or impede procreation. The tunica vaginalis is believed to fill three times : as in elephantiasis the member is but a mass of flesh, a small meatus only remaining. The deposition of serum is enormous ; I have heard of six quarts being drawn off. The natives punctuate with a heated copper needle, and sometimes thus induce tetanus : Europeans add injections of red wine and iodine. The latter is also applied with benefit in the early stage to sarcocele ; and both complaints have yielded, it is said, to the galvanic current. Strangers are advised at all times to wear suspensory band- ELEPHANTIASIS. 185 Elephantiasis of the legs and arms, and especially of the scrotum, afflicts, it is calcu- lated, 20 per cent, of the inhabitants : Arabs and Hindus, Indian Moslems and Africans, how- ever dissimilar in their habits and diet, all suffer alike. It is remarked that the malady has never attacked a pure white, European or American : perhaps the short residence of the small number accounts for the apparent immunity. Similarly, in the Brazil I have never seen a European stranger subject to the leprosy, or to the goitre, so prevalent in the great provinces of Sao Paulo and ]Minas Geraes. The Banyans declare that a journey home removes the incipient disease, or at least retards its progress : it recurs, however, on return to Zanzibar. The scrotum will often reach the knees ; I heard of one case measur- ing in circumference 41 inches, more than the patient's body, whilst its length (33 inches) touched the ground. There is no cure, and the cause is unknown. The people attribute it to the water, and possibly it may spring from the same source which produces goitre and bron- chocele. Syphilitic and scorbutic taints appear in ulcers and abscesses. The helcoma resembles that of Aden : it generally attacks the legs and 186 ULCERS. feet, the parts most distant from the centre of circulation ; the toes fall of, and the limb be- comes distorted. Phagsedenic sores are most common amongst the poor and the slaves, who live on manioc, fruit, and salt shark often putrid. Large andpainfulphlegemonous abscesses, attack- ing the muscular tissue, occasion great consti- tutional disturbance : they heal, however, readily after suppuration. Scabies, yaws (Frambsesia), psoriasis, and ' craw-craw,' inveterate as that of Malabar or the Congo River, commonly result from personal uncleanliness, unwholesome food, and insufficient shelter and clothing. That frightful malady Lupus presents pitiable ob- jects. The indigenous diseases which require men- tion are fevers, bowel-complaints, and pulmon- ary affections. Pevers at Zanzibar have been compared with Aaron's rod ; at times they seem to swallow up every other disease, and generally they cause the greatest amount of mortality. As at Muham- reh, and on the swampy margins of the Shat el Arab (Persian Gulf), the constitution worn out, and the equilibrium of the functions deranged by moist heat and sleeplessness, especially during and after the heavy rains of the S. West mon- FEVER. 187 soon, thus relieve themselves. Persians and northern Asiatics are even more liable to attacks than Europeans ; and, as in Egypt, rude health is rare. Some Indian Moslems have fled the country, believing themselves bewitched. Arabs born on the island, and the Banyans, who seldom suffer much from the fever, greatly dread its secondary symptoms. The ' hummeh,' or inter- mittent type, is remarkable for the virulence and persistency of the sequelae, which the Arabs call ' Xazlali ' (metastasis), or defluxion of humours — ■' dropping into the hoofs ' as the grooms say. Cerebral and visceral complications, with de- rangements of the liver and spleen, produce obstinate diarrhoeas, dysenteries, and a long dire cohort of diseases. Men of strong nervous diathesis escape with slight consequences in the shape of white hair, boils, bad toothaches, neuralgias, and sore tongues. The weak lose memory, or virility, or the use of a limb, the finger-joints especially being liable to stiffen; many become deaf or dim-sighted, not a few are sul)ject to paralysis in its various forms, whilst others, tormented by hepatitis, constipation, and disorders of the bowels and of the digestive organs, never completely recover health. In this country all attribute to the moon at the 188 FEVER. * springs ' what we explain by coincidence and by the periodicity of disease. For months, and possibly for years, the symptoms recur so regu- larly that even Europeans will use evacuants and quinine two or three days before the new and full moons. In such cases, I repeat, change of climate is the best aid to natura curatrix. The malignant typhus is rare at Zanzibar : it raged, however, amongst the crew of a Erench ship wrecked on the northern end of the island, when the men were long exposed to priva- tions and over-fatigue. Intermittents (ague and fever) are common as colds in England. They are mild and easily treated ; ^ but they leave be- hind during convalescence a dejection and a debility wholly incommensurate with the appar- ent insignificance of the attack, and often a ^ In some cases an emetic will cut short the enemy. The allopathic remedies are evacuants, cooling lotions applied to the head, and sulphate of quinine (4 to 12 grains three or four times per diem), with appropriate treatment for complications. Calomel and tartar emetic must be avoided on account of their depressing effects. Liquor arsenicalis and the Tinctura Warburgii (AVarburg's Drops), which is said to have failed in yellow fever, have cured malignant, inveterate, and chronic cases. The Persians at one time in Zanzibar besieged Colonel Hamerton's door for this ' Ab-i-hayyat ' — water of life. The invaluable wet sheet and the Turkish bath were unknown at Zanzibar in 1857. FEVER. 189 periodical neuralgia, which must be treated with tonics, quinine, and chiretta. The bilious remittent is, par excellence, the fever of the country, and every stranger must expect a ' seasoning ' attack. It was inordin- ately fatal in the days when, the lancet being used to combat inflammation, the action of the heart was never restored. Our grandfathers, however, bled every one for everything, and for nothing : there were old ladies who showed great skill in ' blooding ' cats. In 1857 men had escaped this scientific form of sudden death, but the preventive treatment so ably used on the West coast of Africa had not been tried. The cure at Zanzibar was an aperient of calomel and jalap. Castor oil was avoided as apt to cause nausea. Quinine Avas administered, but often in quantities not sufiicient to induce the necessary chinchonization, and the inexperienced awaited too long the period of remission, administering the drug only during the intervals. Diaphore- tics of nitrate of potash, camphor mixture, and the liquor acet. ammon. were used to reduce the temperature of the skin. The most distress- ing symptom, ejection of bile, was opposed by saline drinks, effervescing draughts, diluted prussic acid, a mustard plaister, or a blister. 190 FEVER. The liair was shaved or closely cut, and evapor- ating lotions were applied to the head. The extreme restlessness of the patient often called for a timid narcotic ; in these days, however, the invaluable hydrate of chloral, Sumbul and chlo- rodyne were unknown, and soporifics were used, as it were under protest, being believed to cause constipation. Extreme exhaustion was not vi- gorously attacked with medical and other stimu- lants ; and thus many sank under the want of ammonia and wine. I have since remarked the same errors of treatment in the West African coast ; the patient was often restricted to the acidity-breeding rice water, arrowroot, and simi- lar ' slops.' When he pined for brandy and beef-tea, the safe plan of consulting his in- stincts was carefully ignored. In strong constitutions the initiatory attack of remittents is followed after a time by the normal intermittent, and the traveller may then consider himself tolerably safe. In some Indian cases ague and fever have recurred regularly for a whole year after the bilious remittent. The bilious remittent of Zanzibar is preceded by general languor and listlessness, with lassi- tude of limbs and heaviness of head, with chills and dull pains in the body and extremities, and FEVER. 191 witli a frigid sensation creeping up the spine. Then comes a mild cold fit, succeeded by flushed face, full veins, an extensive thirst, dry, burning heat of skin, a splitting headache, and nausea, and by unusual restlessness, or by remarkable torpor and drowsiness. The patient is unable to stand ; the pulse is generally full and frequent, sometimes thready, small, and quick ; the bowels are constipated, and the tongue is furred and dis- coloured ; appetite is wholly wanting. During my first attack, I ate nothing for seven days ; and despite the perpetual craving thirst, no liquid will remain upon the stomach. Through- out the day extreme weakness causes anxiety and depression ; the nights are vrorse, for restlessness is aggraA'ated by want of sleep. Delirium is common in the nervous-bilious temperament. These symptoms are sometimes present several days before the attack, which is in fact their exacerbation. A slight but distinctly marked remission often occurs after the 4th or 5th hour — in my own case they recurred regularly be- tween 2 and 3 a.m. and p.m. — followed by a cor- responding reaction. "When an unfavourable phase sets in, all the evils are aggravated ; great anxiety, restlessness, and delirium wear out the patient ; the mind wanders, the body loses all 192 FEVER. power, the ejecta become offensive ; the pulse is almost imperceptible ; the skin changes its dry heat for a clammy cold ; the respiration grows loaded, the evacuations pass involuntarily ; and after perhaps a short apparent improvement, stupor, insensibility, and sinking usher in death. On the other hand, if the fever intends yielding to treatment, it presents after the 7th day marked signs of abatement ; the tongue is clearer, pain leaves the head and eyes, the face is no longer flushed; nausea ceases after profuse emesis of bile, and a faint appetite returns. After the mildest attacks of the Zanzibar re- mittent, the liver acts with excessive energy : sudden exercise causes a gush or overflow of bile, which is sufficient to bring on a second attack. The debility, which is inordinate, may last for months. It is often increased by boils, which follow one another in rapid succession, and which sometimes may be counted by scores. Besides the wet cloth, the usual remedy to cause granul- ation, and to prevent the sore leaving a head, is to stuff it with camphor and Peruvian bark. When boils appear behind the head, the brain is sometimes affected by them, and patients have even sunk under their sufferings. The recovery, indeed, as in the case of the intermittent type, FEVER. 193 is always slow and dubious, relapses are feared, and for six weeks there is little change for the better ; the stomach is liable to severe indiges- tion ; the body is emaciated, and the appetite is excessive, or sickly and uncertain. The patient suffers from toothaches and swelled face, catarrh, hepatitis, emesis, and vertigo, with alternations of costiveness and the reverse. As I have already said, chan2:e of air and scene is at this sta2:e more beneficial than all the tonics and prevent- ives in the pharmacopoeia. Often a patient lying apparently on his death-bed recovers on hearing that a ship has arrived, and after a few days on board he feels well. Diarrhoea and dysentery are mostly sporadic ; the former, however, has at times attacked simultaneously almost every European on the Island. It is generally the result of drinking bad water or sour wine, of eating acescent or unripe fruit, and of imprudent exposure. Dy- sentery is especially fatal during the damp and rainy weather. It was often imprudently treated with mere astringents, and without dae regard to the periods of remission, and to the low form which inevitably accompanies it. As in remit- tents, the patient was weakened, and his stomach was deranged, with ' slops,' when essence of VOL. I. 13 194 BOWEL COMPLAINTS. meat was required. The anti-diarrlioea or anti- cholera pill of opium, chalk, and catechu has been fatal wherever English medicine has ex- tended; witness the Crimean campaign, where the bolus killed many more than did the bullet. A complication, rarely sufficiently considered, is the hepatic derangement, from which almost all strangers must suffer after a long residence in the Tropics. At Zanzibar some Europeans were compelled to give up breakfasting, to the mani- fest loss of bulk, stamina, and muscular strength — vomiting after the early meal, especially when eaten with a good appetite, was the cause. Yet it was a mere momentary nausea, and when the mouth had been washed no inconvenience was felt. Catarrh and bronchitis are common in Eeb- ruary and in the colder months of July and August. Of endemic pulmonary diseases, pneu- monia, asthma, and consumption — the latter aggravated by the humid atmosphere — are fre- quent amongst the higher classes, especially the Arab women debilitated by over-seclusion. The incidental maladies are tropical rheumatisms, colics, haemorrhoids, and rare attacks of ophthal- mia, simple, acute, and purulent. Haemorrhoids are very common both on the Island and the SMALL-POX. 195 coast; the people suJ9Per as much as the Turks in Egypt without wearing the enormous bag- trowsers which have been so severely blamed. Of the epidemics, the small-pox, a gift of Inner Africa to the world, is fatal as at Goa or Madagascar. Apparently propagated without contact or fomites, it disfigures half the popula- tion, and it is especially dangerous to full-blooded Africans. About three years ago (1857) a Mas- kat vessel imported a more virulent type. Shortly before my arrival, numbers had died of the con- fluent and common forms, and isolated cases were reported till we left the Island. All classes were equally prejudiced against vaccination. The lymph sent from Aden and the Mauritius was so deteriorated by the journey that it pro- bably never produced a single vesicle (1857). Until 1859 cholera was unknown even by name. Col. Hamerton, however, declared that in 1835 hundreds were swept off by an epidemic, whose principal symptoms were giddiness, vomit- ing and purging, the peculiar anxious look, collapse, and death. It did not re-appear for some years ; but in a future chapter I shall no- tice the frightful ravages which it made on the East African coast at the time of my return from the interior. 196 CHOLERA. Hard water charged with lime and various salts, combined with want of vegetables, renders constipation a common ailment at Zanzibar. Amongst the rich it mostly arises from indolence, and from the fact that all are greatly addicted to aphrodisiacs. The favourite is a pill com- posed of 3 grains of ambergris, and 1 grain of opium, the latter ingredient in the case of an 'Afimi' (opium-eater) must be proportioned to his wants. ' Doctors ' in my day were unknown at Zan- zibar. Eormerly, two Indians practised ; since their departure the people killed and cured themselves. Amongst Arabs, and indeed Mos- lems generally, every educated man has a smat- tering of the healing art. H. H. the late Sayyid was a ' hakim ' of great celebrity. A physician is valuable on the Island ; throughout the African interior he is valueless in a pecuniary sense, as every patient expects to be kept and fed. The midwives are usually from Cutch; Arabs, how- ever, rarely consent to professional assistance. The Prince kept in his establishment two sages femmes from Maskat. FAUNA OF ZANZIBAR. 197 Section 4. Notes on the Fauna of Zanzibar. The list of Zanzibarian Pauna and Flora is not extensive. In the plantations the Komba or Galago abounds, and tliere is a small and pretty long-tailed monkey (cercopithecus griseo-viridis) with black face, green back, and grey belly: it is playful and easily tamed. This, as well as a large species of bat, is pronounced delicious by curious gourmands. The French ' tigre ' and the English 'panther' (Felis Serval) is a leopard about 18 inches high, and of disproportionate length, with a strong large arm ; the upper part of the skull vanishes as in the cheeta, and the throat is so thick that no collar will keep its place. This felis is destructive in the interior of the Island ; and in parts of the Continent the people fear it more than they do the lion : it is trapped in the normal cage, and is speared with- out mercy. Two kinds of civets (Viverra ci- vetta, and V. genetta) . one small, the. other bigger 198 FAUNA. than a Persian (Angora) cat, are kept confined, and are scraped once a week for their produce. As in all Arab towns, the common cat abounds ; it has a long tail and ears, a wild look, and a savage temper. This Asiatic importation is never thoroughly domesticated in Africa, and seems always aspiring to become a ' cat o' moun- tain ' : on the West coast it is difficult to keep cats in the house after kittening. The feline preserves its fur in Zanzibar Island : at Mom- basah there is or was a breed more grotesque than the Manx, and completely bald like the Chinese dog. The so-called ' Indian badger ' ( Arctonyx collaris, Cuv.) digs into the graves and devours the dead. The rodents are grey squir- rels, small rabbits (?), large rats, some of peculiar but not of unknown species, and mice, probably imported by the shipping. The 'wild boars' are pigs left by the Portuguese : strangers mistak- insT the tusks often describe them as * horned ' (choeropotamus) . The Saltiana antelope is com- mon : it smells strongly of musk, and its flesh resembles the rat's. A fine large fish-hawk, with gold-fringed eye and yellow legs, bluish-black plume, and grey neck-feathers, haunts the Island and the coast : the other raptores are the brown kites (E. FAUNA. 199 chilla), the scavengers of Asia and Africa. As at Aden, so here, there are no common crows or sparrows ; the place of the former is taken by the African species (corvus scapulatns), with white waistcoat, popularly called the 'parson crow,' and the latter appears in the shape of the Java variety, which, introduced about thirty years ago (1857) by Captain Ward, a Salem ship-captain, has multiplied prodigiously. Green birds, like Amedavats, muscicapoe of sorts, especially the 'king-crow' of India, here called ' Drongo,' abound ; and visitors, like the Erench savant on the Dead Sea, speak of a humming-bird, a purely New World genus, probably mistaking for it a large hawk-moth. The parroquet resembles the small green species of India: it is tamed and tau'T'ht to talk. Zanzibar cannot boast of the Madagascar parrot, a plain, brown, thick-bodied bird, celebrated for distinct articulation.^ Mar- tens do not build at Zanzibar (?) : they halt at the Iskmd in their migrations ; and one kind, it has been remarked, never remains longer than four to five days. After the rains the lagoons are covered with wild-duck, mallard, and wid- geon. The snipe (jack, common, and solitary), ' Mr Lyons M'Leod says (vol. ii. 8i7) that a 'very liand- Bome jet-black parrot ' is to be procured there. 200 FA UNA. a bird which everywhere preserves its fine game flavour, is found on the Island and in the central Continent. Sandpipers (charadrius hiaticula) run on the beach, and the waters support various kinds of cranes, gulls, and terns. When fewer ships visited the port, the sand- spit projecting from 'Erenchman's Island' was covered with bay-turtle^ (chelone esculenta or Midas), which the negroes were too indolent or ignorant to catch. The iguanas or harmless crocodiles {ouoiva, Ss avQpcoTroJv aoixoua-iv) of the Periplus, have not yet been killed out of Zan- zibar — and there are several species.^ Until lately the true crocodile was found in a small sweet stream about eight miles south of the town, and the monsters swarm in every river of the mainland. Snakes are neither numerous nor deadly : possibly the climate, as in Ireland and Ber- muda, is too damp for them. I heard of a python" resembling that of Madagascar and ^ The x^^^^V optLV}), or mountain-tortoise of the Periplus (chap. i. 15), may have been a turtle or terrapin. A small quantity of tortoise-shell is sold on the island by Malagashes (Madagascarians) and Comoro men. - The iguana abounds on the West Coast of Africa, and in the Bonny Eiver, where the huge hideous lizard is Ju-Ju — ob- noxious to the honours of divinity. 3 So Dr Eoschenberger mentions at Zanzibar a coluber culled boa-constrictor, and peculiar to America. FA UNA. 201 India ; it is 13 feet long, and thick as a man's thigh. Its favourite habitat is in sugar-cane patches near water, and it is occasionally fatal to a dog. There are water-snakes in the harbour, like those once supposed to be peculiar to West- ern India. The people speak of a green ' whip- snake'— vaguest of terms — whose vertebrae ap- pear through the skin, and there are the usual legends of a venomous tree-serpent which can shoot itself like an arrow. The pagan Mganga or Medicine-man ties above the snake-wound a circle of wire with two small bits of wood strung upon it. This, he says, prevents the venom ascending ; and doubtless the ligature is for half an hour or so effective. The people have ' Eiss ' or serpent-stones, which suggest the Irish murrain-stones. Englishmen of undoubted character have recounted cures effected by this remedy, which was so mysterious before capillary attraction robbed it of its marvel. There is a variety of small tiliqua3, and of large black earth-lizards. One species, with melancholy chirrup and unpleasant aspect, sup- plies the people with Ilerodotean tales. It is, they say, a hermaphrodite, and its flanks are torn by its young during parturition. The chameleon also suffers from the popular belief 202 FAUNA. that it kills men with its breath. Scorpions are small, and not so common as in the interior : the animal is mashed and applied as a poultice to its own wound, which may derive some benefit from the moisture. Centipedes haunt houses that are not cleaned and whitewashed, and milli- pedes abound in every plantation. The fish supply is variable^ as the climate. Sometimes it is excellent; at other times none but the poorest will eat it, and there are many species considered always poisonous.^ It is most abundant in the S. West monsoon, when small fry may be caught in the still waters of the har- bour. Sharks are large and numerous, especially near Chumbi (La Passe) Island, where all the best fish is netted ; but these tigers of the sea do not injure the bathers on the beach. Though the shark is easily hooked in the very harbour, many cargoes of its salted meat are annually imported from Oman. The liver-oil is used to anoint the body : and when Europe requires a ^ I have not seen the 'Fishes of Zanzibar,' published in 1867 by Lieut.-Col. Playfair, H.M.'s Consul, and Dr Giinther (Van Yoorst, 1, Paternoster Eow). ^ The eel-shaped fishes with green bones have the reputa- tion of causing stomach-pains and vomiting. I may observe that the Oriental mind readily connects venom and verdant colours. WHALING. 203 succadeneum for huile de morue, I shall recom- mend to her this shark-oil as an article of supe- rior nauseousness. The whale fishery reminds us of what it was on the Brazilian coast a century ago. The mam- mals are sometimes found in soundings, and a wounded sperm-whale lately entered Zanzibar harbour. In May, June, and July, ships of 200 to 600 tons visit the waters south of Mafiyah Island ; if the capricious leviathan be not found there and then, it is waste time to cruise about. In July, and at the beginning of the N. East monsoon, schools migrate up the coast in search of food as far as the Ked Sea. Erom 30 to CO lbs. of ambergris have been brought in one year to the island, and a little of it is exported to Europe. This high-priced article (1 lb. = £1^) is taken from the rectum of the spermaceti whale : it seems to have caused constipation and disease, and the oil drawn from these fish is yellow and bad. The Arabs burn it in pastiles, and use it not only internally but externally like musk. Old travellers report that the Somal taui?lit camels to hunt for it bv the scent, in the same way as pigs learn to find truflles ; and the tale has been told to modern travellers. The main virtue of ambergris is probably its heavy price. 204 FISH. The celebrated ' Sir ' (Seer) fish, a corruption from Shir Mahi (^U jt-^), or ' tiger fish,' so called on account of its armature, known to the Arabs as Kunad (jl^) and in parts of India termed ' Surma,' appears, for about a fortnight, at Zanzibar during its period of migration north- wards in May and June. There are also ' pom- frets,' scates, soles wliicli are small and not prized, and red and grey mullet, excellent in July, August, and September. The remora and the flying-fish enter the harbour ; the hippo- campus is known ; there are mangrove-oysters, ' oysters growing on trees ' — a favourite subject with all old and with many new African travel- lers — and a small well-flavoured, rock oyster, a favourite relish with Europeans, caught about Chumbi Island. I saw no lobsters, so common in the Camaroons river of Western Africa. The sands abound in Medusae, or jelly-fish, and in a large cray-fish, which the Arabs consider whole- some for invalids : it makes a rather insipid salad, but it is excellent when dressed after the fashion of the Slave Coast. The receipt is worth giving, and may be found useful in England. The meat, taken out after boil- ing, is pounded and mixed with peppers and seasoning. It is then restored to the shell, the ICHTHYOLOGICAL MARVELS. 205 whole is baked in the oven, and, served up piping hot, it forms an admirable 'whet.' An- other kind of shell-fish is indeed a ' soft oral) ; ' when cooked it seems to melt away, no meat remaining within : a third, also soft, is red even before being boiled. On every unfrequented strip of sand or weed small crabs gather in thou- sands ; most of them have only one large claw, and their colours are a brilliant pink, pearly white, violet, and tender red. The seas are little explored (1857), and there arc leq-ends of ichthvolo2:ical marvels which re- mind us of European romantic zoology. I was told by Lieut. -Colonel Hamerton of a fish, pos- sibly one of the Muraenidse, measuring nine feet long by three in diameter : the shape was some- wliat like a leech, both extremities being similar ; the ribs resembled, but were rather flatter than, those of a bullock, and the flesh had the appear- ance of beef. A specimen, he said, had lately been brought from Kiporabui, a small harbour opposite Zanzibar ; the prey, however, is always cut up as soon as caught. This reminds us of tlie ' fuU-sized devil-fish ' of the West Indian seas. The Arabs describe a monstrous polypus, with huge eyes and arms 10 feet long : they de- clare that it has entangled bathers and pulled 20G ICHTHYOLOGICAL MARVELS. tliem down close to shore. It is, in fact, the 'piuvre,' so famed of late; and since I left Zanzi- bar a Prench illustrated newspaper showed one of these horrors grappling with a man of war's gig'. Thus Oppian described a fish that smothered mariners with its monstrous wings, and drew them under water wrapped in a lethal embrace. Nieuhoff (Brazil, 1640) mentions a ' lamprey ' at Pernambuco that ' snatched all that fell in this way (both men and dogs that swam sometimes after the boat) into the water.' Pinally, Carsten Xiebuhr (Arabia, chap. i. p. 140. 1762) declares that ' the cuttle-fish is dangerous to swimmers and divers, of whom it lays hold with its long claws ; these do not wound, but produce swelling, internal pains, and often an incipient paralysis.' Sponge is found in abundance, but when dry it decays. Pine conchological collections were chiefly made in former years. The merchants spoiled the market by supplying whole cargos for watch-dials and for polishing porcelain. Slaves still fasten their canoes to the several banks in the roadstead, and find in the transparent waters the murex and other prized specimens. The harp-shell and ' doable-harp ' are found upon the softer sands enveloped in the folds of their own- ers; thus parasites cannot ruin their beautiful and COWRIES. 20,7 brilliant hues. The ' Kheti,' or common cowrie, is picked up when the tide is out in vast quan- tities by the coast people, from Ra'as Hafun to Mozambique. Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton was fortunate enough in those early days to obtain two specimens of the Cyprsea Broderipii, or orange-cowrie, with a stripe down the dorsum. Exaggerated ideas of its value had been spread, and it was reported that £500 had been offered for a single shell. The cowrie trade of Zanzibar was begun by M. E. P. Herz, of Hamburg. He made a daring speculation, and supplanted in Western Africa the rare and expensive Hindo- stan shell by the coarse, cheap Cyprsea of this coast. During the last century the Portuguese used to export cowries for Angola from the Ptio das Caravelhas, in Brazilian Porto Seguro. The success of M. Herz's investment opened a mine of wealth. M. Oswald (senior), afterwards Prus- sian Consul-general at Hamburg, commenced as half-owner of a small vessel which shipped cowries at Zanzibar, and traded with them for palm-oil at Appi Vista, Whydah, Porto Novo, and lastly Lagos, on the Slave Coast. As the sack w^as bought for S0.50 to ^1.41, and sold for $8 to $9, the trip cleared $24,000 (£4800), paid half in coin, half in ' oil ; ' and the single vessel soon 208 COWRIES. increased to three. The owner was an excellent ship-master, who carefully supplied his employees with maps, charts, and sailing directions. He died in 1859, leaving a self -insuring fleet of 18 sail. In 1863 his sons had raised the number to 24, and they kept up large establishments at Lagos and Zanzibar. The retail cowrie trade was solely in the hands of Moslems ; the Banyans would not sanction the murder of their possible grandmothers. On the Continent, as on the Island, the shells are sunned till the fish dies and decays, spreading a noxious foetor through the villages. The collec- tion is then stored in holes till exported to Zan- zibar. There the European wholesale merchant garbles, washes, and stows away the shells in bags for shipment. They are sold by the ' Jizleh,' a weight varying according to the size of the shell : from 3 to 3.50 sacks would be the average. The price of the Jizleh presently rose to S7, to $8, and in 1859 it was about $9. Seven vessels were then annually engaged in carrying cargoes from Zanzibar to Lagos and its vicinity. This rude money finds its way to Tinbuktu (Timbuctoo) and throughout Central Africa, extending from the East to places as yet unvisited by Europeans. Of late years, however, the increased metallic MULTITUDE OF PESTS. 209 currency has caused the cowrie trade to fall off, and the steady rate of decrease shoAvs that shell money is doomed. Here, as in "Western India, the rains bring- forth a multitude of pests. The rooms when lighted at night are visited by cockroaches and flying ants ; scarabsei and various mantidse ; moths and 'death's heads' of marvellous hideous- ness. Giant snails (achatinse), millepedes, and beetles crawl over the country, and the firefly glances through the shade. Mosquitos are said not to be troublesome, but in an inner room I found curtains necessary ; the house-fly is a tor- ment to irritable skins. Fleas, and the rest of the 'piquante population,' are most numerous during the north-east monsoon. The bug, which was held to be an importation, is now thoroughly naturalized upon the Island ; in the interior it is as common as in the cities of Egypt and of Syria, where a broken rafter will discharge a livinir shower. I could not, however, liear anything of the ' Pasi bug,' wdiicli, according to Dr Krapf, causes burnings, chills, and fever. lie made it to rival the celebrated Meeanee (Muganaj) bug, the Acarus Pcrsicus, whose exceedingly poisonous bite was supposed to be fatal. In the Lake Regions of Central Africa (1.371) I have con- VOL. I. 14 210 ANTS. jectured that the word is a corruption for Papazi, a carrapato, or tick. So Dr Krapf writes in the German way ' Sansibar ' for Zanzibar. The ants in Zanzibar, as in the Brazil, require especial study, and almost every kind of tree ap- pears to have its peculiar tenantry. Upon the clove there is a huge black pismire whose nip burns like fire ; as it has a peculiarly evil savour, tainting even the unaromatic 'bush,' it is mashed and stuffed up the nostrils as a cure for snake-bites. The Coj^al is colonized by a semi-transparent gin- ger-coloured formica, whose every bite draws blood, and the mango-leaf is doubled up by a smaller variety into the semblance of a bird's nest. The horrible odour in parts of the bush, which young African travellers attribute to malaria and which often leads them to suspect the presence of carrion, generally proceeds from ants : I remarked this especially when visiting Abeokuta and other places in "West Africa. Throughout the interior * drivers,' as they are sensibly termed on the Guinea Coast, visit the huts in armies, and soon clear them of all offal. A small black ant attacks meat„ and the best way to procure a clean skele- ton is to expose the body near its haunt ; beware, however, of cats and dogs. As in Africa gener- ally, the termite is a plague ; this small animal TSETSE. 211 greatly obstructs civilization by the ravages which it commits upon books and manuscripts. Few, if anv, domestic animals are aboris^ines of the Island, and of those imported none thrive save Bozal negroes and asses. Cattle brought to Zanzibar die after the first fortnight, unless pro- tected from sun, rain, and dew, and fed with dry fodder. The fatality resulting from the use of green meat leads here, as in the Concan and at Cape Coast Castle, to the impression that the grass is poisonous. At some places in the main- land, Pangani for instance, cattle will not live — this is certainly the effect of tsetse. At Cape Coast Castle horses always die ; at Accra they survive, if not taken away from the sea-board : in 1803, during a short march through the country, I found an abundance of the tsetse, or * spear-fly.' The specimens sent by me to Eng- land were lost with other collections in the ill- fated ' Cleopatra.' As has lately been shown, the tsaltsal of Bruce is mentioned in Deut. xxviii. 42, in Isa. xviii. 5, and in Job xli. 7. The word is translated fish-spear, harpoon, locust ; but it is not proved that tsaltsal and tsetse are the same fly, and the similarity of the two words may be the merest coincidence. The Banyans of Zanzi- bar, who, having no local deity like their more 212 SHEEP. favoured brethren of Aden and Maskat, keep cattle for religious purposes, never sell their beasts, and energetically oppose their being slaughtered. Bullocks cost from $8 to $16, and are generally to be bought. Sheep are principally the black-faced Somali, with short round knotted tails, which lose fat from rich grazing : in their own desert country they thrive upon an occasional blade of grass growing between the stones. The excessive purity of the air doubtless favours assimilation and digestion, and as the diet of the desert Arabs proves, life under such circumstances can be sup- ported by a minimum of food. I believe that in early times the Persians introduced this animal into Somali and Galla-land. The Wakwafi, who are rich in black cattle, contemptuously call their Galla neighbours ' Esikirieshi,' or ' short- tailed sheep,' from the article forming their only wealth. The Somali muttons are the cheapest, averaging from $1 to $3. There is also a ' Mrima ' race, with rufous ginger - coloured, hairy coats, and lank tails like dogs : others, again, have a long, massive caudal appendage like Syrian or Cape wethers. These cost |2 to $5, and are considered a superior article. The most expensive are from the Island of Angazijah, GOATS. 213 or Great Comoro, and they are often worth from $8 to $9. As a rule, Zanzibar mutton, like that of the Brazil, is much inferior to beef, and pre- sents a great contrast with the celebrated ' gram- feds ' of India. Caponized goats in these regions are larger, fatter, and cent, per cent, dearer than sheep : I have heard of $15 to SIG being paid for the Comoro animal. The meat is preferred to mutton: my objection to it is the want of dis- tinct flavour. Yet goats are always offered as presents in the interior. Some of the bucks brought from the Continent have a peculiarly ungoatly appearance, with black points and dark crosses upon their tan - coloured backs and shoulders, and with long flowing jetty manes like the breast hair of a Bukhti or Bactrian camel. They must be kept out of the sun, and fed on vetches as well as grass, otherwise they will die durini? the rains from an incurable nasal running. A stunted Pariah dog is found upon the Island and the Continent : here, as in AVestern Africa, it is held, when fattened, to be a dish fit for a (Negro) king. Some missionaries have tasted puppy stew — perhaps puppy pie — and have pronounced the flesh to be sweet, glutinous, 214 DOGS. and palatable. The horse is now a recognized article of consumption in Eurojoe; the cat has long served its turn, as civet de lapin, without the honours of publicity ; and the day may come when ' dog-meat ' will appear regularly in the market. I have often marvelled at the preju- dices and squeamishness of those races who will eat the uncleanest things, sach as pigs, ducks, and fowls, to which they are accustomed, and yet who feel disgust at the idea of touching the purest feeders, simply because the food is new. It is indeed time to enlarge the antiquated dietary attributed to the Hebrew lawgiver, and practically to recognize the fact that, in the temperates at least, almost all flesh is wholesome meat for man. European dogs at Zanzibar require as much attention as white babies, but these die whilst those live. They must be guarded from heat and cold, sun and rain, dew and wind. Their meals must be light and regular, soup taking the place of meat. They must be bathed in warm water, their coats should be carefully dried, they are sent to bed early, and their smallest ailments require the promptest treat- ment with sulphur, ' oil,' and other specifics, otherwise they will never live to enjoy the hon- DOGS. 215 ourable status of peres et meres de families. The great object is to breed from tbem as soon as possible, and the Creoles thrive far better than even the acclimatized strangers. Arabs (have been known to pay $50 for a good foreign watch-dog, hoping thus to escape the nightly depredations of the half-starved slaves. They are kind masters, great contrasts to the brutally cruel Xegro, whose approximation to the lower animals causes him to tyrannize over them. On the West Coast of Africa tlie black chiefs often offer considerable sums for English dogs ; but none save the lowest ' palm-oil rough ' would condemn the ' friend of man ' to this life of vile African slavery. It is really pathetic to meet one of these unfortunate exiles in the interior, where a white face is rarely seen : the frantic display of joy, and the evident horror at being left behind, have more than once made me a dog-stealer. At Zanzibar, as upon the Continent, fowls 1 1 may be bought in every village, the rate being ^^ / / G to 12 for the dollar, which a few years ago pro- ^ I vcured 3G. They are lean, for want of proper food ; ill flavoured, from pecking fish ; and miser- ably small, the result of breeding in — the eggs are like those of pigeons. Yet they might be 216 FOWLS. greatly improved ; the central regions of Africa show splendid hirds, with huge bodies and the shortest possible legs. This variety is found in the Brazil ; and at Zanzibar the mixture of blood has produced a kind of bantam with a large foot. The black-boned variety of poultry, and that with the upright feathers — the 'frizzly fowl ' of the United States — are also bred here. Capons are manufactured by the blacks of Ma- yotte and Nosi-b^h (Great Island). How is it that the modern English will eat hens, when their great grandfathers knew how to combine the flavour of the male with the tenderness of the female bird ? Peacocks are brought, as in the days of the Ophir trade, from Cutch. Madagascar sends hard, tasteless geese and common ducks, and Mozambique supplies turkeys which are here eaten by Arabs. A local superstition prevents pigeon-breeding in the house : the birds are found wild on the opposite coast, but Moslems will not use them as food. The Muscovy duck, an aborigine of the Platine Valley, has of late years been naturalized — it is a favourite with Africans, who delight in food which gives their teeth and masticatory apparatus the hardest and the lousiest labour. The onlv gallinaceous bird FOWLS. 217 which Africa has contributed to ciTilization, the Guinea-hen, here called the ' Abyssinian cock,' is trapped by slaves upon the mainland, and is brought to the Island for sale. As might be ex- pected so near their mother-country, there are seven or eight varieties of this valuable fowl, and until late years some of the rarest and the most curious have been unwittingly used for the table. In every part of the Arab world the Guinea-fowl has a different name : in Syria, for instance, it is called Dik el Eumi (not Dik el Habash) or Roman (Greek) cock, a term gener- ally given to the turkey. It is curious on a coast of estuaries and great river-mouths that the flamingo was not seen by us. 218 FLORA OF ZANZIBAR. Section 5. Notes on the Flora of Zanzibar. The prosperity of Zanzibar, the Island, has hitherto depended upon the cocoa and the clove- tree. The former grows in a broad band around the shore: on the Continent it follows the streams as far as 60 miles inland. In Zanzibar the Arab saying that * cocoa and date cannot co- exist,' is literally correct; near Mombasah town, however, there is a fruit-bearing phoenix, and on the promontory, fronting the fort, there is a plantation of small stunted trees. Every- where on the Pangani river we found the ' brab,' a wild phoenix, as the word derived from the Portuguese ' brabo,' corrupted from ' bravo,' or rather in the feminine (palma) * brava,' suggests ; and it would appear that the cultivated variety might be induced to thrive. The country was almost denuded of the cocoa to make room for cloves, when the late Sayyid threatened confiscation to those who did not THE COCOA. 219 plant in proportion of one to three. There are now (1857) extensive nurseries in the Mashanibd (plantations), and as this palm bears after six or seven years, it soon recovered its normal status. Many trees are prostrated by gusts and torna- dos : the Hindus replant them by digging a hole, and hauling up the bole with ropes made fast to the neighbouring stems — this simple contrivance is liere unknown. The Wasawahili have many different names for the nut, viz. Kidaka, too green when it falls to the ground for any use but fuel ; Dafii, or Kitcile, when the milk is drinkable, the husk is burned, and the shell is made into a ladle (maghraf) ; the Koroma, when the meat is fit to eat, and NtlziV the full-grown nut ready for oil-making. This most useful of plants supplies, besides meat, wine and spirits, syrup and vinegar, cords, mats, strainers, tinder, fire- wood, houses and palings, boats and sails — briefly, all the wants of barbarous life. Every part of it may be pressed into man's service, from the sheath of the first or lowest leaf, used as a sieve, to the stalk of the young fruit, which, ' Nazi, in Kisawahili, is the fruit, Mnazi the tree : in tliis case the initial letter is evidently a contraction of ]\Iti, a tree. The name for the sun-dried meat, ' kobra,' is borrowed from the Hindustani * kbopra.' 220 THE COCOA. divested of the outer coat, is somewhat like our chestnut. During the hot N. East monsoon the refrigerating, diuretic milk is a favourite with strangers, and much feared by natives. A re- spectable man is derided if seen eating a bit of ripe cocoa-nut, a food for slaves and savages from the far west, but he greedily consumes the blanc- mange-like pulp of the Dafu, which is supposed, probably from its appearance, to secrete virility. E-asped, the ripe kernel enters into many dishes ; the cream squeezed from it is mixed with boiled rice, and the meat, kneaded with wheat-flour and clarified butter, is made, as at Goa, into scone- like cakes. No palm-wine is so delicious as that of the cocoa-tree, and the vinegar is propor- tionally good. The Zerambo, or distillation from 'toddy,' is adulterated with lime, sugar, and other ingredients, which render it unpalatable as it is pernicious. Eormerly there were many cocoa-nut oil-mills in the town ; now (1857) they are transferred to the plantations where Sesamum (Simsim) is also crushed. The ' Engenho ' is ruder than in the Brazil. A camel, blind-folded to prevent it eating the oil-cake or striking work, paces slowly round the 'horse-walk,' moving a heavy beam; this rolls a pestle of 6 inches in diameter in a conical THE COCOA. 221 wooden mortar, flat-rimmed above, and 4 feet deep, by 3 wide. Formerly as many as 70,000 lbs. were exported in a single vessel. Now the people save trouble by selling the dried nut, and when oil is wanted for home use they press and bruise it in water, which is then boiled; consequently, though the tree again be- gins to cover the Island Coast, the oil is three times dearer than at Bombay. It is calculated that 12,000,000 nuts were exported last year (1856) for the soap and candle trades, and a single French house has an establishment capable of curing 50,000 per diem. Demand has prodigi- ously raised the price of this article. In 1812 the thousand cost from $2 to $2.50 ; in 1857 it was $12.50. Though the coir of Zanzibar is remark- ably fine and was much admired at Calcutta, little use is made of it : some years ago certain Indian Moslems tried to obtain a contract from the local Government, and did not succeed, pre- payment being the first thing insisted upon.^ The constitutional indolence of the people, their dislike to settled and regular work, and their Semitic unwillingness to venture money, have, despite cheap labour and low ground-rents, prevented the Island from taking to its most ap- ' I shall speak of the clove in a subsequent chapter. 222 SUGAR. propriate industry — sugar-growing. Hefiners are agreed tliat the cane in Zanzibar and Pemba is equal to that in any part of Asia. About three years ago (1857) the late Sayyid established a factory at his estate of Mohayra under a Frenchman, M. Classun, an assistant, and 32 supervisors. Compelled to live in the interior, they sickened, and died off, and thus Mauritius lost another dangerous rival. A superior article was also made by the Persians, but they all caught fever, and either perished or disappeared. The sugar now grown is consumed on the Is- land, and there is only one steam-mill belonging to the Sayyid. Cotton is said to thrive upon the Island, but the irregular rains must often damage the crop. At present a small quantity for domestic use is brought from the coast, where there are plots of the shrub growing almost wild. In the drier parts of the Benadir, however, the material for hand-made cloth must be brought from India, mostly from Surat. The virgin soils of Zanzibar, in fact, labour under only one disadvantage, — the faineantise of the people, but that one is all in all, hence complaints concerning the expense. In the West India plantations 1 head was allowed per COFFEE. 223 acre of cane, per 2 acres of cotton, and per 3 acres of coffee. Here 4 head would hardly do the work ; slave labour is bad, and free labour is worse. Coffee was once tried in the Island, but the clove soon killed it ; now not a parcel is raised for sale. The berry, which was large and flavour- less, was not found to keep well. The over- rich soil produces an undue luxuriance of leaf- age, and the shrub lacks its necessary wintering. In the Brazil the richest lands are given to coffee, the next best to sugar, and the worst to cotton and cereals. The Zanzibar coast from Mombasah to Mozambique produces small quan- tities of coffee. Here great care is given to it ; the berry has a peculiarly dry and bitter fla- vour, pleasant when familiar, and producing when first taken wakefulness and nervous excitement. At present the Island imports her supplies from Malabar and Yemen. The consumption is not great ; the Arabs, who hold it a necessary of life at home, here find it bilious, and end by chang- ing it for betel-nut. The coast growth sells in small lots, at various prices, and may become an article of export. In the African interior the shrub is indigenous between Northern Unyam- wezi (S. Lat. P 0' ) and Southern Abyssinia (N. 224 COFFEE. Lat. 10") ; and, as it is found on the Western Coast growing wild about the Pvivers Nunez and Pongo (N. Lat. 10" 1'), it probably extends in a broken band across the Continent. There appear to be many varieties of the shrub. In Karagwah the wild bean is little bigger than a pin's head. Harar exports a peculiarly large species, which sells as Mocha, and the Mozambique coffee does not at all resemble in flavour that of West Africa. Dr Livingstone (Missionary Travels, chap. X.) tells us that coffee brought from South- ern Arabia to Angola by the Jesuits was spread probably by agency of birds to 300 leagues from the coast. It has long been ' monkeys' food,' but it is now worked by the ex-slavers. Indigo here, as well as in most parts of inter- tropical Africa, grows wild. The great expense of establishments, with the time and trouble, the skill and attention required for the manufacture, will leave it in the hands of Nature for many years to come. Tobacco might be raised : the plant extends thoughout Eastern and Central Africa, wherever the equinoctial rains fall. IJsumbara exports to Zanzibar stiff, thin, round cakes which have been pounded in wooden mortars, and neatly packed in plantain leaves. It is dark and well-flavoured : OILS. 225 sailors pronounce it to be very ' cliawable.' Here it sells at two pice/ or J^/., per cake ; at Usum- bara it commands about one-fifth of that price, paid in cloth and food. The oil palm (Elseis Guineensis), whose pro- duce has done so much for the Guinea Coast and the fatal Bight of Biafra, is found, I am told, on the Island of Pemba, and at other places near Zanzibar. About the Lake Tanganyika it grows in abundance; the fruit, however, is a raceme, like the date's, not a spike, as in the Bonny river. The ' Mchikichi ' is, therefore, a different and probably an unknown species. Like that of West Africa, it supplies wine as well as oil (The Lake E-egions of Central Africa, vol. ii. p. 59). The palm-oil might easily be introduced into Zanzi- bar, and would doubtless thrive ; but the people have enough to do without it. The Mbono or Palma Christi springs up spontaneously, as in most tropical regions, throughout Zanzibar Island and on the coast. The Hindus say of a man with more vanity than merit, 'The castor shrub grows where other plants can't.' The seed is toasted in iron pots, pounded, and boiled to float the oil. After ^ The Hindu anna, which contains four pice, is here reckoned at ciglit. VOL. I. 16 226 CAOUTCHOUC. aloes it is the popular cathartic, and it is rubbed upon the skin to soften the muscles, with an effect which I leave to the nasal imagination. Cinnamon and nutmeg trees were planted b^' the late Sayyid, and flourished well on soni' soils. The latter takes nine years, it is said, before bearing fruit, and gives trouble — two fatal objections in Arabs' eyes. The spice is now imported from India. When at Kazah of Unyamwezi I saw specimens brought, it is said, from the Highlands of Karagwah, but the plen- tiful supply from the farther East would pre- vent this trade being here developed. The cacao shrub (chocolate), which thrives so well at Prince's Island and Pernando Po in the Biafran Eight, has never, I believe, been tried in Zanzibar. The Mpira, or caoutchouc tree, flourishes in the Island, and on the adjacent Continent. The people of Eastern Madagascar tap it in the cold season, and have sent large cargoes to America. Mr Macmillan, U. S. Consul, Zanzibar, offered $1000 for good specimens, but the Wasawahih would not take the trouble to make a few incisions. I heard of two varieties, a ficus and a Uiana ; there are probably many more : about the Gaboon river the valuable gum is the produce of a vine or climber, Avith an edible fruit, and CAOUTCHOUC, ETC the people have learned to extract a coarse article, and to adulterate it till it is hardly tradeable. Here they use the thinner branches, well oiled for suppleness, as ' bakurs ' — the po- liceman's truncheon, the cat-o' -nine-tails, the ' Chob,' and the ' Palmatorio ' of E. Africa. I may here remark that our gourd-shaped articles resist the climate of Zanzibar, whilst the squares and the vulcanized preparations become sticky and useless. The London-made blankets of smooth and glazed caoutchouc are so valuable that no traveller should be without them : those that are not polished, however, cannot be called waterproof; becoming wet inside, they are un- pleasantly cold. Eor exposure to the sun white impermeables must be preferred to black, and a first-rate article is required; our cheap boots and cloaks soon opened, and when exposed to great heat they were converted into a viscid mass. The tamarind, as in India, is a splendid tree, but the fruit, though used for acidulated drinks, is not prepared for exportation. A smooth-rooted sarsaparilla, of lighter colour than the growtli of the Brazil and Jamaica, is found wild upon the Island and the coast. The orchilla, which gives its name to the Insula) Purpuraritc, has l)een 228 FRUITS. tried, and, resembling that of the Somali country, it gives good colour. This lichen chooses the forks of trees in every lagoon. In the Consular report by Lieutenant-Colonel Playfair on the trade of Zanzibar for the year 1863, I find — * Orchilla is obtained from the more arid parts of the coast to the north : none grows on the Island.' The people of Zanzibar are fond of fruits, especially the mango, the orange, the banana, and the pine-apple. All of these, however, ex- cept the plantain — the bread-fruit of Africa — are seedlings, and engrafting is not practised. Wall-fruit is of course unknown. The mango, originally imported from India, and as yet unplanted in the central regions, is of many varieties, which lack, however, distinguish- ing names. Two kinds are common — a large green fruit like the Alphonse (Affonso) of West- ern India, and a longer pome, with bright red- yellow skin, resembling the Goanese ' Kola.' These, with care, might rival the famous produce of Bombay: even in their half- wild state the flavour of turpentine is hardly perceptible. The fruit is said to be heating, and to cause boils. The Arabs spoil its taste by using steel knives : with the unripe fruit they make, how- ORANGES. 229 ever, excellent jams, and pickles^ eaten in broths of fowl or meat. The pounded kernels are admin- istered in dysenteries, but the relish or sauce of which the Gaboon people are so fond is unknown here and even in India. The fruit is most plen- tiful during the N. East monsoon. There are many varieties of the orange, all, however, inferior to the produce of the Azores and the Brazil, of Malta and the Mozambique. The * native ' fruit, sujiposed to be indigenous, is green, not so sweet as the kinds grown by the Portuguese, and the coat must be loosened by two days' exposure to the sun or it can hardly be removed. It seldom ripens before the begin- ning of July, and it is best in August. The Persian variety, from about Bandar Abbas, comes to market in early May ; it has grown common since 181-2, and it has excelled its original stock. The peel is loose and green, and the meat, when cleared of pips, tastes somewhat like currants. The small brick-red Mandarin is good, and resembles the African and Brazilian Tangerine. The trees want care, they run to wood, the fruit is often covered with a hard, rough, thick, and almost inseparable rind, and ' The mango pickles of Makdishu are described by Ibu Batutah in a.b. 1331. 230 ORANGES. the inside is full of bitter seeds, pitliy placenta, and flufpy skins. The wild oranges upon the Island and the Continent resemble those which we call Seville. As a rule the ' golden apple ' abounds from May to October. It is considered cooling, antibilious, and antiseptic, especially when eaten before other food in the early morn- ing. Thus it was a saying in the Brazil that the physician does not enter that house where orange-peel is strewed about. In West Africa the Rev. Mr Brown ^ of Texas judged the fruit harshly, and predicted the death of a brother missionary who was too fond of it. Many boxes and bags of oranges are carried as presents from Zanzibar to the northern ports (Banadir), Aden, and even Bombay ; ' Gulf- Arabs,' who have not such luxuries at home, will here devour a basket-full at a sitting. The sweet limes of Zanzibar are considered inferior to none by those who enjoy the sickly 'mawkish' flavour: the acid limes are cheap, plentiful, and aromatic ; they are second only to those grown about Maskat, the ne plus ultra of perfume and flavour. ^ Missionary of the Southern Baptist Connexion. He published a book of Travels in Western Africa, and a Grammar and Dictionary of the Toruba language, printed by the Smithsonian Institution (May, 1858). FRUITS. 231 The Pamplemouse or Shaddock, the Pummalo of Bombay (Citrus Decumana), has been planted upon the Island, but the people declare that it will not ripen: the same is said of the citron, and the Zanzibarians ignore the Persian art of preserving it. Bananas at Zanzibar are of two varieties, red and yellow : they are not remarkable for deli- cacy of taste. In the highlands of the interior, as Usumbara and Karagwah, the ' musa ' may be called the staff of life. The plantain, in India termed ' horse-plantain,' is a coarse kind, some- times a foot long, and full of hard black seeds : Europeans fry it in butter, and the people hold it to be a fine ' strong ' fruit. The musa bears during all the year in Zanzibar, but it is not common in May and June. The pine-apple of the Xew World grows almost wild in every hedgerow and bush : culti- vation and planting near running water would gi'eatly improve it. At present the crown is stuck in the earth, and is left to its fate wher- ever the place may be. Strangers are advised to remove the thick outer rind, including all the 'eyes,' which, adhering to the coats of the stomach, have caused inflammation, dysentery, and death. The ananas ripens in the cold 232 FRUITS. season : when it is found tlirouo^liout the twelve months the people predict that next year it will fail. It is, in fact, a biennial, like the olive in Palestine. The especial fruits of the poor are the Eanas or ' Jack ' of India, and an even more fetid variety, the ' Doriyan,' which certain writers call the ' Aphrodisiac dorion.' Some Europeans have learned to relish the evil savour, and all declare the Jack to he very wholesome. Hin- dus refuse to touch it, because it is 'heating food : ' they say the same, however, of all fruits with saccharine juices. The nuts are roasted, and eaten with salt, as in India, and the villagers fatten their poultry with ' the rind and the rotten.' The bread-fruit, and the curious growth (Havenala) known as the ' Travellers' Tree,' were introduced from the Seychelles Islands : the young plants, however, were soon uprooted and strewed about the fields. Grapes, both white and red, look well, but, as in the Tropical Brazil, the bunches never ripen thoroughly; in fact, the same cluster will contain berries of every age, from the smallest green to the oldest purple. This is a great disadvantage when making wine, and requires to be corrected by syrup. The GRAPES. 233 grape can hardly be expected to thrive where the hot season, as in parts of the New Workl, is also the rainy season. Like the produce of the Gold Coast, the stones are large and hitter, and the skin is tart, thick, and leathery. Bacchus, though he conquered India and founded Nysa, seems to disdain the equinoctial regions. Ac- cording to the French another variety should be introduced, and perhaps the ground-grape of the Cape might succeed better. There are many varieties of the vine in the Central Continent, but the people have hardly learned to eat the fruit : at Zanzibar certain Arabs tried it with sugar and rose-water, and suffered in consequence from violent colics. We read in * El Bakui ' (a.d. 1403) that some vines bear three crops per annum. The water-melon, most wholesome of fruits in warm climates, is found in Zanzibar and in the Lake Begions of the interior : the best are said to grow about Lamu and Brava. It is a poor flavourless article, white-yellow (not white and pink) inside, dry, and wanting the refreshing juice; it is fit only for boiling, and its edible seed is the best part. The growth of the papaw is truly tropical ; a single year suffices to hang the tree with golden fruit, which is eaten raw 234 FRUITS. and boiled, Hindus, as usual, object to its ' heat ; ' the Arabs make from the pips, which taste like celery, a sherbet, which is said to have peculiar effects.^ The ^ Khwemwe ' tree bears a nut with a hard reticulated skin : this is roasted like the chestnut, and it affords a small quantity of oil. The Sita-phal (Annona squamosa) and its con- gener, the Jam-phal, or sour-sop (A. reticulata), grow wild over the Island and the Coast ; as in the Brazil, little attention is paid to them ; this ' custard-apple ' is here considered to be a whole- some fruit. The guava is popularly called Zaytun, which means ' olive,' a quasi-sacred fruit, pos- sibly on the principle that in England many growths become palms about Easter-time. It runs wild around Mombasah, and spreads over much ground by a peculiar provision of nature : ^ the guavas are said not to ripen well ; yet on the West coast they are excellent. The Jamli, a well-known Indian tree (Eugenia Jambu), whose somewhat austere, subacid fruit resembles the damson or bullace, is everywhere common. In ^ The 'hot amourist ' pronounces this drink to be \1S\^m^1i\ 2 The seeds cannot easily be digested. Thus the lower regions of Fernando Po are a thicket of guava, suggesting the Jackal-coffee of the Neilgherries. FRUITS. 235 A. I). 1331 the traveller Ibn Batutah found El Jammiin (^»Ijs?^) at Mombasah. The interior of the Island produces the ' Fur sad,' a small stunted variety of the Persian red mulberry ; the ' Tut,' or white species, grows in every jungle from the shore of the Mainland to Fuga, in Usumbara, and suggests the possi- bility of rearing silk-worms. The pomegranate here, as on the Coast, gives a fruit which is hardly eatable : during the season Omani ships bring a supply of the very best description from the Jebel el Akhzar (the Green Mountain), near Maskat, and apples from the Persian Gulf. The Badam, locally called Bidam (the Persian almond), is here barren ; the broad polished leaves are used as platters by the vegetarian Hindus. The Chinese Ptambotang or Leechee is neglected, and the fruit is poor. The Ber (jujube) is unusually well- flavoured; according to Moslem custom, the Arab dead are washed with an infusion of the leaves. > That South American growth the Mbibo or Cashew (Caju) tree abounds here and on the continental sea-board : the nuts are roasted, the pulp is eaten, though its astringent quince-like flavour is by no means pleasant, and the juice is distilled, as at Goa. After pressure, tlie yield, exposed two or three days for ferment- 236 TREES. atioii, produces the celebrated 'Cauim' (Caju-ig) of the Brazilian Tupy-Guarani race, a wine here unknown. The still yields at first a watery spirit, which by cohobation becomes as fiery and dan- gerous as new rum. The lower orders like it ; the effects, they say, last out the week. The principal wild trees are the following. The fan palm, a native of the Island and the Con- tinent, supplies the chief African industry — mat- making. The ' Toddy palm' is found every- where; the fruit is eaten, but no one cares to draw off the beverage. The Dom, or Theban palm (Hyphene Thebaica), is a rare variety, and the wood is used chiefly for ladder rungs. Gigantic Eaphias, called by the Arabs Nakhl el Shaytan, *the Devil's palm,' throw over the streams fronds 30 and 40 feet long : these, cut, stripped, and bound into rafts, are floated down and exported from the Mainland to the Island ; the material is soft and good for hut-making. The graceful Areca palm flourishes everywhere, especially upon the banks of the Pangani river : at the mouth of this stream a saw-mill might be set up for a few dollars, and I have no doubt that it would yield large profits, and extend its business as far as the Hed Sea. The Bombax, or silk-cotton tree (Erioden- TREES. 237 drum anfractuosum), the Arab Dibaj and the Kisawahili Msufi, common in East as in "West Africa, affords a fibre usually considered too short and brittle for weaving, but I have seen Surat cotton very nearly as bad. The con- tents of the pericarp have been used for pillow stuffings : the only result {dicunt) was a remark- able plague of pediculi. The Kewra, or frankin- cense tree of India, abounds. The red beans of the Abrus Precatorius are used by the poor and by the wild people as ornaments ; even the mixed Luso-xlfrican race of Annobom will wear liuffe strings of this fruit, our original ' carat.' The soft- wooded Baobab, Mbuyu or calabash tree (Adan- sonia digitata), grows rapidly to a large size upon the Island as upon the Eastern and Western coasts. It is a tree of many uses. The trunk, often girthing 40 feet, forms the water-tank, the trough, the fisherman's Monoxyle ; the fibrous bark is converted into cloth, whose tough net- work is valued by the natives ; the fruit pulp is eaten, and the dried shells serve as Buyu, or gourds. I have repeatedly alluded to this tree in the Lake Regions of Central Africa, and I shall offer other notices of it in the following pages. Of late the Mbuyu or Baobab has brought itself into notice as afi'ording a material more valuable for 238 TREES. paper than straw, esparto or wood pulp, and its superiority to other African basts, has been ac- knowledged in England.^ The Mpingo (Dalbergia Melanoxylum) gives a purple timber, not a little like rosewood. The ' African oak,' a species of teak, is reported to exist ; but this tree does not extend far north of Mozambique. The 'P'hun' is a stately growth, whose noble shaft, often 80 feet high, springs without knot or branch, till its head expands into a mighty parachute. It is more ornamental than useful, — the wood is soft, full of sap, like our summer timber, and subject to white ants. In these hot, wet, and windy tropical regions some trees, especially those without gum or resinous sap, grow too fast, and are liable to rot, whilst others take many years to mature, and are almost unmanageably hard and lieayy. Hence we have had timber- cutting establishments set up by our Govern- ment at a large expense in the Brazil and in West Africa, but the produce never paid the voyage to England. ^ According to my friend Mr P. L. Simmonds (The Journal of Applied Science) this bast fetches readily £14 to £15 per ton, and ' although the paper makers will buy any quantity brought to market, it is to be regretted that they will offer no combined assistance to facilitate the obtaining larger supplies of this im- portant product.' WOODS. 239 The woods known to commerce are the ' Llwa,' a white-veined, faintly -perfumed, bastard sandal from Madasrascar : it is used for the sacred fire by the poorer Parsees. Granadille wood is exported from the Mainland to Europe, where it is worked for the bearings of mills and for the mouth-pieces and flanges of instruments. The Arabs call it 'Abniis,' and the Sawahili ' Mpingo,' both signifying ebony, which it re- sembles in appearance, though not in qualities. Less brittle than ebony, and harder than lignum vitce, it spoils the saw ; and being very heavy, it refuses to absorb grease or water. It makes good ram-rods, and the Usumbara people have cut it into pipe-bowls long before our briar-root was dreamed of. The sweet-smelling ' Kalambak' (Vulg. Co- lumbo), once common upon the Island, is now brought from Madagascar. There are two kinds, — one poor and yellow, like our box, the other hard, heavy, and dark red. Its fine grain takes the liigli polish of mahogany, and it would make good desks and work-boxes. Comoro men and Indian carpenters turn out rude furniture of this wood, which is wilfully wasted : in felling and shaping it the plantation-slaves, who ignore the saw, chip away at least half. The smoke is 240 PLANKS. said to keep off mosquitos. The mango, the jack, the copal tree, and many others, give fine hard woods for cahinet work. Planks and scantling, cross-beams and door- panels, are made of two fine trees, the ' Mtim- bati ' and the ' Mviile.' ^ The negro carpenters always sacrifice, I have said, a tree to make a plank, and the latter is so heavy that for all light erections, such as upper rooms, boards must be imported from Europe. The Mtimbati is the more venous ; rungs of ladders, well kept and painted, will last 15 years. The enduring Mviile, a close-grained yellow wood, is rare upon the Island, but common in the Coast jungles. As is the case with the Kalambak, there is no tariff for these trees : what to-day is sold at a bazar auc- tion for $1 may in a week fetch $8. A good practical account of the medicinal plants and timbers of Madagascar and Mozambique, Zanzibar and the Seychelles, will be found in appendices A. B. vol. ii. of Mr Lyons McLeod's ' Travels in Eastern Africa, with a Narrative of a E^esidence in Mozambique.' Captain Guillain may also be consulted, vol. i. p. 23 — 25. The Bordi or Zanzibar rafters are felled by ^ The Inzimbati (a leguminosa) and luvoull of Capt. Gruil- lain. MANGROVES. 241 slaves on the Mainland, and are brought over by Arabs and other vessels. The material is the useful mangrove, of which we here find the normal two species ; the Arabs call both * Gur- um,' and prefer the Makanda, or red kind. At Zanzibar the posts which become worm-eaten, and are reduced to powder by white ants, must be changed every five years. In arid Maskat they will last out the century, and they find their way to Aden, to Jeddah, and even to Meccah. The usual price in the Island is $2 to $3 per ' Korjah,' or score. The Mti wa Muytu (wild w^ood), or white mangrove, is found growing not in brackish water, and upon the mud, like the red variety, but chiefly upon the higher sandy levels. The wood is small, it shrinks when dried, it splits easily, and snaps ; it is worm-eaten at once, and its porous nature causes it easily to absorb water. In Zanzibar it is used for fuel in lime-burning, and it makes a hot and lasting fire ; the people also turn it into caulking mallets, which do not crack or spread out. The usual price (1857) is half a German cro^vn per Korjah. Vegetables are little prized at Zanzibar : the list is rather of what might be than of what exists. A local difficulty is the half-starved VOL. I. 16 242 VEGETABLES. slave who plunders every garden ; nothing less than a guard of Balocli would preserve edible property from his necessities and from his truly African wantonness of destruction. Almost all European vegetables will grow in the Island ; they require, however, shade, and they should be planted, as at Bourbon and the Mauritius, between rows of cool bananas. The best soil is the dark vegetable mould near the streams. Here lettuces, beet-root, carrots, po- tatoes, and yams would flourish — cabbages and cauliflowers have never, I believe, been tried. The ' Jezar,' an excellent sweet potato from Comoro and Madagascar, has been neglected almost to extinction. Thirty barrels of many sorted beans were sent from the Cape and grew well : they are good and abundant in the African interior, but the Island has allowed them to die out. The ' egg-plant ' is remarkably fine, and the wild species thrives everywhere on the sea-board between Somali land and Zanzibar. The Continent sends sundry kinds of pumpkins and gourds. Cucumbers of many varieties grow almost without sowing, — the people declare that they become bitter if touched by the hand whilst being peeled. The Arabs make from the seed an oil of most delicate flavour, far superior for salads than the THE CEREALS. 243 best Lucchese olive. In London I have vainly- asked for ' cucumber-oil : ' the vegetable is j)ro- bably too expensive, and the seeds are too small to be thus used at home. About Lagos on the Slave Coast, however, there is a cucumber nearly a foot long, with large pips, which might be sent northwards, and I commend the experiment to the civilized lover of oil. All kinds of ' Chilis,' from the small wild ' bird-pepper ' to the large variety of which the Spaniards are so fond, thrive in Zanzibar, which appears to be their home. There are extensive plantations of betel-pepper on the Eastern coast of the Island. AYheat, barley, and oats here run to straw. Kicc is the favourite cereal. The humid low-lands are cleared of weeds by burning, and the seed is sown when the first showers fall. To judge from the bazar-price, the home-grown article is of a superior quality ; but nowhere in East Africa did I find the grain so nutritious as that of the Western Coast. The hardest working of all African tribes, the Kru-men, live almost entirely upon red rice and palm-oil. The clove mania has caused the cereal to l)e neglected ; formerly an ex- port, it is now imported, and in 18G0 it cost the Island £38,000. Jowari (Holcus Sorghum), here called by the Arabs Ta'am (food), and by the Was- 244 CEREALS. awahili Mtama, — an evident corruption, — is sown in January and February, and ripens 6 months afterwards. The wheat of the poorer Arabs, and the oats of horses, it grows 18 feet high, but the islanders have little leisure, except in the poorest parts, to cultivate. Banyans, Arabs, and Wasawahili buy it in the Brava country, the granary of Southern Arabia, on the sea-board from Tanga to Mangao, and in some districts of the near interior ; they retail it in Zanzibar at large profits. Sesamum (the Hindustani Til or Giugil, the Arabic Simsim), the commonest of the oleaginous grains, of late demanded by the Prench market, where the oil becomes huile d' olives, is also brought from the Mainland, especially from the northern ports, Lamu and its neighbours, the Bantidir or Haven-land. In 1859 the Island of Zanzibar exported 8,388,360 lbs, = £20,000. Besides this, the coast ports shipped several cargos direct : formerly. East Africa used to supply the P^ed Sea wdtli this article. Maize (Muhindi) is a favourite article of consumption, and a little is grown on the Island. Bajri (Mawel^, Panicum spicatum, Boxb.), the small millet, a thin grain, inferior to that of Cutcli and Western India, is little cultivated. CEREALS. 245 The gram ^ of Hiudustaii (in Arabic, Hummus ; in Persian, Nukhud ; and in Kisawahili, Dengu, Cicer Arietinum) is of several varieties, white and red. The Lubija pulse is also of many sizes and colours ; the black flourishes every- where, the red is common, and the white, which the Portuguese of Goa import from the Mozam- bique regions, is rare. The best and largest comes from Pemba Island ; it is also grown on the Continent. The leguminous T'liur (the Arabic Turiyan, and the Kisawahili Baradi, Cajanus Indicus) is almost wild : the Banyans mix it with rice, and make with it the well- known ' Dall ' and ' Kichri.' The small green pea, known in India as Mung (the Persian Mash, and the Kisawahili Chlroko, or Toka, Phaseolus Mungo, Iloxb.),is boiled and eaten with clarified butter (Ghi) like T'hur. The people also use the little black grain resembling poppy-seed, known in India as Urat ; in Cutch, Papri ; and here, P'hiwi (Phaseolus radiatus). The Muhogo, in the plural ' Mihogo,' or "White Cassava (Manihot Aypim), resembles in appear- ance the sweet Manioc of the Brazil (Aypim or Macaxeira). The knotted stem, about six feet ' Palpably a corruption of the Portuguese Grao — grain generally. 246 MANIOC. long, is crowned with broad digitated leaves; the conical root, however, has a distinct longi- tudinal fibre the size of small whipcord, which is not found in the ' black, or poisonous, Manioc ' ( Jatropha Manihot, or Manihot uti- lissima). The people have not attempted to masticate it into a means of intoxication, the Caysiima of the Brazilian Tupy/ The Muhogo grows everywhere in Zanzibar Island : it is planted in cuttings during the rains, and it ripens six or eight months afterwards. In the Consular reports for 1860 we are told that ' the Manioc or Cassava, which forms the chief food of the slaves and poorer classes, yields four crops a year.' This is not probable : the longer all Jatropha is kept in the ground, within certain limits, the larger and better is the root. Manioc is carried as an acceptable present by travellers going into the interior. At Zanzibar the traveller should train his stomach to this food, and take care not to call it ' Manioc' When raw it resembles a poor chest- nut, but in this state none save a servile stomach can eat it without injury. Europeans compare ' I have read in some book that the ' Pywaree ' of Guiana is made from the masticated and fermented juice of the cassava- ' flower ' — probably for — ' flour.' MANIOC. 247 it with parsnips and wet potatoes : the Hindus declare it to be heavy as lead, and so ' cold ' that it always generates rheumatism. The Wasa- waliili have some fifty different ways of prepar- ing it. Boiled, and served up with a sauce of ground-nut cream, it is palatable : in every bazar sun-dried lengths, split by the women, and looking like pipe-clay and flour, are to be bought : a paste, kneaded with cold water, is cooked to scones over the fire : others wrap the raw root in a plantain-leaf and bake it, like grceshen, in the hot ashes. The poorer classes pound, boil, stir, and swallow^ the thick o-ruel till their stomachs stand out in bold re- o lief. EuU of gluten, this food is by no means nutritious ; and after a short time it produces that inordinate craving for meat, even the meat of white ants, which has a name in most African languages. The Bhang (Cannabis Sativa), which grows plentifully, though not wild, in the interior of the Continent, is mostly brought to Zanzibar from India. In ]Mozambiq[ue the Portuguese call it Bange or Canliamo de Portugal (Portugal hemp), and in the Brazil it is also known as Bange, evidently the Hindustani ' Bhang.' The negroes smoke it for intoxication, but ignore the 248 ARROW-ROOT, ETC. other luxurious preparations familiar to Hin- dustan, Egypt, and Turkey. Wanga or arrow-root, globular like a variety found in tlie Concan, is much less nutritious than the long kind. Here the best is brought from Mombasah, and after the rains the southern coast could supply large quantities. The people levigate the root, wash, and sun- dry it : the white powder is then kneaded with Tembii (palm- wine) into small balls, which are boiled in the same liquid. It is ^ cold ' and astringent : the Arabs use it as a remedy for dysentery, and the Hindus declare that it produces nothing but costiveness. Gins^er thrives in the similar formation of Pemba, and yet it will not, I am assured, grow at Zanzibar, where it is imported from Western India, the tea being in this climate a good stomachic. The Calumba or Colombo root is largely exported to adulterate beers and bitters. Curious to say, the ground-nut, which extends from Unyamwezi to the Gambia, is rare at Zan- zibar. The corallines of the coast are of course destitute of metals. A story is told of an inge- nious ^Frenchman who, wishing to become Director of Mines in the service of H. H. the Sayyid, melted down a few dollars, and ran a GOLD. 249 vein of silver, most unfortunately, into a mass of madrepore : the curious ' gangue ' was shown to Lieutenant-Golonel Hamerton, and thus the 'cute experiment failed. The African interior beyond the mountains is rich in copper and iron. I have described the copper of the Ta^ranvika Lake E-esrion : it is said to be col- lected in small nuggets from torrent-beds, and the bars have evidently been cast in sand. The iron of the Umasai country makes the finest steel. Gold has undoubtedly been brought from the mountains of Cliaga; and the eastern plateau promises to rival in auriferous wealth the Gold Coast. The great fields north of and near the Zambeze, and N. West of Natal, beyond the Transvaal Republic, discovered in 1866-7 by the German explorer, M. Maucli, a country consist- ing of metamorphic rocks and auriferous quartz, will probably be found extending high up in East Africa throughout the rocks lying inland of the maritime and sub-maritime corallines. It is also likely that the vast coal-beds, ex- plored by the Portuguese, and visited by Dr Livingstone, in the vicinity of Tete on the Zam- ])eze, and afterwards prolonged by him to the Rufuma river, a formation quite unknown to our popular works, will be extended to the Zan- 250 COAL. zibar coast. The valleys of rivers falling into the Indian Ocean should be carefully examined. The similarity of climate and geographical posi- tion which the province of Sao Paulo, and in- deed the maritime regions of the Brazil gener- ally, present Avith Eastern Africa, first drew my attention to its vast and various carboniferous deposits, and they are found to correspond with those of the Dark Continent. Messrs Eebmann and Pollock visited a spot near the 'Water of Doruma,' in the E-abai Hange, near Mombasah, where antimony ^ is dug. They found no exca- vations, but the people told them to return after the rains, when the ground would be soft. The holes, they say, were rarely deeper than a foot and a half. Captain Guillain (iii. 277) was told that near the village ' M'tchiokara ' ' il existe, presque a fleur de terre, des amas d'une sub- stance metallifere, qui semblerait etre un anti- moniure d'argent, autant qu'il a ^te permis d'en juger par les ^chantillons donnes a nos voya- geurs.' The valuable corals are not found at Zan- zibar, but the people sell a thin and white-stem- ^ I heard also of antimony on the Brazilian coast, op- posite the Island of S. Sebastiao, in the Province of S. Paulo, but I have not seen any specimens of it. CORALLINE. 251 med madrepore, with brocoli-shaped heads of the liveliest red (TubiporaMusica?). Gypsum abounds at Pemba and other places. Ships bring from Maskat a fine hydraulic mortar called Saraj, the result of burning shells in small kilns (Tandur for Tanniir) . The material is then stored in bags, j)ounded, and made into paste when required : it sets to stony consistency like the Pozzolana used by the Romans for under- water buildings. I presume that they mix with this calcaire a certain proportion of sand. The natives do not use shell-lime when chew^inc? betel-nut and leaf: they spoil their teeth with the common stuff. The disadvantage of coralline as building material is that it retains for a long time its ' quarry-water.' The Arabs dry it involuntarily, and humour their indolence by expending a dozen years in constructing a house — the home, as at Damascus, being rarely finished during the owner's life. The remedy is to expel the salts of lime and the animal gelatine by baking the stone, as is practised in the South Sea Islands. Kilns would make good lime at Zanzibar : on the island and coast the people now burn the gypsum and polypidoms in heaps piled upon a circle of billets, and the smoke, which fills half the town, is considered wholesome. Instead of I 252 'industry: being kept unslaked in sacks, it is wetted with sea-water, which prevents it drying, and it is then heaped up in the moist open air. More- over, it is mixed with sea-sand, which is washed in fresh water, but its salt ' sweats out ' for many a long year. Thus the best houses are liable to cuticular eruptions during the wet season : the mortar cracks, and is patched with a leprosy of blue, yellow, and green mould. The flat roofs are protected from the rain with thick coatings of this material, pounded to the desired consistency by rows of slave-women and boys, armed with long flat tamps and rude mal- lets. During the last 15 years the price of lime at Zanzibar has increased five-fold, $11 being now (1857) paid for a small heap; and, as usual, when Europeans are the purchasers, it rises 50 per cent. Section 6. The Industry of Zanzibar. The industry of Zanzibar is closely akin to nil ; the same may be said of the coast — both 'industry: 253 are essentially exporting, and cannot become manufacturing centres, at least as long as the present race endures. The principal supply is of matting and bags 'V for merchandise : the labourers are mostly women, who thus sj)end the time not occupied in domestic toil. The best mats are those sent by Madagascar : the ' native ' Simim (in Kisa- waliili termed Mkeka), an article upon which none but Diwans may sit, is neatly made of rush and palm-fronds from the river-side and from the low grounds of the coast ; it is dyed in red patterns with madder, and the root of the Mudaa-tree boiled in water gives it a dark purple variegation. The housewives also make a rude fan, imitating that of Maskat. Materials for common mats and grain-bags are found in strips of palmated and fan-shaped leaves, cut in the jungles of the mainland, sun-dried, care- fully scraped with knives, and jilaited by men, women, and children. The Maskat traders buy these lengths, and sew them together with Khus, or thread made from the cocoa-leaf. The large Jambi (mat), varying from 8 to 10 cubits long, costs about a quarter of a dollar: this is em- ployed in bagging (in Arabic, Kafa'at, and in Kisawahili, Makanda) to defend from rain the 254 'INDUSTRY: cottons, beads, and other articles which are car- ried by traders into the far interior. Cloth is fringed by Wasawahili and slaves. Many tribes, those of Chaga for instance, will not take a ' Tobe ' without its ' Tardzd,' and generally when a piece of stuff is given to a wild man, he sits down and first unravels the edge. The selvage also constitutes a highly- prized ornament. Bill- hooks (munda), coarse sword -blades (upanga), and knives (kesu) ; hatchets (skoka), and hoes (jembe) — the latter two diminutive, and more like playthings than working-tools — are made of imported iron, and form a staple of trade with the mainland. The European spade and the American broad axe still await introduc- tion. Those who would explore E. Africa should supply themselves with a large stock of such hardware, and be careful not to waste them — to savages and semi-barbarians they are everywhere more precious than gold. Split bamboo forms the brooms, and the hard material tears the plaster from the walls. A coarse pottery, which the saltness of the clay renders peculiarly brittle, is fabricated by the Wasawahili at Changani Point, and supplants industry: 255 the original lagenarias. Some Kumdrs, or Hindustani potters, came to Zanzibar a few years ago ; they suffered so severely from fever that, fancying themselves bewitched, all ran away. CHAPTEU VI. VISIT TO THE PRINCE SATYID MAJID. — THE GO- VERNMENT OP ZANZIBAR. ' Zanzibar is an island of Africa, on the coast of Zanzibar, governed by a king who is a tributary to the Portuguese.' Eeece's Cyclopedia. We now proceed to wait upon H. H. the ' Sayyid of Zanzibar and the Sawahil,' who would be somewhat surprised to hear that he is ' tribu- tary to the Portuguese.' The palace lies east of, and close to, the fort. It is fronted by a wharf, and defended by a stuc- coed platform mounting eight or nine brass guns en barbette, intended more for show than use. The building is a kind of double- storied, white-washed barrack, about 140 feet long, roofed with dingy green-red tiles, and pierced with a few windows jealously raised high from the ground; shutters painted tender-green temper ,.ii:m.iM ir... THE PALACE. 257 the sun-glare, and a few stunted, wind-wrung trees beautify the base. Seaward there is a ve- randah, in which levees are held, and behind it are stables and sundry outhouses, an oratory and a graveyard, where runaway slaves, chained together by the neck, lie in the shade. In this oratory, as in other mosques, are performed the prayers of the two Great Festivals which, during the late prince's life, were recited at the Mto-ni ' Cascine.' Here, too, is the 'large, gable-ended house commenced in his elder age by the enter- prising Sayyid Said, and built, it is said, after the model of the Dutch factory at Bander Abbas. It was intended for levees, and for a hall of plea- sure. Unhappily, a large chandelier dropped from the ceiling, seventy masons were crushed by a falling wall ; and other inauspicious omens made men predict that the prince would never enter the ' Akhir el Zaman ' (End of Time). It has since been shut up, like one of our ghost- haunted houses, which it not a little resembles. In the centre of the square, opposite the palace, stands the Sayyid's flag-staff, where the 'Bakiir' is administered, where executions take place, and where, according to an American tra- veller,^ distinguished criminals are fastened to a ' Recollections of Majunga, Zanzibar, Muscat, Aden, VOL. I. 17 258 * crams: pole, and are tied from the ankles to the throat, * till the soul of the dying man is literally squeezed out of its earthly tenement.' The author, who visited Zanzibar in 'the mercan- teel,' was grievously hoaxed by some kind friend. Under Sayyid Said torture was unknown, death was inflicted according to Koranic law, and only one mutilation is recorded. I may remark, en passant, that in this part of the world the two master romancers. Ignorance and Interest, have been busily at work ; and that many a slander rests upon the slenderest foundation of fact. Adventurers have circulated the most ridiculous tales. We hear, or rather we have heard, of 300,000 Arab cavalry, and hordes of steel-clad negroes, possibly a tradition of the ' Zeng ' (Zan- zibarians), who, in the days of the Caliphs, plun- dered Basrah. We read of brilliant troops of horse artillery, whose only existence was in the brain of some unprincipled speculator ; and yet this report sent a battery from Woolwich as a present for the late Sayyid. To the same cate- gory belong the Amazons bestriding war-bul locks, doubtless a revival of El Masudi, who in our tenth century reported that the ' King of Zeng ' commanded, Dahoman-like, an army of Mokha, Aden, and other Eastern Ports. Salem : George Creamer, 1854. VISIT TO THE PALACE. 259 solclieresses, mounted, as are the Kafirs, upon oxen — the Portuguese 'boi-cavallos.' Some travellers have asserted that the Cape tribes learned cattle- riding from Europeans : but Camoens, making his hero land at the Aguada de S. Braz, after sailing from the Angra de Santa Elena, expressly states — * Embrown'd the women by the burning clime, On slow-paced oxen riding came along.' — Canto Y. 63. Durbars, or levees, are held three times a day, after dawn-prayers, in the afternoon, and at night. The ceremonial is simple. The lieges, passing the two Sepoys on guard at the gate, enter with the usual Moslem salutation, and after kissing hands take their appointed places. There is no lord of the basin, lord of the towel, or lord of the pelisse, deemed indispensable by every petty Persian governor. The ruler is addressed, Ya Sidi, my lord, and is spoken of by his sub- jects as Sayyidna, our prince. Cofi'ee is served, but only at night ; and all forms of intoxicants are jealously banished. The long, bare recep- tion-hall, ceilinged with heavy polished beams, and paved with alternate slabs of white and black marljle brought from Marseille, boasts only a few dingy chandeliers, and three rows of common wooden-bottomed chairs. It is, however, un- 260 VISIT TO THE PALACE. encumbered with the usual mean knicknacks, French clocks and bureaux, cheap prints, gaudy china, and pots of neglected artificial flowers, supposed to adorn the window-sills ; nor, after the fashion of Zanzibarian grandees, are the sides lined with seamen's chests, stuffed full of arms, watches, trinkets, cashmere shawls, medi- cines, and other such 'chow chow.' The Prince received us at the Sadr, or top of the room, with the usual courtesy. He was then a young man, whose pleasing features and very light complexion generally resembled those of his father. This is said to have been the case with the whole family. We found the ' divan ' of Egypt and Turkey unaccountably absent, banished by the comfortless black-wood * Kursi ' of Bombay. After a few minutes' conversation two chairs were placed before us, bearing a tray of sweetmeats, biscuits, and glasses of sherbet ; of these we ate and drank a mouthful in accept- ance of hospitality, and we were duly pressed to eat. Lemonade and confitures take the place of strong waters amongst Europeans, and of the cocoa-nut milk, the mangoes, and the oranges of humbler establishments. Pipes, however, though offered by the late Sayyid to distinguished Euro- pean guests, are never introduced, in deference SLAVE THIEVES. 2G1 to Wahhabi prejudice ; nor did we suffer from the rose-water ablutions of which M. Guillain complains. Feminine eyes did not peep at us from the inner apartments ; but we were fronted by well-dressed slaves who, as we pass through the crowded outer hall, will steal, if they can, the gilt tassels from our sword-knots, and who have picked the pockets of guests, ev^en when dining with their Prince. H. H. the Sayyid Majid took considerable interest in our projected journey, and suggested that a field-piece might be useful to frighten the "Washenzi (wild men). TTe left the palace much pleased with the kind- ness and cordiality of its owner, into Avhose ear, moreover, evil tongues had whispered the very worst reports. The Government of Zanzibar is a royal ma- gistracy, the only form of rule to which the primi- tive and undisciplinable Eastern Arab will submit. Whenever a new measure is brought forward by the Sayyid it is invariably opposed by the chiefs of clans, who assemble and address him more like an equal than a superior. One of the princes of Maskat corrected this turbulent feu- dality after the fashion of Mohammed Ali Pasha and his Mamliik Beys ; even now a few summary e.\:amples might be made to good purpose. In 262 THE 'MINISTERS: : the days of the late Sayyid's highest fortunes the most tattered of Siiris would address him, ' O Said ! ' and proceed to sit unbidden in his pre- sence. Similarly, Ibn Batutah, when describing the Sultan of Oman, Abu Mohammed bin Neb- han, tells us, ' he has the habit of sitting, when he would give audience, in a place outside his palace; he has neither chamberlain nor wazir, and every man, stranger or subject, is free to ap- proach him.' Sometimes a noble, when ordered into arrest at Zanzibar, has collected his friends, armed his slaves, and fortified his house. One Salim bin Abdallah, who had a gang of 2000 mus- keteer negroes, used to wage a petty war with the Sayyid's servile hosts. It is, perhaps, the result of climate that these disturbances have never developed into revolutions. The ' ministers ' spoken of by strangers are the Nakhodas of the fleet : by virtue of a few Erench or English sentences, they are summoned when business is to be transacted with Euro- peans who are not linguists. The late Sayyid's only secretary and chief interpreter was Ahmad bin Aman of Basrah (Bussorah), a half-cast Arab, popularly called by the lieges ' Wajhayn ' or ' two faces.' According to some he was a Sabi or Sabsean, commonly known as a Christian JUSTICE. 263 of Saint John ; and men declare that he began life as a cabin-boy and rose by his unusual astute- ness. When any question of unusual gravity occurs the Sayyid summons the Ulema, the Shaykhs, and especially the two Kazis, Shaykh Muhiyy el Din, a Lamu doctor of the Sunni*^ school, and Shaykh Mohammed, an Abazi. Causes tried by ecclesiastics generally depend upon the extent of bribery; but there is always an appeal to the Prince, or in his absence to the Governor. The Kazis punish by imprisonment more or less severe. The stocks are set up in every planta- tion ; the fetters are heavy, and there is, if wanted, a ponderous iron ring with long spikes, significantly termed in Persian the ' Tank i Ta'at,' collar of obedience. Instant justice is the order of the day, and the crooked stick (bdkur) plays a goodly and necessary part ; how neces- sary we see in the present state of Syria, whence the ' Tanzimat ' constitution has banished the only penalty that ruffians fear. Prom ten to fifty blows are usually inflicted : in the Gulf, when the bastinado is to be administered with the Nihayet el Azab (extreme rigour), half-a- dozen men work upon the culprit's back, belly, and sides, and a hundred strokes suffice to kill hiui. Severe examples are sometimes necessary, 264 PRISONS. though chastisement is on the whole wild and unfrequent. Zanzibar town is subject to fires, originating with the slaves, often in drunkenness, more often for plunder; and this induced the late Sayyid to forbid the building of cajan ' tabernacles ' (Makuti or Banda-ni) upon the house-tops. His orders were obeyed for four months, an unusually long time; and at last Europeans, in consequence of the danger which threatened them, were compelled personally to interfere with the severest preventive treatment. The Prince alone has the power of pronouncing a capital sentence; and, as usual in Moslem countries, where murder is a private, not a pub- lic, offence, the criminal is despatched by the relatives of the slain. Death may be inflicted by the master of the house upon a violator of domicile, gallant, or thief; the sword is drawn, and the intruder is at once cut down. Pines and confiscations, which have taken the place of the Koranic mutilation, are somewhat com- mon, especially when impudent frauds are prac- tised upon the Prince's property. Confinement in the fort, I have said, is severe, but not so much feared as at Maskat, whose rock dungeon is an Aceldama ; I saw something of the kind at Pernando Po. Criminals have a wholesome THE ARMY. 265 horror of being the ruler's guest, yet they some- times escape by the silver key, and, once upon the mainland, they may laugh at justice. I heard of a Banyan who, despite being double- ironed, managed to 'make tracks.' The military force of Zanzibar is not im- posing. In 1846, throughout the African pos- sessions of the Sayyid, the permanent force was only 400 men, namely, about 80 at Zajizibar, 250 at Mombasah, 30 at Lamu, 25 at Patta, 6 to 10 at Kilwa, and sundry pairs at Makdishu and other places ; after that time they were doubled and even trebled. The ' regulars ' con- sist of a guard of honour, a ' guardia nobile ' of a dozen serviles habited in cast-off Sepoy uniforms, collected from different corps of the Bombay army : one musket carries a bayonet, the other a stick. The cost of new equipments was once asked by the late Sayyid ; after glancing at the total, he exclaimed that the guard itself would not fetch half that sum. The irregular force is more considerable, and repre- sents the Ilayduques of old Eastern Turkey, the Arnauts or Albanians of Egypt, the Bashi- Buzuks of El Hejaz, and the Sayyareh and Zab- tiyyeh of modern Syria. The so-called Baloch are vagrants and freebooters collected from Northern 266 POLICE. Arabia and from the southern seaboard of Persia, Mekran, and Kilat : when the Prince required extra levies he rigged out a vessel and re- cruited at Guadel or at Makallah. He preferred the Aryan,^ as being more amenable to discipline than the Semite : moreover, the Arab clans- man, like the Highlander of old, though feudally bound to follow his suzerain, requires the order of his immediate chief, and the latter, when most wanted, is uncommonly likely to rat or to revolt. The mercenaries of Zanzibar nomi- nally receive $2 to S3 per mensem, with rations : practically, the money finds its way more or less into the pocket of the Jemadar or C. 0- The fort is here garrisoned by some 80 of these men and their negro slaves : the former are equal to double the numl)er of Arabs in the field, and behind walls they are a match for a nation of savages. Police by day and night patrols are much wanted at Zanzibar, where every man must be his own ' Robert.' The slaves are unruly subjects ; even those of the fort will commit an occasional murder, and the suburbs are still far from safe during the dark ^ It is hardly necessary to correct in these days the error of Carsten Niebuhr, who made the ' Belludges ' (Baloch) a tribe of Arabs. The Baloch mercenaries will be found further noticed in Part II. chap. vi. 1 THE FLEET. 26T hours. The garrison is securely locked up, and in case of most urgent need no aid is procurable before morning. I may now offer a catalogue raisonne of the late Sayyid's fleet, which was intended to keep up the maritime prestige of his predecessors, the Yu'rabi Imams. The Shah Alam, a double- banked frigate of 1100 tons, carrying 50 guns (45, says M. Guillain, i. 584), was built at Maza- gon in 1820, and now acts guardship, moored off Mto-ni. The ' Caroline ' (40 guns), the best of the squadron, and built at Bombay, was degraded to be a merchantman, in which category she visited Marseille (1849) : she has, however, again opened her ports after returning from Maskat. The strong and handsome ' Sultana ' was wrecked near Wasin when returning from India. The ' Salihi ' was lost in the Persian Gulf ; the ' Sulayman Shah ' and the ' Humayun Shah,' in the Gulf of Bengal. The ' Piedmontese,' 36 guns, built at Cochin in 1836, might be re- paired at an expense of £10,000. The ' Victoria ' frigate (40), teak-built in the Mazagon dock- yard, is still sea-worthy. The ' Bahmani ' cor- vette (24 guns), is a fast-sailing craft with great breadth of beam, hailing from Cochin : she was lately fitted out for a recruiting vessel to Ilazra- 268 THE FLEET. maut. The ' Artemise ' corvette, formerly of 18 guns, now a jackass frigate with 10 guns en har- hette, was built at Bombay of fine Daman teak, and was lately repaired there, at an expense of 22,000 Co.'s Rs. Called Colonel Hamerton's yacht, because always placed at his disposal by the late Sayyid, she will carry him on his last voyage, accompanying us to Bagamoyo upon the mainland. She is commanded by the sailing- master of the fleet, Mohammed bin Khamis, who has studied navigation and modern languages in London — of him more anon. The lighter craft are the ' Salihi' barque (300 tons), built in America about 184i0, condemned and repaired in Bom- bay ; and the ' Taj ' brig (125 tons), launched at Cochin in 1829, and originally intended for a yacht. Besides there is a mosquito squadron composed of some 20 ' batelas,' each armed with 2 to 6 guns, which serve equally for cabotage and for campaigning. The useless, tawdry ' Prince Begent,' pre- sented by H. B. Majesty's Government to the late Sayyid, was by him passed over in 1840 to the Governor- General of India. It was sold at Calcutta, and for many years it was, as a trans- port, the terror of the eastern soldier. The Say- yid could not pray amongst the ' idols ' of gild- THE FLEET. 2G9 ing and carving ; he saw pollution in every pic- ture, and his Arabs supposed the royal berth to be the Tabut Hazrat Isa — Our Lord's coffin. Instead of this article he wished to receive the present of a steamer, but political and other ob- jections prevented.j Eastern rulers also will not pay high and regular salaries ; and without European engineers every trip would have cost a boiler. Repairs were impossible at Zanzibar ; and, as actually happened to Mohammed Ali's expensive machinery in Egypt, the finest work would have been destroyed by mere neglect. A beautiful model of a steam-engine was once sent out from England : it was allowed to rust un- opened in the Sayyid's ' godowns.' Still the main want of the Island was rapid communica- tion. Sometimes nine months elapsed before an answer came from Bombay : letters and parcels — including my manuscript — were often lost ; and occasionally, after a long cruise, they re- turned to their starting-point, much damaged by time and hard usage. The Bombay Post-office clerks thinking, I presume, that Zanzibar is in Arabia, shipped their bags to Bushire and !Mas- ' Wellated's Travels in Arabia, vol.ii. p. 403. This author exposes, without seeming to know that he was doing so, the selfish and short-sighted policy of the H. E. I. Company which wanted a squadron subsidiary to its own. 270 THE TREASURY. kat, some thousand miles N.West instead of S.West of Bombay, and via Halifax — half round the world — was often the speediest way of com- munication with London. No wonder that letters were delayed from 7 to 9 months, causing great loss to the trade, and inconvenience to tlie authorities. Her Majesty's proclamation was published in India on November 1, 1858 ; the Prince of Zanzibar was obliged with a copy only in March, 1859. A line of steamers from the Cape and other places was much talked of; it would certainly obviate many difficulties, but the Zanzibar merchants who had a snug monopoly were dead against free-trade and similar appli- ances of modern civilization. The French Com- pany then running vessels from Mauritius to Aden, proposed to touch at Zanzibar if permitted to engage on their own terms ' ouvriers libres.' The liberal offer was declined with thanks. The Royal Treasury is managed with an ex- treme simplicity. When the Prince wants goods or cash he writes an order upon his collector of customs ; the draft is kept as an authority, and the paper is produced at the general balancing of accounts, which takes place every third or fourth year. I found it impossible to obtain certain information concerning the gross amount THE TREASURY. 271 of customs, and inquiry seemed only to lead further from the truth. The ruler, the officers under him, and the traders all have several in- terests in keeping the secret. The Custom House is in an inchoate condi- tion; it makes no returns, and exports being free, it requires neither manifest nor port clearings from ships about to sail. The customs are farmed out by the Sayyid, and 10 years ago their value was $142,000, or 38 per cent, less than is now paid. Tlie last contractor was a Cutch Banyan named Jayaram Sewji. The ' ijareli ' or lease was generally for five years, and the annual amount was variously stated at 870,000 to $150,000, in 1859 it had risen to $196,000 to $220,000.^ He had left the Island before Sayyid Said's death, and though summoned by the Prince Majid, there was little chance of his com- mitting the folly of obedience. His successor was one Ladha Damha, also a Bhattia Hindu, and a man of the highest respectability. These renters declared that they did not collect the amount which they paid for the privilege : on the other hand, they could privately direct their caste fel- ' The consular report of 1S60 gives an ag<^regate value of the port trade at £1,667,577, viz. : imports £908,911, and exports (information furnished by the nu'rcantilo community, and evidently much understated) £758,660. 272 THE TREASURY. lows, do what they pleased with all iinprotected by treaty, and having a monopoly as tradesmen between the wholesale white merchants and the petty dealers of the coast, they soon became wealthy. Land cess and port dues were unknown at Zanzibar. The principal source of revenue was the Custom House, where American and European goods, bullion excepted, paid the 5 per cent, ad valorem provided by commercial treaties. Cargo from India paid 5-25, the fractions serving to salary Custom House officials. The import was levied on all articles transshipped in any ports of the Zanzibar dominions, unless the cargo was landed only till the vessel could be repaired. Of course the tariff was complicated in the extreme, ' custom ' amongst orientals being the * rule of thumb ' further west. The farmers appointed all subordinate officials, and as these received in- sufficient salaries, smuggling, especially in the matters of ivory and slaves, came to their assist- ance. The Wasawahili Makhadim, or serviles, contributed an annual poll-tax of $1 per head, and this may have amounted to 10,000 to 14,000 crowns per annum. The maximum total of the late Sayyid's revenue was generally stated as follows — THE TREASURY. 273 Maskat (customs) German crowns ... $180,000 IVIattra (Matrah) „ „ ... 60,000 Maskat and Mattra (octroi from the interior) 20,000 Average receipts from other parts of Africa } A K u- ( 20,000 and Arabia 3 Zanzibar (customs and poll-tax) ... ... 160,000 Total in German crowns ... $440,000 In 1811 Captain Smee computes the revenue of Zanzibar at $60,000 per annum, adding, how- ever, that he considers it to be much more. In 1846 M. Guillain gives the revenue arising from customs on coffee and cloves, Indian rice and melted butter, and divers taxes on shops, indigo, dyes, thread-makers, silk-spinners, and so forth, as follows — Total of Oman ... $136,600 ,, African dominions 349,000 Grand total $485,600 = 2,500,000 francs. The author, who appears to have been ably assisted in his inquiries by M. Loarer, also states that in the days of Sayyid Said's father the fiirm- ingof the customs at Zanzibar represented !i^25, 000, from which itgradually rose to $50,000; $60,000; $80,000 ; $100,000 ; $105,000 ; $120,000 ; $147,000; $157,000; and $175,000 in 1846. We may safely fix the revenue in 1857 at a maximum of £90,000 per annum. The expenses of navy, army, and ' civil service,' and the personal expendi- 18 274 THE TREASURY. ture of the Prince were easily defrayed out of this sum, whilst the surplus must have been consider- able. The income might easily have been in- creased, and the outlay have been diminished by improving the administration ; but the Sayyid had ' some time before his death reached that epoch of life when age and weariness determine men to consider the status quo as the supreme wisdom.' Under the new regime aifairs did not im- prove. An Indian firm farmed the customs throughout the Zanzibar dominions for the an- nual sum of $190,000, and the following is the official statement of the revenues derived by 'His Highness the Sultan,' ^ in 1863-4. Customs dues ... $190,000 Pembadues ... ... ... ... 6,000 Poll-tax of MakMdim ... ... ... 10,000 Private clove plantations ... ... 15,000 Total $221,000 Deduct subsidy paid to Maskat . . . 40,000 Balance $181,000 The income, thus sadly fallen otf, was hardly enough for the necessaries of the ruler, and left ^ Commercial Reports, received at the Foreign Office from H. M.'s Consuls, between July 1, 1863, and June 30, 1864. London, Harrison and Co. In 1862 tbe revenue of Maskat was computed to reach the very respectable cipher of £1,065,640 per annum. THE TREASURY. ' 275 no margin available for improvements or public works. At last tlie government, which by treaty- is unjustly debarred from imposing export or harbour dues, dr even from increasing the im- port duties, devised a modified system of land- tax, charging 5 per cent, per annum on cloves, and 2 pice (= f f/.) on mature cocoa-trees whose estimated average value is $1. This, if levied, would produce about §40,000 per annum. Since that time prosperity has returned to the Island. The return of imports by the Cus- tom House rose from £245,981 in 1861-2 to £433,693 in 1867-8.^ One half of the trade was in the hands of English subjects, and the Com- mittee remarks that Zanzibar is the chief market of the world for ivory and copal ; that the trade in hides, oils, seeds, and dyes is on the increase, whilst cotton, sugar, and indigo, to which may be added cocoa, loom in the distance. ' Keport of Select Committee appointed to inquire into the whole question of the slave trade on the East coast of Africa. CHAPTER VII. A CHRONICLE OF ZANZIBAR. — THE CAREER OF THE LATE ' IMAM,' SAYYID SAID. 'Mais, comme le livre n'est point une oeuvre de fantaisie, comme il traite de questions serieuses, et qu'il s'addresse a des interets durables, je me resigne, pour lui, a I'inattention du moment, et j'attendrai patiemment pour que I'avenir lui ramene son heure, lui refasse, pour ainsi dire, une nouvelle opportu- nite.' — M. Guillain. There is little of interest in the annals of Oman and of her colonies. Fond of genealogy, the modern Arabs are perhaps the most in- curious of Orientals in the matter of history : they ignore the past, they disregard the present, and they have a superstitious aversion to speak of the future. Lawless and fanatical, treacher- ous, blood-thirsty and eternally restless, the Omani races, whose hand is still against every man, have converted their chronicles into a kind HISTORY. of Newgate Calendar, whilst the multitude of personages that appear upon the scene, and the perpetual rising and falling of Imams, princes, and grandees, offer to the reader a mere string of proper names. Ample details concerning Mas- kat will be found in the pages of Capt. Hamilton, Carsten Niebuhr, Wellsted, and Salil ibn Razik,^ to mention no others. Zanzibar has ever been, since historic times, connected with Oman, whose fortunes she has reflected ; the account of the distant dependency given by travellers is, therefore, as might be expected, scanty and obscure. At an early period the merchants and trad- ers of Yemen frequented the Island, and ex- changed, as we read in the Periplus and Ptolemy, their homes of barren rock and sand for the luxuriant wastes of Eastern Africa. If tradition be credible, their primitive settlements were Patta (Bette), Lamu, and the Mrima fronting these islets ; and here to the present day the dialect of their descendants has remained the purest. Themselves pagans, they lived amongst the heathenry, borrowed their language, as the ^ History of the Imams and Sayyids of Oman, from a.d. 661 to 1856, by Salil ibn liazilc. Translated, &c., by the Kev. G. P. Badger. Printed for the Hakluyt Society. 278 THE PORTUGUESE. Arabs and the Baloch still do, intermarried with them, and begot the half-caste Wasawahili, or coast population. In proof that these were the lords of the land, the late Sultan Ahmad, chief of the Shirazi, or free tribe of the mulattoes, received annual presents from the Arab Sayyid of Zanzi- . ; ^ bar. When the former died Muia^ni Mku, his y ^^' wazir, or brother — here all fellow-countrymen ^^ are brothers — succeeded, in default of other heirs, to the position of monarch retired from busi- ness. He is a common-looking negroid, who lives upon the proceeds of a plantation and periodical presents : he is not permitted to appear as an equal at the Sayyid's Darbar, and it is highly im- probable that he will ever come to his own again. The Sawahil or Azania continued to ac- knowledge Arab and Persian supremacy till the appearance of the Portuguese upon the coast. D. Vasco da Gama passed Zanzibar Island Avithout sighting it when first bound Indiawards, and authors differ upon the subject of his return voyage. The historian Toao de Barros (i. 4, 11) relates that the expedition made its land-fall from India belov/ Magadoxo (Makdishu or Maka'ad el Shaat, 'the sitting-place of the sheep'), ^ beat off a boat attack from ' Pato ' ^ So called from some silly vision of an illuminated sheep THE PORTUGUESE. 279 (Patta), visited Melinde, Mozambique, and the Aguada de S. Braz, and doubled the Cape of Storms on March 20, 1499. Goes ^ declares that da Gama, after touching at Makdishu and Melinde, arrived at Zanzibar on Eebruary 28, and was supplied by its ruler with provisions, presents, and specimens of country produce. The Island is described as large and fertile, with groves of fine trees, producing good fruit, two others, ' Pomba ' (Pemba) and ' Mofia ' (our Mon- fia and the Arab Mafiyah), lying in its vicinity. These settlements were governed by Moorish princes *of the same caste as the King of Melinde ' — doubtless hereditary Moslem Shaykhs and Sayyids. The population is represented as being in ' no great force, but carrying on a good trade with Mombassa for Guzerat calicoes and with Sofala for gold.' The ' King of Melinde ' made a name in Europe. E-abelais commemorates Hans Carvel, the King of Melinda's jeweller, and (in Book I. chap, v.) we read, ' thus did Bacchus appearing to one of the Shaykhs. The city is supposed to have been founded in a.d. 295, about 70 years before Kilwa. The three voyages of Vasco da Gama, &c., as from the Lendas da India of Gaspar Correa, translated by the Hon. Henry C. J. Stanley, London, llakluyt Society, 1S(J9, chap, xxi., note to page 2G1. M. Guillain (i. 319) makes the expe- dition reach Zanzibar on April 29, 1-199. 280 THE 'KINGS: conquer Ind; thus philosophy, Melincle,' — mean- ing that the Portuguese taught their African friends more drinking than wisdom. Joao de Barros (ii. 4. 2) informs us that the Chief of Zanzibar was ' da linhagem dos E-eys de Momba9a, nossos imigos.' The inhabitants were * white Moors ' (Arabs from Arabia) and black Moors or Wasawahili ; the former are portrayed as a slight people, scantily armed, but clothed in fine cottons bought at Mombasah from mer- chants of Cambaya. Their women were adorned with jewels, with Sofalan gold, and with silver obtained in exchange for provisions, from the people of St Lawrence's Island (Madagascar). And here we may remark that the Arab settle- ments in East Africa, visited by the Portuguese at the end of the loth century, showed generally a civilization and a refinement fully equal to, if not higher than, the social state of the European voyagers. The latter, expecting to find savages like the naked Kafirs of the South, must not have been a little surprised to receive visits from the chiefs of Mozambique and Melinde, men clad in gold, embroidered silks, velvets, and ' crimson damask, lined with green satin ; ' armed with rich daggers and swords sheathed in silver scabbards, seated on arm-chairs, and THE PORTUGUESE. 281 attended by a suite of some 20 richly-dressed Arabs. The modest presents offered by the Europeans to these wealthy princelets, whose women adorned themselves with pearls and other precious stones, must have given a mean idea of Portuguese civilization. And even in the present day the dominions of the ' barbarous Arab ' are superior in every way to the miserable colonies on the West African coast, which repre- sent Christian and civilized Europe. Four years afterwards (1503) Huy Lourenco Ravasco, a Cavalleiro da Casa d' El Rey, sailing with D. Antonio de Saldanha, cruized off ' Zem- zibar,' as his countrymen called Zanzibar, and in two months captured twenty rich ships, laden with ambergris, ivory, tortoiseshell, wax, honey, rice, coir, and silk and cotton stuffs. This cap- tain appears, like most of his fellows, to have been a manner of pirate : he did not restore them till ransom was paid. ' El Rey,' still friendly to the Portuguese, sent a spirited remonstrance, when the insolence of the reply forced him to take hostile measures. The Arabs manned their canoes with some 4000 men; but two launches, well-armed with cannon, killed at the first dis- charge 34 men and put the rest to flight. Thus the Malik or E-cgulus was compelled by llavasco to pay 282 THE PORTUGUESE. an annual tribute of 100 gold miskals in token of submission to the greedy and unprincipled Dom Manuel. ' The conquered pays the conquest ! ' exclaims with Christian emphasis the venerable Osorio. Portugal now began to gather gold from Sofala to Makdishu ; 'Wagerage,' the chief of Melinde, contributed every year 1500 wedges (ingots) of the precious metal, and the insolence of the victors must have made the good old man deeply regret the welcome and the Godspeed which he had bestowed upon the exploratory expedition. The Portuguese having wrested Kilwa and Mombasah from its Arab chiefs, D. Duarte de Lemos, appointed (a.d. 1508) by the King Governor of the ' Provinces of J^thiopia and Arabia,' attacked successively Mafiyah, Zan- zibar, and Pemba, for failing in the paramount duty of paying tribute. Mafiyah submitted, the people of Pemba escaped to Mombasah, leaving nothing in their houses, and Zanzibar resisted, but the town was taken and plundered. The Shaykh retired northwards, and his subjects fled to the bush, ' depois de hem esfarrapados na came con a ponta da lan9a, e espada dos nossos ' — after being well pierced in the flesh by the lance-points and the sword-blades of our men — THE PORTUGUESE. 283 says tlie chronicler. From this time probably we may date the pointed arches that still remain upon the Island, and the foundation of the fort, which is popularly attributed to the 'Earanj.' Mombasah and Pemba were presently occupied by the Portuguese ; and the ruins of their ex- tensive barracoons, citadels, and churches still argue ancient splendour. In other places upon the seaboard I found deep and carefully sunk wells, stone enclosures, and coralline temples, whilst vestiges of European buildings may be traced, it is said, contrary to popular opinion, many days' journey inland. We read little about Lusitanianized Zan- zibar, where the insalubrity of the climate must have defended the interior, and even parts of the coast, from the spoiler. In a.d. 1519 the Moors massacred certain shipwrecked sailors belonging to the expedition of D. Jorje de Albuquerque. Three years afterwards the Shaykh, or, as he styled himself, the Sultan^ of Zanzibar, who, after submitting to Ravasco, had acknowledged himself a vassal of D. Manuel, fitted out, with the aid of the factors JoUo de Mata and Pedro ' The only Shaykhs who took the name of Sultan were those of Kihva and Zanzibar : he of Mombasah was tributary to the latter. 284 THE PORTUGUESE. de Castro, a small expedition against the Quir- imba islandry, who had allied themselves with the hostile tribes about Mombasah. The attack was successful, the chief town was pillaged and burnt, and terror of the invader brought all the neighbouring islets to terms. In 1528-9 the Viceroy of India, Nuno da Cunha, being about to attack Mombasah, Avas supplied with provi- sions by the Chief, and the Portuguese presently reduced the coast to a single rule whose centres were successively Kilwa, Sofala, and Mozam- bique. East Africa then became one of the four great governments depending upon the vice- royalty of India; the three others being Ma- lacca, Hormuz, and Ceylon. In this state Zanzibar remained till the close of the next century. When, however, Pedro Barrato de Hezende, Secretary to the Viceroy, Count of Linhares, wrote his ' Breve Tratado ' on the Portuguese colonies of India and East Africa (1635), the Island had ceased to be vassal and tributary, but the Sultan remained friendly to Europeans. Many of the latter occupied with their families rich plantations ; Catholic worship was protected, and there was a church in which officiated a brother of the order of St Austin. There was the usual massacre of the Portu- THE YU'RABI ARABS. 285 guese, and expulsion of the survivors in imita- tion of Mombasah, about 1660 ; and the Island- ers, doubting their power to procure independ- ence, applied for assistance to the Arabs. The reign of the Yu'rabi of Oman, a clan of the great Ghafiri tribe, began as follows. The Imam, Sultan bin Sayf bin Malik el Yu'- rabi, the second of the family, having recovered Maskat (April 23, 1659), and Matrah, created a navy which added Kang, Khishm, Hormuz, Bahrayn, and Mombasah (1660) to the Arabian possessions left by his ancestors. After investing Bombay this doughty chief died in a.d. 1668 or in 1669. His son, Sayf bin Sultan, after de- feating an elder brother, Belarab, became the third Imam of the house of Yu'rabi, and sum- moned to su])mission the petty chiefs on the eastern mainland of Africa. Between a.d. 1680 and 1698, the powerful squadron of the warlike Moor drove the Portuguese from Zanzibar, Kilwa, Pemba, and Mombasah, where he estab- lished as Governor Nasir bin Al)dillah el Mazru'i, the first of the great family of that name. He failed only at Mozambique. Arabs still relate the legend how having closely in- vested the fort they were undermining the wall, when a Banyan gave traitorous warning to the 286 THE YU'RADI ARABS. besieged. Pans of water ranged upon the ground showed by the trembling fluid the direction of the tunnel ; a countermine was sprung with fatal effect, and the assailants, retreating in con- fusion to their shipping, raised the siege/ The squadron, however, pursued its course as far south as the Comoros and Bukini (Madagascar, or rather the northern portion of the Island), whence, hearing of the ruler's death, it returned home. When the Island became Arab property the Wasawahili fled to the 'bush': they presently consented to render personal service, or to pur- chase exemption by annually paying $2 per head. Sayf bin Sultan was succeeded, in a.d. 1711, by his eldest sou, Sultan bin Sayf, who defeated with his fleet of 24 to 28 ships, carrying 80 guns, the soldiers of Abbas III. and of Nadir Shah. After his decease the chieftainship of Oman was seized by a distant relative, Moham- med bin Nasir, Lord of Jabrin, who according to some, first assumed, according to others, re- sumed, the title of ' Imam,' making himself priest as well as prince, like him of Sana' a in Yemen. It has ever been a Khdriji, and espe- cially a Bayazi tenet, that any pious man, not only those belonging to the Kuraysh or the Pro- ' M. Guillain (i. 522) bad vaguely beai-d of this tradition. THE YTTRABI ARABS. 287 pliet's tribe, might rise to the rank of Pontiff. In A.D. 751 they were powerful enough to elect Julanclah ben Mas'iid, but the sticceecling dynasty rejected the term. The usurped rule was reco- vered after his decease (a.d. 1728) by Sayf el Asdi, a younger son of Sultan bin Sayf: this in- dolent debauchee being shut up in Maskat by a cousin, Sultan bin Murshid — some corrupt his father's name to Khurshid — applied for assistance to that Nadir Shah, whom his more patriotic father had successfully resisted. In 174G the Persians, aided by intestine Arab divisions, soon conquered Oman : Sultan bin Murshid slew him- self in despair, and Sayf el Asdi, duped by his allies, died of grief in his dungeon at Uustak. The latter city was in those days the ordinary residence of the Imams ; in fact, a kind of cathedral town as well as capital. The power now fell from the hands of the Yu'rabis (Ghafiris) into the grasp of their rivals, the Bu Saidi (llinawis). These ancient lords of Oman claim direct descent from Kahtan (Joe- tan), great-grandfather of Ilimyar, founder of the Southern Arabs, and brother to Saba, who built in Yemen the city that bore his name : the stock is held to be noble as any in the Peninsula. Oman remained under foreign dominion, paying 288 THE BU SAIDI ARABS. tribute to, and owning the rule of, Nadir Shall, till the Chief of Sohar, Said bin Ahmad el Bu Saidi, struck the blow for freedom. Pive years afterwards (a.d. 1744) his son, Ahmad bin Said, artfully recovering Maskat from Mirza Taky Khan, the Governor of Pars, who had revolted against Nadir Shah, expelled the Persians from Oman. When laying the foundation of the present dynasty he assumed the title of ' Sayyid' (temporal ruler) ; persuaded the Mufti to elect him *Imam' (prince-priest), and was confirmed in his dignities by the Sherif of Meccah. Col- onel Pelly (p. 184, Journal Hoyal Geographical Society, 1865) gives a somewhat diff'erent ac- count — ' It appears, that the family of the Imams of Muskat were originally Sayeds of a village, named E/Owtheh, in the Sedair imme- diately below the Towaij hills. The founder of the family was Saeed. His son's name was Ahmed. They came to Oman, and took service under the dominant tribe called Yarebeh. Subse- quently they obtained possession of the strong hill-fort called Hazm, in the neighbourhood of Hostak. Eventually they became the rulers of Oman, and changed their sect from that of Sun- nee to Beyathee.' Ahmad allied himself with the ex-royal Yu'rabis, by marrying a daughter of THE BU SAIDI ARABS. 289 Sayf el Asdi. After crushing sundry rebellions, he plundered Diu (a.d. 1760), and massacred the population, a disaster from which the great port and fort never recovered. He then sent an army of 12,000 men against the Ghafiri of Ea'as el Khaymah, who had assisted the Persians to attack the Kawasim, and against the Nuaymi, a powerful clan dwelling south of Sharjah on the Pirate Coast. His success was complete ; Khur- fakan, Khasab, Ramsah, Ra'as el Khaymah, Jezirat el Hamrah, Sharjah, and Paslit, all in turn submitted to him. In a.d. 1785 he per- sonally visited Mombasah, and by his lion-like demeanour he secured its submission. Dying shortly afterwards, Ahmad bin Said left the government to his son, Said bin Ahmad, who was declared Imam, but was confined till the date of his death, in 1802, to Eustak and its territory by his younger brother, the ambitious and warlike Sultan bin Ahmad. This prince occupied the islands of Khishm, Ilormuz, and Bahrayn ; he attempted to protect his commerce from the pirates of Julfar and lla'as el Kbaymah, especially the Kawasim, in our books called Jowasmee : ^ these Algerines of the East had now ' The Western as well as the Eastern Arabs turn the hard Kaf into a Jim, e. g. Jibleh for Kibleh. The Kawasim derive VOL. I. 19 290 SAYYW SAID. become Waliliabis, and were backed by all the influence of Saud, Lord of Daraiyyali. After vainly attempting to obtain aid from tbe Pasha of Baghdad, Sultan bin Ahmad was attacked whilst sailing to Bandar Abbas by five ships of the Kawasim, and was shot in the melee on Nov. 18, 1804. This decease brought to power the late Sayyid Said,^ the second son born to Sayyid Sul- tan bin Ahmad in a.d. 1790. His maternal uncle, Sayyid Bedr bin Sayf, and the Wahhabi Chief, Sadd, enabled him to defeat Sultan Kays bin Ahmad of Sohar, another uncle who aimed at usurpation ; but the danger was shifted, not destroyed. At length, in a.d. 1806, Sayyid Said's aunt, the Bibi Mauza, daughter of the Imam Ahmad, and popularly known as the Bint el Imam, determined that Sayyid Bedr must be slain at a Darbar. Sayyid Said, a youth of 16, was unwilling, but the strong-minded woman — in every noble Arab family there is at least one — prevailed, and on July 31 the dangerous pro- their name from a local "Wali, or Santon, the Shaykh Ivasim. * A detailed account of this Prince's early life is given in the ' History of Syed Said, Sultan of Muscat ' . . . trans- lated from the Italian. London, 1819 (written by his physi- cian, Shaykh Mansur, alias Vincenzo). Buckingham, Traser, and Sir John Malcolm have also supplied notices of his event- ful career. SAYYID SAID. 291 tector whilst descending the stairs, was struck in the back by liis nephew's dagger. Sayyid Bedr sprang from the window, and mounted a stirrupless horse which stood below, when he was wounded with a spear ; the ' Imam's daugh- ter,' with a blood-thirstiness truly feminine, cheering on the assassins, till after riding half a mile on the highway from Birkat to Sohar, he fell from his animal and was speedily despatched. The young prince was, they say, so strongly affected by the scene, that through life he could hardly be persuaded to order a death. ^ Thus Said became, with the consent of his elder brother, Sayyid Salim, an independent ruler, and the fourth of his dynasty, the Bu Saich. His proper title was ' Saj'yid,' which in Oman and amongst the Eastern Arabs means a chief or temporal ruler, whereas ' Sherif ' is a descendant of the Prophet. Many Anglo-In- dian writers ignore this distinction. ' Imam ' is an ecclesiastical title, signifying properly the man who takes the lead in public prayer, and it de- mands both study and confirmation : in sect- arian theology it is the hereditary head of El ^ I give this accouut as it was told to me by Lieut. -Col. Ilaraerton. M. Guillain (part II. chap, iii.) may be consulted for another and a more diplomatic version. 292 SAYYID SAID. Islam. The 'Imam of Mascat,' ^ therefore, never followed the practice of his predecessors. His acclamation took place on Sept. 14, 1806. He was immediately involved in troubles with Mom- basah, Makdishu, and the unruly Arab settle- ments of the East African Coast. His possess- ions in Oman also were invaded and overrun by the Wahhabis, under Saiid who died in 1814, and afterwards under his son Abdullah : these energetic Puritans converted, by much fighting and more intrigue, several tribes to ' Unitari- anism ' ; the land was at once fettered with a five per cent. Zakat (annual tribute), of which Maskat paid 12,000 German crowns, and Sohar $8000. Yet his valour and conduct gradually raised Sayyid Said to wealth and importance, and the warlike operations of Mohammed Ali Pasha against the Wahhabis gave him power to throw off the yoke. His personal gallantry in the disastrous affair with the Benu Bu 'Ali (1820 — 21), won him the praise of India, and the gift of a sword of honour from the Governor- General. His tolerance, so unusual in Arabia, the patriarchal character of his rule, and his ^ I cannot but express my astonishment to see a geographer like Eitter, and a veteran from the East like Colonel Sykes (loco cit.), confound 'Imam' with 'Imaun' (Iman), •which signifies faith or creed. SATTID SAID. 293 love of progress, as shown by Ids concessions to European and Hindu traders, and by a squadron of three frigates, four corvettes, two sloops, seven brigs, and twenty armed merchant vessels, en- titled him to a place amongst civilized powers. With England he became an especial favourite, after he had entered into the Palmerstonian views upon the subject of slave exportation. He began by sacrificing, it is said, 100,000 crowns annually, and he declined the various equivalents, £2000 for three years, and other paltry sums offered in a.d. 1822, as a compensa- tion by Captain Moresby, U.X. His friendship with us, indeed, cost him dear : more than once he threatened that if other concessions were de- manded by the unconscionable abolitionist he would escape the incessant worry by abdicating and retirinj? to Meccah. Sayyid Said first left Maskat for Zanzibar in 1828, and finally in 1832, justly offended by our refusing to assist him, according to treaty, against Sayyid Hamud bin Azran bin Kays, the rebel chief of Sohar. Our policy on this occasion is generally supposed to have been prompted by Captain, afterwards Colonel, Sam. Hennell, British llesident at Bushire. This ollicial, acting doubtless under orders, and living 294 SAYYID SAID. in constant dread of ' breaking the peace of tlie Gulfj' preserved it by yielding every point to every man ; and the ignoble attitude which, amongst a warlike race, provoked only contempt, laid the foundation of the last Persian war. It was on a par with the orders which, under pain of dismissal, bound the officers commanding the Honourable East India Company's cruisers in the Persian Gulf not to open fire upon a squadron of pirates unless they began the cannonade ; and which caused the capture by boarding of more than one man-of-war. Zanzibar had, since its conquest by Oman, been governed by an officer appointed from Arabia. Sayyid Said found the town a line of cajan huts, with the fort commanding tlie harbour, which served only for an occasional pirate or slaver. Till a. d. 1822 some 15 or 16 Spaniards and Portuguese ranged these seas, committing every kind of atrocity : they were dangerous outside the port, and when at anchor they were guilty of every crime ; as many as three and four have been killed in a single night, and a priest was kept for the purpose of shriving the stabbed and burying the slain. These, however, were the days of large profits. The share of one Arab merchant in a single adventure was SAYTID SAID. 295 worth $218,000— lie now (1857) begs his bread. Sayyid Said at once began to encourage foreign residents. With a remarkable liberality he at once broke up the monopoly of trade which the Wasawahili had preserved for eight centuries, including the 200 years when it was perpetuated by the avidity and the fanaticism of the Portuguese. The United States, who being first in the market for ivory, copal, and hides, had dispersed their cottons and hardwares throughout Eastern Africa, concluded with him, in Sept. 1835, an advantageous treaty, and estab- lished, about the end of 1837, a trading consul- [^ ate at his court. Four years afterwards (De- cember, 1811) Lieut. -Colonel Hamerton was directed to make Zanzibar his head-quarters as \ ' H. B. Majesty's Consul, and H. E. I. Company's xVgent in the dominions of H. H. the Imaum.' Captain Remain Desfosses, the Mentor of the Prince de Joinville, and commanding the naval division of Bourbon and Madagascar, escorted by a squadron, signed a treaty on November, 1811. lie was accompanied by a consul without a chan- cellier, and the former at once receiving his ex- equatur, began residence. The Sayyid was unfortunate in sundry at- tempts to subjugate the Zanzibar Coast : his 296 SATYID SAID. conduct of war argued scant skill as a general, hut he never forfeited his well-earned favour for per- sonal gallantry. With the true Arab mania for territorial conquest, he eventually succeeded in flying his flag at all the ports that belonged to the Yu'rabi Imams, and which had descended, by the irregular right of succession, to his ances- tor, Ahmad bin Said the Hinawi. The Ma- zara' (Mazrui) clan, alias the Arabo-Mombasah princes, a turbulent and hot-tempered feudality, who, after the massacre of the Portuguese, had been allowed, by Sayf bin Sultan, to retain the city on condition of sending occasional presents and of doing certain baronial services, refused (a. d. 1822) allegiance to the Ayyal Bii Said. Captain Vidal, R.N., finding this important place threat- ened by Zanzibar, accepted an application from the citizens, who had hoisted the British flag; advised that they should be received as prot^g^s, and per- suaded the claimant to withdraw. The Sayyid remonstrated against these measures with the Bombay Government ; and the ministers of the Crown to whom the question was referred, event- ually removed our establishment. Sayyid Said, early in 1828, sailed with a squadron carrying 1200 men, to attack the town, but after taking and garrisoning the fort, he was SAYYID SAID. 297 compelled to make Zanzibar, and eventually Maskat. The retreat was in consequence of the troubles excited by Saiid bin Ali bin Sayf, the nephew of Sayyid Bedr, supported by the sister of Sayyid Hilal, chief of Suwayk, who had been treacherously imprisoned. He was enabled, by the aid of Isa bin Tarif and his dependents, to invest, with a squadron carrying a force of 4000 to 5000 men, about the end of December, 1829, ]Mombasah Fort, from which his garrison had been repulsed. The Mazru'is, numbering a total of some 1500, gallantly held their ground : the Sayyid' s soldiers, suffering severely from fever, refused to fight : briefly two campaigns had little effect upon the besieged, and the Sayyid was obliged to accept the semblance of submission, in order to return triumphant to Zanzibar. After visiting Maskat, and putting down Hamud bin Azran, who had taken Hustak, and was threaten- ing the capital, he broke the treaty with Momba- sah, and blockaded it throughout the N. East mon- soon from November, 1831, to April, 1832. During the next year he attacked the place for the third time ; but, after a week's campaign, he returned once more with Oriental triumph to Zanzibar in February, 1833. Then treachery was called in to do the perfect work. Rashid bin Salim bin 298 SAYYID SAID. Ahmad, the Mazru'i Wall or governor, and twenty-six of his kinsmen, enticed hy the most solemn oaths, which were accompanied by a sealed Koran — it is wonderful how liar trusts liar ! — embarked on one of the Sayyid's ships, which carried his son Sayyid Khalid and Sulay- man bin Ahmad. The vessel instantly weighed anchor, stood for Zanzibar, and consigned its cargo to life-long banishment and prison, at Mina and Bandar Abbas. The Mazara' at once sank into utter obscurity. Sayyid Said was persuaded (Jan. 6, 1843) to attack that notorious plunderer, Bana M'takha, chief of Sewi, a small territory near Lamu, who had persuaded one Mfumo Bakkari, and after- wards his brother Mohammed bin Shaykh, to de- clare himself Lord of Patta, and independent of the Arab prince. The ruler of Zanzibar here failed to repeat his success at ]\Iombasah, the Avily Afri- can shutting his ear to the charmer's voice. The second son, Sayyid Khalid, then disembarked his 1200 to 1300 troops, Maskatis and Wasawahili, ' cowardly as Maskatis,' who with the Suri are the proverbial dastards of the race. He served out with Semitic economy five cartridges per head, and he marched them inland without a day's rest, after a ' buggalow '-voyage from Arabia. Short SAYTID SAID. 299 of ammiinition, and worn out by fatigue, they soon yielded to the violent onslaught of the enemy. The Wagunya, or as some write the word Bajiinf, warriors, described to be a fierce race of savages, descended from the Wasawahili, the Somal, and the Arab colonists, charged in firm line, brandish- ing spear-heads like those of the Wamasai, a cubit long, and shouting as they waved their standards, wooden hoops hung round with the dried and stuff'ed spoils of men.^ The Arabs fled with such precipitation, that some 300 were drowned, an indiscriminate massacre and mutilation took place, the * England ' and the ' Prince of Wales ' opened an effectual fire upon their own boats and friends ; the guns which had been landed were all captured, and the Sayyid Khalid saved him- self only by the speed of his horse. The opera- tion was repeated with equal unsuccess next year, Sayyid Said himself embarking on board the 'Victoria : ' the general, Ilammad bin Ahmad, fell into an ambuscade, and again the artillery was lost. After a blockade of the Coast, which lasted till the end of 18GG, the Kazi of Zanzi- bar, Muhiyy el Din of Lamu, landing upon his * The trophies are drawn out with a lanyard, and cut off when the patient is still alive — after death they are not so much valued'; finally they are dried so as to resemble isinglass. 30.0 SAYYID SAID. native island, talked over the insurgents. Bana M'takha afterwards sent back the Arab cannon, saying that he could not afford to keep weapons which ate such vast meals of powder, and acknow- ledged for a consideration the supremacy of Zan- zibar, retaining his power, and promising but never intending to pay an annual tribute of $5000. Hence the Baloch mercenaries speak of their late employer as a king who bought and sold, and who was more distinguished for the arts of peace than for the nice conduct of war. Even his own subjects complained on this occa- sion of his folly in commencing, and of his want of energy in carrying on, the campaign. The Sayyid's matrimonial engagements were numerous. In 1827 he married the daughter of the Earman-farma (Governor) of Ears, and a grand-daughter of Eath 'Ali Shah, under an agreement in the marriage contract that the bride might spend every summer with her own family at Bandar Abbas or Shiraz. Dis- gusted with Arab homeliness, and \\dth six years of monotonously hot life at Maskat, she obtained leave, and once in a place of safety she wrote back a strong epistle. It began, ' Ya Dayyus ! yd Mal'un, alluding to the report that Sayyid Khalid had violated the harem of his father, as SAYYID SAID. 301 the latter was also said to have done in his younger days. The Arab prince had lowered himself in the eyes of his subjects by represent- ing himself to be a Shiah. She (;alled him a dog-Sunni, and upon this ground she demanded instant divorce. The Sayyid despatched two confidential elders with orders to represent that his spouse could not legally claim such indulg- ence : a singular bastinado upon the soles of their feet soon made the venerable learned dis- cover that divine right was upon the lady's side. Her next exploit was to bowstring, in jealousy, a Katirchi (muleteer) with whom she had in- trigued ; and, driven from Shiraz by the fame of this exploit, she died at Kazimayn, in child-bed, her lover being this time a Ilammamchi, or bath-servant. In A.D. 1833, four years after the death of Hadama I., the Sayyid formed matrimonial de- signs upon the person of Ranavola Manjaka, Queen of the Hovas, and a personage somewhat more redoubtable than our good Queen Bess. Amongst his envoys on this occasion was one Khamisi wa Tani, who, under the Arabizcd name Khamis bin Osman, presently played ' some notable tricks upon the credulous ' compara- tive geographer,' Mr W. U. Cooley. The envoys 302 SAYYID SAID. were kept upon the frontier till the ' Tangi-man ' arrived, bringing the Tangina. This nut, scraped in water, is administered as an ordeal, like the bitter water of the ancient Israelites and the poison nut of modern Calabar. The patient is ordered to walk about; after some 20 minutes he feels atrocious bowel-pains, prolapsus takes place, and he dies ; if wealthy enough to pay the priest, another kind of nut is at once admin- istered, and it may cure by emesis. As soon as this potion, which always destroys traitors with frightful torments, in fact, with the worst symp- toms of Asiatic cholera, was proposed to the am- bassadors, in order to prove the purity of their intentions, and their affection for the royal family, all fled precipitately, as may be imagined, from the ' Great Britain ' of Africa. Sayyid Said was also unlucky in the choice of another Persian bride, the daughter of Irich Mirza, a suppositi- tious son of Mohammed Shah, and hardly a second-class noble. She came to Zanzibar in A.D. 1849, accompanied ])y a train of attendants, including her Parrashas (carpet-spreaders), her Jilaudar (groom), and her private Jellad (execu- tioner). She astonished the Arabs by her free use of the dagger, whilst her intense relish of seeing her people ride men down in the bazar, and of SAYYID SAID. 303 superintending bastinadoes administered with Persian apparatus, made the Banyans crouch in their shops with veiled faces, and the Arabs thank Allah that their women were not like those of the A'ajam. In a short time the lady made herself so disagreeable, that her husband sent her back divorced to her own country. The Sayyid kept a company of 60 or 70 concu- bines, and he always avoided those that bore him children. Though a man of strong frame and vigorous constitution, he exhausted his powers by excesses in the harem, he suffered from Sarcocele (sinistral) during later life, and an alarming emaciation argued consumption. The heat of Maskat, which he last \dsited when hostilities between England and Persia were reported, brought him to his grave. In October, 1856, he died at sea off the Seychelles Islands, on board his OAvn frigate, the ' Victoria.' Aged 67, the ' Second Omar,' as his subjects were fond of calling him before his face, seems to have had a presentiment of death ; before embarking he prepared, contrary to Arab custom, a ' Sandiik el Mayyit,' or coffin, and when dying he gave orders that his remains should be thrown over- board. The corpse, however, was carried to Zan- zibar and interred in the city. 304 SATYID SAID. Sayyid Said was probably as shrewd, liberal, and enlightened a prince as Arabia ever pro- duced, yet Europe overrated his powers. Like Orientals generally, he was ever surrounded by an odious entourage, whom he consulted, trusted, and apparently preferred to his friends and well- wishers. He firmly believed in the African Eetish and in the Arab Sahir's power of me- tamorphosis ; ^ he would never flog a Mganga ' I have alluded to this subject iu my exploration of Harar (chap, ii.), aud a few more details may not be uninteresting. Strong-headed Pliny (viii. .32) believes metamorphosis to be a ' fabulous opinion,' and remarks, ' there is no falsehood, how- ever impudent, that wants its testimony among them' (the Greeks), yet at Tusdrita he saw L. Coisilius, who had been changed from a woman into a man. Curious to say, the learned Anatomist of Melancholy (Part I. sect. 1) charges him with believing in the versipellis, aud explains the belief by lycan- thropy, cucubuth or Lupina Insania. Petronius gives an account of the ' fact.' Pomponius Mela accuses the Druidesses of assuming bestial shapes. Suidas mentions a city where men changed their forms. Simon Magus could produce a double of himself. Saxo Grammaticus declared that the priests of Odin took various appearances. John of Salisbury asserts that Mercury taught mankind the damnable art of fascinating the eyes. Joseph Acosta instances fellow-countrymen in the West Indies who were shot during transformation. Our ancestry had their were-wolf (homo-lupus), aud the Britons their Bisclavaret. Coffin, the Abyssinian traveller, all but saw his Buda change liimself into a hyena. Mr Mansfield Parkyns heard of a human horse. In Shoa and Boruou men become leopards ; in Persia, bears ; in Somali-laud Cyn-hyeuas ; in AVest African Kru-land elephants and sliarks ; in Nam aqua- land, according to the late Mr Andersson, lions. At Maskat SAYYID SAW. 305 (medicine-man), nor cut down a ' devil's tree.' He sent for a Shaykh whose cliaracts were famous, and with a silver nail he attached the transformation is fearfully frequent ; and illiterate Shialis be- lieve the good Caliph Abubekr, whom they call Pir i Kaftar (old hyena), to be trotting about the deserts of Oman in the semblance of a she-hyena, pursued by many amorous males. At Bushire tlie strange tale of Haji Ismail, popularly called ' Shuturi,' the ' Camel'd,' is believed by every one, and was attested with oaths by his friends and relations : this respect- able merchant whilst engaged in pilgrimage was transformed by an Arab into a she-camel, and became the mother of several foals, till restored to human shape by another enchanter. Even in Europe, after an age of scepticism, the old natural superstition is returning, despite the pitch-fork, under another shape. The learned authoress of the Night-side of Nature objects to 'illusionists,' argues lycanthropy to be the effect of magico-magnetic influence, and instances certain hysterical and nervous phenomena of eyes paralyzed by their own weakness. For many years I have carefully sifted every case reported to me in Asia and Africa, and I have come to the conclusion with which most men commence. No amount of evidence can justify belief in impossibilities, in bomi fide miracles. More- over, such evidence mostly comes from the duper and the dupe. Finally, all objective marvels dimiuish in inverse ratio to the increase of knowledge, whilst preternaturalisms and super- naturalisms gradually dwindle down to the natural badly un- derstood. Of course this disclaimer of belief in the vulgar miracle does not imply that human nature has no mysterious powers which, if highly developed and displayed in a dark age, would be treated as a miracle or as an act of magic. It has lately been proved that the will exercises positive and measurable force upon inert matter ; such ' glimpses of natural actions, not yet reduced to law,' — as Mr Faraday said — open up a wonderful vista iu the days to come. VOL. I. 20 306 SAYYID SAID. paper to the doorway of Lieut. -Colonel Ham- erton's sick-room, thereby excluding evil spirits and the ghost of Mr Napier, who had died at the Consulate. He refused to sit for his por- trait — even Colonel Smyth's History of Knight- errantry and Chivalrous Characters failed to tempt him, for the European peasants' reason, — it would take away part of his life. When ' chivalry ' was explained to him, he pithily re- marked that only the ' Siflah ' (low fellows) in- terfere between man and wife, master and man. His pet axiom — a fair test of mental bias — was * Mullahs, women, and horses never can be called good till death,' in this resembling Pulci — Cascan le rose, e restau poi le spine ; K'on giudicate nulla iunaiizi al fine. The Society E^oyale des Antiquaires du Nord sent him their diploma : he declared that he would not belong to a body of grave-robbers and corpse- snatchers. The census of Zanzibar havino" been proposed to him, unlike King David, he took re- fuge with Allah from the sin of numbering his people. When tide-gauges were supplied by the Geographical Society of Bombay, he observed that the Creator had bidden the ocean to ebb and to flow — 'what else did man want to know about it ? ' Such was his incapacity for understanding SAYYID SAID. SO] European affairs, that until death's-day lie be- lieved Louis Philippe to have carried into exile, as he himself would have done, all the fleet and the public treasure of the realm. And he never could comprehend a Eepublic — ' who adminis- ters the stick ? ' Of this enterprising man, the Mohammed Ali Pasha of the further East, I may say, Extinctus amabitur idem. Shrewd and sensible, hii^hly re- ligious though untainted by fanaticism ; affable and courteous, he was as dignified in sentiments as distinguished in presence and demeanour. He is accused of grasping covetousness and treach- ery — but what Arab ruler is not covetous and treacherous ? He was a prince after the heart of his su1)jects ; prouder of his lineage than fond of ostentation or dispkiy, an amateur conqueror on a small scale, mild in punishment, and principally remarkable as the chief merchant, cultivator, and ship-builder in his dominions. An epitaph m.ay be borrowed for him from a man of very different character — first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow-countrymen. Peace be to his manes ! Sayyid Said's territory at the time of his death extended in Oman from the Ra'as el Jebel (Cape Musseldom) to Sohar. In Mekran the 308 SAYYID SAID. seaboard between E-a'as Jask and Guadel be- longed to him : in tlie Persian Gulf he had Khishm, Larak, and Hormuz, and he farmed from the Shah, Bandar Abbas and its depend- ency, Mina. His African possessions were far the most extensive and important. He ruled, to speak roughly, the whole Eastern Coast from IS^. lat. 5°, and even from Cape Guardafui, where the maritime Somal were to a certain extent his dependents, to Cape Delgado (S. lat. 11°), where the Aral3 met the Portuguese rule — an extent of 16° = 9G0 geographical miles. The small re- publics of Makdishu (Magadoxo, in N. lat. 2° r 4"), of Brava (N. lat. 1° 6' 48"), of Patta or Bette (S. lat. 2° 9' 12"), and of Lamu (S. lat. 2° 15' 42"), owned his protectorate, and in April, 1865, Marka received from him a garrison. The whole Zanzibarian Archipelago was his, and he claimed Bahrayn, Zayla, Aden, and Berberah, the first-mentioned with, the last three without, a shadow of right. His Arab subjects declared that they, and not the Portuguese, ceded Bom- bay to the British : the foundation of the story is a mosque built in ancient times by the Omanis, somewhat near the present Boree Ban- dar. Sayyid Said left a single widow, the lady SATYID SAID. 309 Azza bint Musa, of the Bii Khariban, a grand- daughter of the Imam Ahmad, and consequently a cousin. She is now (1857) in years, but her ancient linea£;:e and her noble manners retain for her the public respect. She had but one child, which died young : all the male issue of the Prince are by slave-girls, a degradation in the eyes of free-born Omani Arabs. As usual amongst the wealthy and noble of the poly- gamous East, the daughters are the more nu- merous,^ and many are old maids, the pride of birth not allowing them, like the Sherifehs of the Hejaz, to wed with any but equals. The eldest of the fourteen sons, Sayyid Hilal, who, in 1845, had visited England, it is said, after an escapade, died at Aden en route to Meccah in 1851. He was followed, after an interval of a few months, by his next brother, Sayyid Kha- lid, called the Banyan. The eldest surviving ^ In the .Journal of Anthropology (No. ii. Oct. 1S70, Art. ix.), James Campbell, Surgeon, E.N., produces a paper upon 'Polygamy; its influence on Sex and Population,' showing, by 17 cases drawn from Siam, exceptions to the common theory that in the patriarchal family more female than male cliildreu are born. But the evidence is too superficial to shake the belief of men who have passed their lives in poly- gamous countries ; moreover, in the families cited the male- producing powers may either have been unusual, or they may have been peculiarly stimulated. 310 SAYYID SAID. heir (Sayyid Suwayni), the son of a Georgian or Circassian slave, born about 1822, became by his father's will, successor to and lord of the north- ern provinces. To Sayyid Majid, the fourth son, now (1857) aged 22, a prince of mild disposition and amiable manners, contrasting strongly with the vigorous ruffianism of his elder brother, was left the Government of Zanzibar and of the East African Coast. There is, as usual amongst Arabs, a turbulent tribe of cousins : of these the most influential is Sayyid Mohammed, a son of Sayyid Salim bin Sultan, younger brother to the late Prince, who some years ago died of con- sumption. Hitherto he has used his powers loyally — ruling, but not openly ruling. Sayyid Said's valuable property, including his planta- tions, was sold, as his will directed, and the money was divided according to a fixed scale, even the youngest princes claiming shares. No better inducement to permanent dissension could have been devised. But Eastern monarch s ap- parently desire that their dynasties should die with them. Eath Ali Shah of Persia, when asked upon his death-bed to name a successor, drew a sword and showed what made and un- made monarchs : scarcely had the breath left his body than the chamber was dyed with the blood SAYYID SAID. 311 of his sons, each hastening to stab some hated rival brother. These lines were penned in 1857. Since 1859 the hapless and turbulent family has been in a state of fratricidal strife, and the province of Oman has reverted to its normal state of in- trigue, treachery, and assassination. Sayyid Suwayni, a negligent and wasteful though not an unpopular man, to whom the English were especially obnoxious, threatened in 1859 an at- tack upon Sayyid Majid, and was prevented by British cruisers ; in due time he was murdered by his son, Sayyid Salim, Avho usurped the Government. This Sayyid Salim was dethroned by his uncle, Sayyid Turki, who surprised Mas- kat, and made himself master of the situation. The European would imagine that the stakes were hardly worth such reckless play : Arabs, however, judge otherwise. CHAPTEE YIII. ETHNOLOGY OF ZANZIBAR. THE FOREIGN RESIDENTS. ' Quiconque ne voit guere N'a guere a dire aussi. Mon voyage depeiut Vous sera d'un plaisir extreme. Je dirai; j'etais la; telle chose m'avint, Vous y croirez etre vous-meme.' — La Fontaine. I The 300,000 souls ^ now (1857-9) composing the residents on, and the population of, the Zan- zibar Island, are a heterogeneous body. The former consist of Americans and Europeans, ' The extremes mentioned to me were 100,000 and 1,000,000. Captain Smee (1811) gave 200,000. Dr Ruschen- berger (1835) made the population of the Island 150,000 souls, of whom 17,000 were free negroes. M. Guillain (1816) places the extremes mentioned to him at 00,000 to 200,000 : when he asked the Sayyid, the latter replied like a veritable Arab, ' How can I know when I cannot tell you how many there are in my own house ? ' THE CONSULAR CORPS. 313 about 14j000 Banyans (including those of the Coast), a few Parsees and Portuguese from Goa, and sundry castes of Hindustani Moslems, Kho- jahs, Mehmans, and Borahs, numbering some 1200. There are also trifling numbers of free blacks from the Comoro Islands, Madagascar, Unyamwezi, and the Somali country. To this accidental division I will devote the present chapter. The Consular corps is represented by three members, who, as usual in these remote Oriental spots, assume, and are allowed to assume, the position of plenipos. The first American official was Mr Bichard Palmer, who was succeeded by sundry acting men : the second was Mr "Waters, who left in 18 i4. : then came Mr C. Ward, Mr Webb, and Mr Macmullan. Captain Mansfield now (1859) holding office, is agent to Messrs John Bertram and Co. of Salem. This gentle- man, who took a great interest in the East African Expedition, has had a more extensive experience of the East than his predecessors ; he has also the advantage of being respectable and respected. On the part of the French Government the first Consul was M. Broquant : he died of fever and dysentery at Zanzibar, and was succeeded by 3U THE CONSULAR CORPS. M. de Beligny, a Erencli Creole from Santo Domingo, afterwards transferred to Manilla and to Charleston, South Carolina. M. Vignard, a young man of amiable manners, and distin- guished in Algeria as an Arabic scholar, fell victim to a sunstroke when voyaging from Aden, where I met him en route for his post. The pre- sent Consul is M. Ladislas Cocliet : the Chan- cellier and Dragoman is M. Jablonski, Pole and poet. Lieut. -Colonel Atkins Hamerton is, and has been, I have said, H. B. Majesty's Consul, and H. E. I. Company's Agent at the Court of H. H. Sayyid Said, since December, 1841, when we first established relations with Zanzibar. Attached to his establishment is a passed apothecary, an Eurasian, the only attempt at a medico on the Island. Lieut. -Colonel Hamerton had been on terms of intimacy with Sayyid Said during a quarter of a century ; and their friendship, as happens, began with a ' little aversion.' The Britisher proposed to travel in the interior from Maskat, in those days a favourite exploration with the more adventurous ; and the Arab, sus- picious as all Arabs, thinking it safest to put the intruder out of the way, imprudently wrote a letter to that effect. This missive fell into the LIEUT.-COLOXEL HAMERTON. 315 liunds of the person whom it most concerned : he boldly carried it to the Prince, and reproached him in no measured terms with his perfidy. Sayyid Said found himself overmatched, sub- mitted to Kismat, and, admiring the traveller's S2)irit and openness, determined to win his at- tachment. The two became firm friends ; the Consul was the influential adviser of the ruler, and the latter intrusted him with secrets jeal- ously hidden from liis own. The reason why the trade of Zanzibar was surprisingly devel- oped under the primitive rule of an Arab Prince is not only the immense wealth of Eastern Africa, it results mainly from the wise measures of a man who for the greater part of his life devoted himself to the task. It was an un- worthy feeling which made M. Guillain write of my late friend (ii. 23), ' Bref, sa reputation est de placer fort bien, et a beaux benefices, I'argent que lui donnent la reine et le gouvernment de la compagnie ' — his generosity to his family left little after his decease. Not the least of Sayyid Said's anxieties upon his death-bed was to reach Zanzil)ar alive, and even when half-unconscious he continually called for Colonel Hamerton. It is suspected that he wished to communicate the place of his concealed treasures, which, despite 316 LIEUT. -COLON EL HAMERTON. the most careful search, were never found. When hidins: their hoards it is not unusual for Arabs to put to death the slaves who assist in the labour, and thus to prevent negro indiscretion. The family, I may here say, firmly believes that Colonel Hamerton knows where the hoards lay, and yet refuses to divulge the secret. It will not be easy properly to fill this ap- pointment. Without taking into consideration the climate, it is evident that few Englishmen are prepared to settle for long years at remote Zanzibar, and Arabs do not care to trust new men. Yet it would be the acme of short-sisrht- edness to neglect this part of East Africa. Our Anglo-Indian subjects, numbering about 4000^ in the dominions of Zanzibar, some of them wealthy men, are entitled to protection from the /Arab, and more especially from the Christian ' merchants. Almost the whole foreign trade, or at least four-fifths of it, passes through their ^^^''- _ hands; they are the principal shopkeepers and . // i artisans, and they extend as far South as Mozam- bique, Madagascar, and the Comoro Islands. During the last few years the number of In- dian settlers has greatly increased, and they have ^ The extremes of the guess-work ceusus are 2600 aud 5000. EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT. 317 obtained possession from the Arabs, by purchase or mortgage, of many landed estates in the Say- yid's dominions. The country can look forward only to a moderate development whilst it con- tinue in the present hands, but the capabilities of the coast are great. Labour only is wanted ; and a European power establishing itself upon the mainland — this object has frequently been proposed, and is steadily kept in view — could in a few years command a territory and a com- merce which would rival Western India. The other white residents are commercial, and it is with no little astonishment that the Englishman finds no direct trade with Great Britain, and meets none of his fellow-country- men at Zanzibar.^ Their absence results not from want of venture or dearth of business, but from supineness on the part of the authorities. No merchant can profitably settle where he can- not freely correspond, receive advices that ships have been despatched, and obtain orders for car- goes and consignments. Moreover, large sums have been wasted by respectable houses in settling here trustworthy agents and sober men. The fcAv favourable exceptions found the climate either ' In 18G2-3 a Eombay firm established a brancli oti the Island, but 1 have not heard of the results. 318 EUROPEAN RESIDENTS. unendurable or fatal. Hitherto, however, Eng- lishmen have done little, and, I write it unwill- ingly, Englishwomen have done less, for the honour of the national name at Zanzibar than in most parts of the East. Two girls came out to the Island, married to the usual ' black princes,' who mostly turn out to be barbers or domestic servants ; this proceeding greatly scandalized the white residents, and the Desdemonas gave more trouble to the officials than the whole colony. The principal American houses are those of Messrs Bertram & Co., represented by Captain Mansfield, Mr Ropes, and Mr Webb : Messrs Hufus Green & Co., also of Salem, have three agents, Messrs Winn, Spalding, and Wilkins. Lastly, there is Mr Samuel Masury, of Salem, a * general merchant,' distinguished for probity and commercial sagacity : he left Zanzibar during our exploration of the interior, and he presently came to an untimely end. The Erench houses began with a misconcep- tion, a certain chancellier having reported offici- ally to his Government, that 232 ships annually visited and loaded at Zanzibar. The intelligence caused considerable excitement : it was believed that every vessel left these shores crammed with FRENCHMEN. 319 copal, ivory, and gold dust, and the Erencli merchants resolved hy concurrence to drite the Americans out of the field. Messrs Vidal freres of Marseille despatched according'ly to Zanzi- bar Messrs Bauzan, Wcllesley, and Peronnet, and appointed M. Mass their second agent at Lamu. They were opposed by Messrs Kabaud freres, also of Marseilles, a house from whom we received especial kindness : their Zanzibar man- ager was M. Hannibal Berard, and M. Terassin was sent to the ' bone of contention,' Lamu. These firms choose their employes amongst their captains, who act supercargoes as well as com- manders ; they are estimable men, sober and skilful, but painfully lax in dealing with ' les negres.' Their Consul publicly declared that it was his duty to curb the merchants, as well as to protect the commerce of France. The specialty of the French houses is oil. They export the cocoa-nut in various forms, sesamum and other oleaginous grains, which Provence converts with such energy and success into huile d' olives. The sesamum is a compara- tively new article of commerce, yet the Periplus (chap, xiv.) numbers Ekeon Sesiiminon (oil of sesamum) amongst the imports from India. Now it is supplied chiefly by Lamu. Vast 320 FRENCHMEN. quantities could be grown there, but the natives, though large advances have been offered to them, will not extend their cultivation for fear of low- ering the price, which has lately doubled. Prench ships now visit the West Coast of India as far North as Kurrachee, in search of sesamum, and last year (1856) 27 vessels took cargo from Bombay. At length the Marseille houses found out that Zanzibar is overstocked with buyers ; that demand in these regions does not readily, at least, create supply ; that it is far easier to dis- pose of than to collect a cargo ; that the African man will not work as long as he can remain idle, and that sure profits are commanded only by the Banyan system ; briefly, the two Erench houses are eating up each other. The Messrs Vidal are named for a loss of $400,000, which it will be impossible to recoup. It is also reported that too sanguine M. le Chancellier was threatened with a proces-verbal ; of his 232 ships 70 were whalers, many names had been twice registered, and only 32 (232 minus 200) took in cargo. The houses from Hamburg, that ' Carthage of the Northern Seas,' conclude the list of Euro- peans. The brothers Horn and M. Quas, agents for Messrs Herz and Co., are the most successful GERMANS. 321 copal cleaners ; they find it more economical to keep a European cooper than to depend upon the bazar. Messrs William and Albert OsAvald, British proteges, represent their father ; they are assisted by M. Witt, an intelligent young man, who having graduated in Californian gold-fields, proposes to prospect the Coast. M. Koll acts for Messrs Hansing and Co., and, lastly, M. Pteich, lately returned to the Island, is the re- presentative of Messrs Midler and Co. Europeans are, as a rule, courteously treated by the upper classes, and civilly by the Arabs at Zanzibar; this, however, is not always the case on the Coast. They are allowed to fly flags; every merchant has his staff upon bis roof, and there is a display of bunting motley as in the Brazil. Even a Cutcli boat will carry the Say- yid's plain red colours, with the Union Jack in tliQ corner, and the Turkish crescent and star in the centre. Composed of patch-work material, the Euro- peans do not unite, and their disputes, especially Ijetween compatriots, are exasperated by com- mercial rivalries, which have led to serious viola- tions of faith. All is wearisome monotony: there is no society, no pleasure, no excitement ; sport- ing is forbidden by the treacherous climate, and, VOL. I. 21 322 FOOD. as in West Africa and the Brazil, strangers soon lose tlie liabit of riding and walking. Moreover, the merchants, instead of establishing the busi- ness hours of Bombay, make themselves at home to their work throughout the day; this is the custom of the Bonny Biver, where supercargoes are treated like shopkeepers by the negroes. European women, I repeat, seldom survive the isolation and the solitary confinement to which not only the place but also the foul customs of the people condemn them. The necessaries of life at Zanzibar are plenti- ful, if not good. Bread of imported wheat is / usually ' cooked ' in the house, and the yeast of sour toddy renders it nauseous and unwholesome. ' '^There have been two bakers upon the Island : one served at the Consulate, the other, a Persian, was in the employment of the Prince. Meat is poor ; a good preserved article would here make cent, per cent. Poultry is abundant, tasteless and unnutritious ; fish is also common, but it is hardly eatable, except at certain seasons. Cows' milk is generally to be had, but the butter is white, and resembles grease ; fruit must be bous^ht at the different bazars earlv in the morning. All such articles as tea, wine, and spirits, cigars, tobacco, and sweetmeats, are im- EXPENSE. 323 ported from America or from Europe, — the town supplies nothing so civilized. Retail dealing is wanted, and the nearest approach to a shop is the store of a Khojah, who will buy and sell everything, from a bead to a bale of cloth. //' All articles but money are expensive at Zan- (zibar, where the dollar represents our shilling.^ This is the result of the large sums accumulated by trade and of the necessity of importing pro- visions ; we see the same process at work through- out the tropical Brazil. Moreover, in all semi- barbarous lands a stranger living like a native, may live upon ' half-nothing ; ' if he would, how- ever, preserve the comforts of home, and especially if he would see society, he must consent to an immoderate expenditure. Finally, where the" extremes of wealth and poverty meet, and where semi-civilization has not discovered that pru- dence is a virtue and improvidence a blunder, the more man spends the more he is honoured. ^ I have been much amused by the comments of tlie press upon the expenses of minor officials living abroad, as elicited from Ministers and Charges d'Afl'aires by the Diplomatic Com- mittee of 1S70. There seems to be a deeply-rooted idea in the British brain that, because heavily taxed, our native island is the most expensive of residences. On the contrary, I have even found England the cheapest country, and London the cheapest capital in Europe. At Fernando Po my outlay was never less than£lSOO; at Santos (Brazil) it was £1500; at Damascus, from £1200 to £2000, and so forth. 324 EXPENSE. The humblest dwelling at Zanzibar lets un- furnished for £80 to £100 per annum. Purni- ture of all kinds, porcelain, china, plate, and , linen, no matter how old, fetch more than prime /Scost, and $1 will be paid for a patched and y rickety chair worth in London a shilling. Cloth- ing must be brought from Europe : broad cloth is soon spoiled by sun and damp, and shoes must not be exposed to the air — it is well to have the latter one or two sizes larger than at home. The luxuries of life are of course enormously dear, when they are to be purchased. During the Sayyid's absence the women of his harem have, through the eunuchs, sold for a song the valu- able presents sent from Europe ; and after the return of the royal vessels from Bourbon and the Mauritius, watches and chronometers, sex- tants and spy-glasses, have been exceedingly cheap. In both cases the stranger- j)urchaser would have done well to remember that he was buying stolen goods. Another cause of expense at Zanzibar is the present state of the currency. The rouble of E-ussia is the franc of Erance, and here the standard of value is the Maria Theresa or Ger- man crown, averaging 4^. 2d. Bearing the die of 1780, and still coined at the mint of Vienna for EXPENSE. 325 tlie Arab and the E. African trade, it is perferred by the people simply because they know it. The popular names are Riyal (i.e. real, royal) or Girsli (groschen, 'broad' pieces). Spanish dollars (bu takeh, ' father of window,' whence our ' patak'), elsewhere 8 per cent, more valuable, are here only equal to Maria Theresas. In 1846 a Erench Mission failed to fix the agio of the 5 franc piece at 10 per cent, below the Spanish dollar, which still remained 12.50 to 14 per cent, more valuable. The Company's rupee, better metal than both the above, being still a comparative stranger, loses nearly a quarter of its value. Other silver pieces are the * E-obo ' (Spanish quarter dollar) of 25 cents, and the pistoline (20 cents); these, however, are subject to heavy agio. Small change is always rare, another sure sign of thriftlessncss, and it is strange how scarce is bullion in a land so wealthy : I can only account for the fact by the Oriental practice of burying treasure.^ Where men reside solely for gain and sorely against the grain, little can be expected from society. Every merchant hopes and expects to leave Zanzibar for ever, as soon as he can realize a certain sum ; every agent would persuade his em- ^ For other details conceruing the currency see the Appendix. 326 SERVANTS. ployer to recall him. Of late years, also, foreign- ers complaiu of a falling off in ivory, copal, cloves, and other articles which the natives, it might be supposed, could most easily supply ; thus profits are curtailed, and a penny saved is a penny gained. Most residents are contented with an Abyssinian or Somali girl, or perhaps an Msa- wahili; with a Portuguese cook, who consents to serve till he also can get away ; and with a few hired slaves or free blacks, the dirtiest, the least honest, and the most disorderly of domestics. The British Consulate is the only establishment which employs Indian Moslems, perhaps the best of Eastern attendants. This luxury costs, how- ever, at least £25 per mens., each man receiving from $10 to $12, about double the wages paid in India, and all are ever anxious to return home, the mal de pays making them discon- tented and unhappy. The bumboat-men and the beach-combers are Comoro rascals, who some- times gain considerable sums; there are also some half-a-dozen negroes, speaking a little bad Prench, and worse English, who offer themselves to every stranger, and who fleece him till turned away for making the quail squeak. Workmen are hired by the day. Carpenters demand $0.50,T three times the Indian wage, and the day's ^?^- MECHANICS. 327 /work is at most 5 hours ; of these men 4 << S barelv did in 43 what 2 ship-carpenters managed ^ ^n 5 days. The Macksmith and tin-man receive / from $0.50 to $1 per diem ; the goklsmith is paid according to the value of what he takes in hand — so much per dollar-weight. The merchants, par excellence of Zanzibar, are the enterprising Bhattias or Cutch Banyans. The Periplus (chap, xiv.) mentions an extensive import trade for Ariiike and Barugaze, the latter generally identified with Baroch.^ Vasco da Gama found ' Indians,' especially Calicut men, at Mozambique, Kilwa, Mombasah, and Melinde, and by their information he reached their native city. From the beginning of the present century the monopoly fell into the hands of the Bhattia caste. At first they were obliged to make Zanzi- bar, via Maskat, in a certain ship which sailed once a year : they were exposed to many hard- ships and perils : several of them were murdered, and when a Hindu died the Arabs, like the Turks of Masawah, claimed the droit d'aubaine. They rose in mercantile repute by commercial integrity, frugality, and perseverance, whilst the inabilitv of the Moslem Sarraf to manasjc ac- ' Pliny, however (vi. 33), culls Baricazu a ' towu of -^iithiopia.' 328 BANYANS. counts or banking put great power into their hands. At Maskat and the neighbourhood they number nearly 500, and here about 400.' They extend soutliwards to Angosh (Angoxa) and Mozambique, where they make fortunes by the sale of Casimir noir, and where they are now as well treated as they were formerly tyrannized over by the Portuguese. Thus, though never leaving the seaboard, they command the inland trade, sending, where they themselves do not care to travel, Arabs and Wasawahili to conduct their caravans of savages and slaves. For this reason they have ever been hostile to European exploration, and report affirms that they have shown no scruples in compassing their ends. They are equally powerful to forward the dis- coverer; they can cash drafts upon Zanzibar, Mandavi, and Bombay ; provide outfits, supply guards and procure the Pagc4zi, or porters, who are mostly their employes. Ladlia Damha farms the customs at Zanzibar, at Pemba Island his nephew Pisii has the same charge: Mom- basah is in the hands of Lakhmidas, and some 40 of his co-religionists ; Pangani is directed by Trikandas and contains 20 Bhattias, including ^ In 1844 there were 500 Banyans on the Coast and Island, — the number has now nearly trebled. BANYANS. 329 those of Mbweni ; even the pauper Sa'aclani has its Banyan ; Ramji, an active and intelligent trader, presides at Bagamoyo, and the customs of Kilwa are collected by Kisliindas. I need hardly say that almost all of them are connected by blood as well as by trade. \ The Bhattia at Zanzibar is a visitor, not a colonist; he begins life before his teens, and, after an expatriation of 9 to 12 years, he goes /home to become a householder. The great change of life effected, he curtails the time of residence to half, and furloughs become more frequent as transport waxes easier. Not a Hindu woman is found upon the Island ; all the Ban- yans leave their wives at home, and the conse- quences are certain peccadilloes, for which they must pay liberally. Arab women prefer them because they have light complexions ; they are generous in giving jewels, and they do not in- dulge in four wives. Most of them, however, especially those settled on the Coast, keep liandsome slave-girls, and, as might be expected Avhere illegitimates cannot be acknowledged, they labour under the imputation of habitual infan- ticide. On the other hand, their widows may not remarry, and they inherit the husband's property if not embezzled bv relatives and caste-fellows. 330 BANYANS. The Bhattias are forbidden by their Dharma (' caste-duty ') to sell animals, yet, with the usual contradiction of their creed, all are inveterate slave-dealers. They may not traffic in cowries, that cause the death of a mollusc ; local usage, however, permits them to buy hippopotamus- tusks, rhinoceros-horn, and ivory, their staple of commerce. We cannot wonder if, through their longing to shorten a weary expatriation, they have sinned in the matter of hides. This, together with servile cohabitation, caused a scandal . some years ago, when the Maharaj, their high priest, sent from Malwa a Chela, or disciple, to investigate their conduct. Covered with ashes and carrying an English umbrella, the holy man arrived in a severe mood ; he rejected all civili- ties, and he acknowledged every address with a peculiar bellowing grunt, made when ' Arti ' is offered to the Dewta or deity. The result was a fine of $20,000 imposed upon the rich and Avretched Jayaram. The sum was raised amidst the fiercest and most tumultuous of general subscriptions, and since that day the spoils of the cow have been farmed to a Khojah employ^. All oppose with might and main the slaughter of cattle, especially in public, and they attempt to quit the town during the Moslem sacrificial days. BANYANS. 331 The long limp black hair, the smooth yellow skin, and the regular features of the Bhattia, are conspicuous near the woolly mops, the grinning complexions, and the flat faces of the Wasawahili. His large-peaked Cutch turban, white cotton coat or shoulder cloth, and showy Indian dhoti around the loins, contrasts fa- vourably with the Arabs' unclean garb. The Janeo, or thread of the twice-born, passes over his shoulder, and, in memory of home, he encircles his neck with a string of dry Tulsi stalks (Ocimum canum, a species of herb Basil), which he now grows at Zanzibar. His manners as well as his outer man are rendered pleasant and courteous by comparison with the rest of the population, and he is a kind master to his serv- iles, who would love him if they possibly could love anything but themselves. These Hindus lead a simple life, active only in pursuit of gain. On the Coast, where profits are immense — Trikandas of Pangani, for in- stance, claims $26,000 of debt — they have sub- stantial stone houses, large plantations, and "•oodlv sanffs of male and female slaves. Those resident at_Zanzibar,iire, less anxious, to -display: theirjnialth : all, however, are now entitled by treaty to manage their own affairs without the 332 BANYANS. interference of the local Government. These Banyans will buy up the entire cargoes of American and Hamburg ships : the ivory from the interior is consigned to them, and they pur- chase the copal from the native diggers. They rise at dawn to perform the semi-religious rite ' Snan ' (bathing), apply to business during the cool of the day, and dine at noon. Avoiding Jowari, the Arabs' staff of life, they eat boiled rice, vegetables, and ghee, or wheaten bread and Mung, or other pulse, flavoured with assafoetida, turmeric, and ' warm spices.' They chew to- bacco, though forbidden by caste rule to smoke it, and every meal concludes with betel-nut and pepper-leaf, whose heating qualities alone enable them, they say, to exist at Zanzibar. They work all day, rarely enjoying the siesta unless rich enough to afford such luxury : they bathe in the evening, sup at 9 p.m., chew betel once more, and retire to rest. !. As the Island contains no local Dewta, the Bhattias are careful to keep a Yishnu in the house, and to travel about, if possible, Avith a cow : in places like Pangani, where the horned god cannot live, they supply its place by a Hanuman (a small monkey, like the Presbyter Entellus of India) trapped in the jungle. BANYANS. 333 Pagodas not being permitted, they meet for public devotions at a house in the southern quarter of the city, where most of them live, / ^ and lately they have been allowed to build a s kind of fane at Mnazi Moyya. As usual with ' Banyans, the Bhattias have no daily prayers : on such festivals as the Pitri-paksha — the ' Manes- Portnight,' from the 13th to the 18th of the month Bhadrapad — they call in, and fee a Brah- man to assist them. Their proper priests are the Pokarna, who, more scrupulous than others, refuse to cross the sea : the Sarsat Brahmans, so common in Sind and Cutch, are the only high- caste drones who to collect money will visit Zanzibar and Maskat. With a characteristic tenderness, these Banyans cook grain at the landing-places for the wild slaves, half-starved by the ' middle-passage,' and inclination as well as policy everywhere induces them to give alms largely. Apostasy is exceedingly rare : none Islamize, except those who have been perverted by Moslems in their youth, or who form connec- tions with strange women. The Comoro men, here the only energetic proselytizers, have, how- ever, sometimes succeeded : a short time ago two Bhattias became Mohammedans, and their fellow caste-men declared that the Great Destruc- 334 BANYANS. tion was drawing nigh. Yet Vishnu slept, and still sleeps the sleep of the just. When a Bhattia's affairs become hopelessly involved he generally ' levants ' : sometimes, however, he will go through the Diwali or bank- ruptcy, a far more troublesome process than the ' Gazette.' The unfortunate places in his store- front a lighted lamp, whence the name of the ceremony, and with head enveloped in a sheet, he silently occupies the furthest corner. Pre- sently a crowd of jeering Moslems collects to see the furious creditors ranting, scolding, and beat- ing the bankrupt, who weeps, wails, calls upon his god, and swears to be good for all future time. These degrading scenes, however, are now becoming rare. They remind us of the Tuscans and the Boeotians of old, ' who brought their bankrupts into the market-place in a bier, with an empty purse carried before them, all the boys following, where they sat all day, circumstante plehe, to be infamous and ridiculous.' All Hindus are careful when returning home from foreign travel to purge away its pollution by performing a Tirth or Yatra to some holy spring, and by large payments to Brahmans. Moslems declare that when the death-rattle is heard, one of those present ' eases off' the mori- BANYANS. 335 bund by squeezing bis tbroat. Banyan corpses are burnt at a place about two miles bebind tbe town, and tbe procession is accompanied by a guard to keep off naugbty boys. Wben a Bhattia dies witbout relatives on tbe Island, a committee of bis fellow caste-men meets by tbe order of H. B. Majesty's Consul ; takes cogni- zance of bis capital, active and passive ; and, after settling bis liabilities, remits by bill tbe surplus to bis relatives in India. Tbe following is a list of tbe otber Hindu castes to be found at Zanzibar : — Brahman, of wbom tbere are now six indi- viduals, two Gujrati, and four Eajgarb, both sub-castes of tbe Sarsat. One of tbem, Prad- ban Joslii, is a Sbastri — learned in tbe Veda. Kbattri, four in number : of tbese one is a trader, and tbe rest are carpenters capable of doing a very little very rough work. AVani (pure Banyan) one. There are also three or four of tbe Lohana sub-caste from Sind and Cutch. Lobar, or blacksmitli : of this Shudra sub- caste there are five ; one acts Sutar (carpenter), and a second is a Sonar, or goldsmith — in Cutch the occupations are not separated by 'Dliarma.' A few Parsees from Bombav visited Zan- 336 PARSEES. zibar ; two were carpenters, and the third was a watchmaker, dishonest as his craft usually is. To the general consternation of Europeans, two Parsee agents lately landed on the Island, sent by some Bombay house whose name they concealed. These will probably be followed by others, and if that most energetic of commercial races once makes good a footing at Zanzibar, it Avill pre- sently change the condition of trade. They are viewed without prejudice by the Arabs and the Wasawahili. The late Sayyid was so anxious to attract Parsees, who might free him from the arrogance and the annoyance of 'white mer- chants,' that he would willingly have allowed them to build a ' Tower of Silence,' and to per- form, uninterrupted, all the rites of their re- ligion. The Indian Moslems on the Island and the Coast were numbered in 1844 at 600 to 700. Besides a few Borahs and Mehmans, Zanzibar contains about 100 Khojahs, who are held to be a ' generation of vipers, even of Satan's own brood.' Here, as in Bombay, they are called Ismailiyyahs, heterodox Shiahs, who take a name from their seventh Imam Ismail, son of Ja'afar el S^dik, while orthodox Shiahs believe the seventh revealed Imam to have been Musa el SHIAHS. 337 Kazim, another son of Ja'afar el Sadik ; and the founder of the Sophy (Safawi) dynasty, yi the tenth century of the Hijrah (a.d. 1501). They have derived from the Batinis and Karmatis cer- tain mystic and subversive tenets ; and they are connected in history with Hasan Sabah (or Say- yah, the travelling Darwaysh), our Vetulus de montanis, or Old Man (Shaykh, i.e. chief) of the Mountains, and with modern Ereemasonry, which l)egins to appear when the Crusaders had settled in that home of heresies, Syria and Pal- estine. Hence the tradition that the Pirst Grand Lodge was transferred to Lake Tiberias, after the destruction of Jerusalem. They practise the usual profound Takiyyah (concealment of tenets), call themselves Sunnis, or Shialis, as the case may require, and assume Hindu as well as Moslem names. The Imam to whom they now pay annual tribute is one Aglia Khan Mahallati, a Persian rebel, formerly Governor of Kirman, and afterwards notorious upon the Bombay turf. Tliis incarnation of the Deity is not intrusted with any of the secrets of his sect. The Kho- jahs have at Matrah, near Maskat, an enclosed liouse, which the Araljs call Bayt el Liiti. They declare that both sexes meet in it, and that when on a certain occasion it was broken open, a VOL. I. 22 338 KHOJAHS. large calf of gilt silver was found to be the object of worship. Other incredible tales are also told about the sect : they remind us of the legends of the Libanus, which make the Druzes, apparently another offshoot of the Batini, wor- ship El Ijl (the calf) when the figure is placed in their Khilwahs, or lodges, in memory of the detested Nishtakin Darazi, and in contra-dis- tinction to El Akl, Hamzeh, their greater ' prophet.' ^ No Agapomenical establishments exist at Zanzibar : the chief of the heretic sect is one Haymah, who has, however, but little authority, and who commands even less respect. The Khojahs at times repair to a tumbledown mosque on the sea-shore south of the city, in the quarter called Mnazi Moyya. By no means deficient in intelligence, though >fiinscrupulous and one-idea'd in pursuit of gain, /ythe Khojahs are the principal shop-keepers in ^Zanzibar. They are popularly accused of using false weights and measures ; they opposed the in- troduction of a metallic currency, and they have ever advocated, with the Prince, a return to the bad old state of barbarism. Many have applied ' Such is the general view. There may, however, be a section of the Druze creed that retains the calf-image in honour. HANDSOME MOSES. 339 themselves to slave- dealing, and lately one was deported for selling poison to negroes ; they are receivers of stolen goods, and by the readiness with which they buy whatever is brought for sale, they encourage the pilfering propensities of the slaves. They travel far and wide ; several of them have visited the Lake E/Cgions, and we afterwards met, at Kazeli of Unyanyembe,^ one of their best men, Musa Mzuri. At Zanzibar all not in trade are rude artisans, who can patch a lantern and tin a pot ; one of them, who had learned to mend a watch, repaired the broken wheel of my pocket pedometer. Of the free blacks who visit and who some- times reside in Zanzibar, I have mentioned the Malagash : these Madagascar Islanders occupy the easternmost suburb of the town. In early ages the Arab and Wasawahili settlers on the western coast of the Great Island traded with the Mozambique, the Sawahil, and even Arabia, and since 1829 the persecutions of the Queen Ranavola-Manjaka, and the heavy yoke of the Ilova conquerors, caused many to leave their homes. The rare Somal need hardly be no- ' * Handsome Moses ' is mentioned in ' The Lake Eegiona of Central Africa' (i. 323, et passim), lie and lijs ' brother,' Sayyan, entered the country about 1830. 340 ' comoro-men: ticed. During the season a few run down from Makdishu and Brava, to trade and barter hides and cattle. There are almost 2000 men from Angazijeh (Great Comoro), Mayotta, Hinzuwan or Anjuan (Johanna), and Muhayli. The word Comoro is evidently corrupted Arabic, meaning Moon-Island. The natives of the Archipelago here preserve their own language, which seems to be a superstruction of Javanese and Bali, Arabic, and Sanskrit erected upon a primitive insular dialect, meagre and un-Aryan. Others have detected in it a resemblance to that of the Philippine Islands,^ and hold the people to be of Malay origin. The blood was Persianized and Arabized in the 12th century, and the Sultan and chiefs have ever since retained the Semitic physi- ognomy ; but the extensive negro innervation has so tainted the blood that no diflPerence can be perceived in the characteristic effluvium between them and the Wasawahili. It is curious to hear them, withal, boast of their Koraysh de- scent, and pride themselves upon the glories of the ancient race that produced the ' Basiil Ullah.' In A.D. 1774 they hospitably entertained the ^ I state this upon the authority of Lieut.- Colonel Hamer- ton. Capt. Guillain (iii. 414) appears to think the lauguage Zangian much mixed with Arabic. JOHANNA-MEN. 341 crew of an East Indiaman wrecked whilst en route to Bombay. The Sultan of Johanna received in return a magnificent present from the H. E. I. Company, and the Comoro Islanders gained for themselves a permanent good name. A con- siderable emigration was caused in the early part of the present century by intestine divisions and by piratical attacks from Madagascar, whilst the slave emancipation by the Erench in 1847 set a large class free to travel. Of late they have displayed a savage and mutinous spirit, and two men were put to death for attempting with peculiar audacity the life of the young chief, Abdullah. Amongst Eastern impostors the Comoro, especially the Johanna men, are facile principes : the singular scoundrels have completely mastered the knack of cajoling Europeans — no Syrian Dragoman can do it better. Once or twice a year they tell-off begging-parties, who visit Mauritius and Aden, Bombay and Calcutta, and who invari- ably represent themselves as being on ' Church- bijness,' i.e. pilgrimage. Linguists, after the fash- ion of Egyptian donkey-boys, they also have the habit, like the petty Shaykhs and Emirs in the Lil)anus, of calling themselves ' princes.' ^lore than one scion of Comoro loyalty, after obtain- 342 JOHANNA-MEN. ing a passage on board our cruisers, insisting upon the guard being turned out, and claiming from our gullible countrymen all the honours of kinghood, has proved to be a cook or a bumboat- man. Unscrupulous as bigoted, they have in- duced half-starved Europeans to apostatize by promises of making them chiefs and of marry- ing them to princesses ; after circumcision, the wretches were left to starve. The Comoro men settled at Zanzibar are mostly servants in European houses, Avhere they recommend them- selves by exceeding impudence and by being handy at any fraud. Others are rude artisans, and the rest are Mercuries, beach-combers, and bumboat-men, who supply sailors with Yenus and Bacchus, both execrably bad. When expect- ing invasion, Sayyid Majid equipped about 130 of these fellows as a garde de corps : they had flint muskets, two spears apiece, and lozenge- shaped hats, whereas the common troops wore woollen night-caps. Einally, they are cowardly as they are dishonest : it was not without astonish- ment that I heard of Dr Livingstone engaging a party of them for exploration in the African interior, and the trick which they played him is now a matter of history. The Diwans or chiefs of the mainland ports A BLACK JUGURTHA. MS and towns occasionally visit the Island on public and private business. Twice a year, in our mid- summer and midwinter, a crowed of the Wanyam- wezi and other races of the inner intertropical regions flock, via the Coast, into Zanzibar, where they engage themselves as porters, and undertake carrying packs for the native traders to the Lake Regions and other meeting-places of commerce. They are so wild, that they cannot be induced to enter a house; and the terror of one who was brought to the consular residence was described as grotesquely comical : even the more civilized look upon a stone abode as a cavern or a dun- geon. These half-naked miserables may be seen devouring, like birds of prey, carrion and putrid hsh in the outskirts of the city ; they have also a ' Devil's tree,' whose trunk bristles with nails, and whose branches are robed in foul ra":s. Some years ago one of the chiefs of the in- terior, I was told, Avas brought to Zanzibar a prisoner of war. He is described as a man of kingly presence, G feet 2 inches tall, handsome in face, and well-formed in head ; his skin was covered with scar and tattoo in patterns, amongst which the crescent shape predominated.^ When ' One of my iuformants suggested that from this peculiar tattoo, ' Uuyamwezi,' the Land of the Moon, might have talieu 344 A BLACK JUGURTHA. struck by his Arab owner he spat upon him, and declared that if burnt alive he would not cry out. Being carried before the late Sayyid, he boldly told him that ' God exalts men and brings them low, that both were kings, and that the same misfortune which had made one a captive might also happen to the other,' As he walked through the streets all the slaves, wild and do- mestic, prostrated themselves, to be touched by the point of his staff; they served him with food upon their knees; they remained in that position while he ate, and all wailed when he was placed in the Port. The same story is told of an old ' Congo king,' who is still remembered at Kio de Janeiro. The prisoner of Zanzibar invariably placed his foot upon presents, and when the Sayyid restored him to liberty he departed empty- handed. M. Broquin, the Trench Consul, and other Europeans made inquiries about this black Jugurtha : all they could discover was that his country lay somewhere about the great Central Lakes. A few Wazegura, Wasegejo, and Wadigo, heathen from the mainland, visit Zanzibar to buy and sell, or to fly from foes and famine. The the name which the Greeks after their fashion literally trans- lated ' Mountain-range of the Moon.' FLYIXG POPULATIOX. 345 greater portion settle permanently upon the Is- land, the savage for the most part unwillingly exchanges the comforts and pleasures of semi- civilization for the wildness and freedom of ' Nature,' so dear to the man of refinement. These Africans live by fishing and work in the plantations : they easily obtain from the large landed proprietors bits of ground, paying as a yearly quit-rent half a dollar and upwards ac- cording to crop, manioc, bananas, and sweet potatoes. CHAPTER IX. HORSEFLESH AT ZANZIBAR. — THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE CITY, AND THE CLOVE PLANTATIONS. ' Peregrination cliarms our senses with such unspeakable and sweet variety, that some count him unhappy that never travelled, and pity his case, that from his cradle to his old age beholds the same still ; still, still the same, the same.' — ' Anatomy of Melakcholt,' Part II. sect. ii. mem. 3. Most Europeans at Zanzibar keep horses which they seldom ride. The Sayyid, however, had, after hospitable Arab custom, placed a large stud at the disposal of Lieut. -Colonel Hamerton and his guests. I had heard much of the Oman blood, so before excursioning to the outskirts of Zanzibar City we proceeded to the Prince's stables. The late ruler had rarely less than 200 mares, whose value ranged between $1500 and $2000 : ARAB HOUSES. 347 at present, however, the number is greatly re- duced. They require as much nursing as Euro- pean dogs : in the morning they must be pick- eted in the courtyard to ' smell the air ' ; during the day they must take shelter from the sun under a long cajan-roofed shed ; they must at all times be defended from rain and dew ; and they must be fed with dry fodder — here, as in Paraguay, the belief is that the indigenous green meat becomes fatal to imported beasts. We found the treatment very rough. The animals were un groomed, and mostly they had puffed legs, the result of being kei^t standing night and day upon a slope of hard boarding. Amongst them I was shown a curious Nejdi, which re- minded me of Lady Hester Stanhope's pam- pered beasts ; the coat was silver-white, the shoulders were pinkish, and the saddle-back amounted almost to a deformity. The favourite charger of the late Sayyid is a little bay with black points, standing about 11 hands 2 inches : its straight fetlocks are well fitted for stony ground, it wears the mane almost ujjon the withers, and the shoulder is well thrown ])ack, barely leaving room for the saddle. The hind- quarter, that weak point in the Arab, is firmly and strongly made, and the tail is thin, switch- 348 OTHER HORSES. like, carried nearly straight, as usual with the best blood, and remarkably his^h. The beau- ideal of a Nejdi is an animal all shoulder and quarter, connected by a bit of barrel; and to this pitch of excellence we are gradually breed- ing up our English horses. The charger in question is of the ancient Oman race, once cele- brated for endurance : the late Sayyid, how- ever, injured his stud by crossing foal and dam, brother and sister, till the animals fined down and dwindled to mere dwarfs. I remarked that, here as elsewhere, the Arabs have learned from Europeans to trace the genealogy of their horses through the sire, a practice unknown to the sons of the desert. All the best horses in Zanzibar come from Oman : an inferior strain is exported by Brava (Barawa), and the Somali country. The latter sends good little beasts somewhat like those of the Pernambucan Province ; but worn out by long marches and scant feeding, they usually die during the first rains. Upon the mainland they will live for years. Here, however, the new im- portations at first fatten ; then they get foul ; the sweat becomes fetid ; they lose breath and become unfit for work, till fatal disease mani- fests itself by foam from the mouth. As in MULES AND ASSES. 349 Malabar and Mauritius, where the field-officers have often been dismounted, it is next to impos- sible to keep horses in health and condition : they are also costly, $150 to $200, German crowns, being asked for Kadishs or garrons. The Government stables at Zanzibar also contain a few mules brou'^ht from the Persian Gulf. They become liable to inveterate drowsi- ness ; they start when approached, refuse food and drink, and soon succumb to the climate. The ass, on the contrary, here as in the East African interior, thrives even upon hard food, and consequently it is prized by the Arabs. There are many breeds. During the season fine animals are brought from Oman; iron-grey mares with white legs being preferred ; Bahrayn and the Persian Gulf send a large light-coloured beast, resembling that of Baghdad ; it is not, how- ever, considered lasting. Asses imported from Brava and the Somali country are held fit only for carrying burdens, and the Unyamwezi breed, known by its lopped ears, though strong and serviceable, is always but half tamed, and is often vicious. The most useful and lastini? are the Mutawallid or Muwallid, the progeny of Maskat beasts, Creoles born upon the Island — these we were advised to buy before leaving for 350 ASSES AND CAMELS the interior. I subsequently purchased thirty, and the last died within six months of landing : we then mounted Unyamwezi animals, and had nothing to complain of. Asses are ridden, as they always should he, upon the crupper ; the ' hulus ' are rather pads than saddles, cov- ered with thick cloths and black sheepskins ; no one uses stirrups, and the bridle is the rudest of contrivances. The price of donkeys ranges from $15 to $100 : I bought a tolerable riding animal for $60, and I heard of one costing $350. Pinally, the Sayyid keeps for the use of his plantation-mills a few miserable mangy camels from Brava and ]\Iakdishu : they may be worth $10 to $12 a-head. Mounted on the Prince's best we passed through the town, where the long sharp poles projecting from the low house-eaves are not pleasant to those riding spirited nags. This is the labour hour, and all are not inactive. The weaver on his raised clay bench, and shaded by his dwarf verandah, is engaged upon a turban, whilst his neighbour converts copal, reddened by cinnabar, into ear-rings and other ornaments. The tinsmith and the Comoro blacksmith, with the usual African bellows, are also at work ham- mering at pots and pans, fashioning the normal MORNING WORK. 351 weapons, arrow and spear heads, and repairing old guns. The leather-worker is moulding a targe of rhinoceros-hide, apparently all umbo, and the vendors of oil and grain, spices and drugs, glass and ' potions,' are on the alert. By the way we walked into the partially-walled com- pound or court representing the slave-market, a bona fide affair, not like the caravanserai which used to be fitted up and furnished by the Cairene Dragoman for the inspection of curious tourists. In 1835 a wooden cage some 20 feet square often contained some 150 men, women, and children, who every day were ' knocked down ' to the highest bidder in the public ' place.' In those times the yearly importation was 6000 to 7000. The bazar was subsequently held in the Chan- gani Quarter, near the Western Point ; the late Sayyid, however, having forbidden, by way of sop to the British Cerberus, the sale of men in the streets of Zanzibar as of Maskat, it was shifted to a plantation called Kirungani. As this was found inconveniently distant, it mi- grated to its present site. Lines of negroes stood like beasts, the broker calling out ' bazar khush ! ' — the least hideous of the black faces, some of which appeared hardly human, were surmounted by scarlet night-caps. All were THE SLA VE MARKET. horridly thin, with ribs protruding like the circles of a cask, and not a few squatted sick on the ground. The most interesting were the small boys, who grinned as if somewhat j)leased by the degrading and hardly decent inspection to which both sexes and all ages were subjected. The woman-show appeared poor and miserable ; there was only one decent-looking girl, with carefully blacked eye-brows. She seemed modest, and had probably been exposed for sale in con- sequence of some inexcusable offence against decorum. As a rule, no one buys adult domestic slaves, male or female, for the sufficient reason that the masters never part with them till they are found incorrigible. These, however, are mostly Bozals, or wild serviles newly driven from the interior, and they are not numerous, the transactions of the year being now concluded. The dealers smiled at us, and were in good humour. It would be easy to adorn this subject with many a flower of description ; the atrocities of the capture, the brutalities of the purchase, the terrors of the middle-passage, and the horrors to which the wretches are exposed when entering half-civilized lands. It was usual to throw the slaves overboard when the fatal symptom, copro- SLAVE DRIVERS. 353 phagism, appeared amongst them. A single Dau (Dow) belonging to the late Prince Khalid lost when running a course 500 slaves by sickness, and by the falling of the pont-flottant or flying- deck — many a desperate naval action could not show such a butcher's bill. A certain Charles L , a kiln- dried Mauritius man, crucified seven negroes in terrorem : two were fastened outside the ship, the others were nailed by the feet to the deck, and by the hands to capstan l)ars, lashed across the masts. With a lighted tar-barrel in an empty boat he nearly caused the loss of an English cruiser, and when she was well on the reef he let off rockets and saluted her. Another man, a Spaniard, finding his ven- tures likely to die of dysentery, sewed them up before he sent them to the bazar; this slaver made an act of contrition before he died, and severely blamed his bowie-knife. Sensational paragraphs, however, are not wanted by those to whom the subject is familiar, and they are likely to mislead the many who are not. I shall return to the subject of slavery in another chapter. Thence we entered the Malaga sh Quarter, where the land belongs chiefly to Say y id Sulay- man bin llamed, a former Governor of Zan- zibar ; he is said to be so wealthy that he VOL. I. 23 354 THE ' RED BAZAR: ignores the extent of his means. Here is the Lai Bazar, the very centre of prostitution, an Agapemone of some twenty Cyprians : all are Wasawahili — the Indian women, who appear almost European in complexion and features, having now left. Their faces like skinned apes, and lean legs encased in red silk tights, make their appearance revolting as their society is dan- gerous. Some of them cool the orhits of the eyes by a kind of loup of perfumed turmeric, whose golden tint causes the outer darkness to gloom extra sooty ; others apply curry-coloured dabs to the woolly hair. Sundry of these patches are frontlets or medicines applied to the temples. In former days we used, for instance, 'rose- water and vinegar, with a little woman's milk, and nutmegs grated upon a rose cake,' and the Jews are said to have smeared themselves with Christian blood. The Malagash Quarter is at the far east of the city, leading to two tumble-down bridges which span a lagoon more deadly than that of British Accra. These ruins misrht easilv be con- verted into dykes, and in process of time the mouth would be sanded or silted up ; they are however, fated to make way for iron improve- ments. In my day the lagoon was connected by THE FETID LAGOON. 355 fresh water with the sea, and became now a muddy pool at the ebb tides of the Syzygies, then a sheet of festering mnd which nearly en- circled the settlement, and which converted the site of Zanzibar city into a quasi-island. Every evening a pestilent sepulchral miasma arose from it, covering the skin with a clammy sweat, and exhaling a fetor which caused candles to burn dim, and which changed the sound of the human voice. Lazy skippers anchoring here for facihty of watering, thus exposing their men to the breath of the fetid lagoon, have lost in a few days half the crew ; and although the water appeared to be of the purest, it became so offen- sive that often the casks had to be started. We then passed over a sandy flat, thinly powdered with black vegetable humus. To the left was a creek upon whose sandy beach vessels are hauled up, and where ships of 300 to 400 tons can be safely careened : in a few years there Avill here be a dock. A mile of neat footpath placed us at the late Sayyid's Summer Palace, Mto-ni, which is distant about three direct miles from the Consulate. After escaping the un- pleasant attentions bestowed upon us l)y the tame ostriches, who are apt to use beak and wing, we dismounted for inspection. The build- 356 THE SUMMER PALACE. ing is of coral rag, pierced with square windows, and the winpth ; but who, it may be asked, attempts the subject and does not ? The idea of the Godhead varies with every race, of which it is VOL. I. 26 402 THE BAYAZI. the highest mental and moral expression; the higher the conception the higher will he the intel- lectual status, and vice versa; even the same race constantly modifies its hold for hetter or for worse. I do not helieve that the sages of Greece and Rome were polytheists or idolaters, although they may have sacrificed cocks to Escu- lapius. Under almost all mythologies, even the Hindu, there is an underlying faith in monothe- ism. But the God of the Jews, of the Christians, and of the Moslems, differs in kind as well as in degree, even as the God of Calvin would not he the God of Channing. A late writer has pub- lished several pages of very good writing and very had reasoning, upon the contrast of the Deity, as worshipped by Chiistianity and by El Islam. His error has been to assume Wahhabiism for the tjTpical form of the latter. I might as well work out the theory that the Anabaptist Protestant is the Clmstian ^j^ar excellence. Like the article on the Talmud which lately created so much attention, it is an able bit of special pleading and no more. Amongst Moslems, Paradise is supposed to em- brace the extent of the earth and firmament, and the late Sayyid used quaintly to remark, that his scanty orthodox subjects would people it but poorly. The Baytizi, unlike others of the Saving THE BATAZI. 403 Eaitli, which we may better translate ' le Salut/ hold hell-fire to be the eternal portion of even their own sinners ; thus literally interpreting the text, 'ever, to all eternity (dwelling) in it (hell),' — Ma \^ ^.-^5'o- . They have no prayer-station round the Ka'abah, and they relieve then' chagrin by proving these oratories to be 'novelties,' un- known to the Prophet's day. The ritual differences between the Bayazi and other schools are small ; in prayer the arms and hands are extended down the thighs, instead of being folded over the waist. Contrary to the practice of Sunnis and Shiahs, they may wear gold or silver rings of indefinite weight, and silks and satins, provided that the latter be removed diu'ing in'ayer. These sectarians cannot marry women with whom they have cohabited ; divorce is imperative from wives whom they have visited at a forbidden season, and they allow legitimacy to cliildren born within two years after the father's death. Amongst the Sliafei the period extends to four years : physiological ignorance of ovarian dropsy fixed the time ; and mistaken charity has refused to shorten it. In general the Baydzi, like tlie Druze, appears unwilling to explain his tenets, a remarkable contrast with the self-assertion and the controversial readiness of other Moslems. 404 THE BAYAZI. Wlien betraj^ed into argument tliey quarrel about their belief — a sign of weakness ; the calmly and thoroughly convinced, for instance an honest Scotch country minister, only smiles with pity upon the man who dares to differ from him. The studied simplicity and literalness of the sect and its fierce intolerance, combined with its crass semi- barbarism and isolation from the great family of nations, have favoured the progress of Wahhabi puritanism, and accordingly many Bayazi have ranged themselves under the uncompromising banner of puritanical ' Unitarianism ' — hteralism and Koranolatry. Of old the Kharijis were the flowers of the Islamitic garden; and history will ever dwell upon the literary glories of Seville and Cordova. It was this heresy that produced the Allamat (doctissimus) El Ghazah, and the celebrated Persian grammarian and poet, the Imam Abii'l Kasim Mohammed bin Omar, El Zamakhshari. His wife attacked his vile belief in man's Eree-will with an argumentum ad hominem more demon- strative than purely logical. It caused him, however, to recant the error and to express his penitence in that glorious ode beginning — THE BAYAZL AOl * Thou who seest the midge extend her wing Athwart the gathered glooms of gloomiest night,' and to end life in the firm conviction of fate and predestination. His commentary (the Kashshdf 'an Hikaik el Tanzil) displayed a logical reason- ing, a profundity of learning, and purity of style which made it popular throughout El Islam, and it cleared the way for a long procession of similar productions. In modern degenerate days the Bay^zis of Zanzibar have little education and no learning : they must even borrow from the Sunnis com- mentaries (Tafsh) and other religious works, whence they can extract food for their own crav- ings of belief. Of these the most popular are El Bokhciri, the Jehilayn, and El Baghawi; the abstruse Bayzdwi is seldom troubled. Logic is neglected : history, philosophy, and the exact sciences are unknown. Being Arabs, they do not require El Sarf (accidence or the changes of the verb), and the Alfiyyeh of Ibn Malik is the only popular treatise upon the subject of El Xahw (syntax, and the changes of non-verbal parts of speech). The Kazis of the Bayazi and the Sunni schools lecture in their own houses upon the religious sciences, and the elementary establish- ments may number on the Island 15 or 16. Here 406 THE BAYAZI. boys learn to read tlie Koran, and to "vvrite tlie crabbed angular hand which distinguishes these Moslems. N^khodas master a little arithmetic and navigation at Bombay and Calcutta. Some few have been sent to England and France, where they showed no want of attention or capacity : on their return to semi-barbarism, however, al- most all went to the bad; they robbed and plotted, and most of them died of drunkenness and de- bauchery. The best education to be had at Zanzibar can only exercise the memory ; it does little to culti- vate the understanding or to improve the mind. Yet the people, averse to literary labour and despising learning in the presence of business, pleasure, or idleness, are shrewd and plodding ' thinkers,' and probably for the reason that their wits are not blunted by books and lectures, they are a match for Europeans in the everyday busi- ness of life. It is evident that where the profound- est ignorance of our elementary knowledge co-ex- ists with practical wisdom, there is a large field for the labours of ci\dlization, and that the western school, if kept strictly secular and pure of prose- lytizing, would be a blessing to the children of both sexes at Zanzibar. CHAPTEU XI. COMPARATIVE ANTHROPOLOGY (eTHNOLOGy) OF ZANZIBAR — THE WASAWAHILI AND THE SLAVE RACES. 'Venti anni sono, il commercio di Zanzibar era nullo ; ora il commercio li supera 50 milioni di frauchi. Per alcuni articoli, per esempio, pel garofaiio, per la gomma copale, e l)er Tavorio, il mercato di Zanzibar e divenuto il principale del Mondo.' — P, 17, La grandezza Italiana, by the learned geographer Cavagliere Cristoforo Negri. Torino, 1864. The Wasawahili, bounded north by the Somal and the Gallas, south by the so-called Kafir tribes, extend along the Indian Ocean from ^lakdishu to Mozambique, a coastal distance of some 1050 miles ; they also occupy the Zangian Ai'chipelago, and the islets that fringe the shore. They call themselves Wazumba, ignoring the term Jabarti or Ghiberti (Gibberti), still ap- 408 THE WASAWAHILI. plied to them by the northern Moslems. It is given by El Makrizi to Zayla in Somaliland, and by other writers to the Abyssinian ' Moors ; ' vocatur quoque Jabarta, i. e. Uegio Ardens. This insititious race might be called Hamito-Semitic if anywhere we could discern that the mythical Ham, or his progeny, ever became negroes. They are, as they confess themselves to be, mulattos, descended from Asiatic settlers and colonists, Arabs, and Persians of the Days of Ignorance, who intermarried with the Wakafiri or infidels. The author of the Natural History of Man is correct in asserting their African origin, but he under-estimates the amount of Asiatic innervation. The traveller still witnesses the process of breeding half-castes : Maskatis and Baloch stiU trade to the coast harbours, and settle as agriculturists in the maritime regions, whilst the African element is maintained in the Island by a steady importation of slave girls. The Wasawahili differ in one essential point from their congeners of mixed blood, Egyptian, Nubian, Abyssinian, Galla, Dankali, Somal, and the northern negroids ; these have not, those like the Comoro men distinctly have, the negro effluvium, they are the 'foumarts, not the civets,' of the human race. RACIAL EFFLUVIUM. 409 I am compelled by its high racial significance to offer a few words upon this unpleasant topic. The odour of the Wasawahili, like that of the negro, is a rank foetor, sui generis, which faintly reminded me of the ammoniacal smell exhaled by low-caste Hindus, popularly called Pariahs. These, however, owe it to external applications, aided by the want of cleanhness. All agree that it is most offensive in the yellow-skinned, and the darkest negroids are therefore preferred for domestic slaves and concubines. It does not depend upon diet. In the Anglo-American States, where blacks live like whites, no diminu- tion of it has been remarked ; nor upon want of washing, — those who bathe are not less nauseous than those who do not. After hard bodily exercise, or diu'ing mental emotion, the cpiderm exudes a foetid perspiration, oily as that of omnge peel : a negro's feet will stain a mat, an oar must be scraped after he has handled it, and a woman has left upon a poHshed oaken gun-case a hemispherical mark that no scrubbing could remove. This ' Catinga,' as the Brazilians call it, taints the room, infects every part of the body with which it comes in contact, and exerts a curious effect on the white races. A missionary's wife in Zanzibar owned to mo that it caused her 410 THE TWO FAMILIES. almost to faint. I have seen an Englishman turn pale when he felt that a crowded slave-craft was passing under his windows, and the late Sayyid could not eat or drink for hours after he had been exposed to the infliction. The Wasawahih may be rouglily estimated at half a miUion of souls. In 1850 Dr Krapf (Vocabulary of six East African Languages) pro- posed 350,000 to 400,000. In Zanzibar Island they are divided into two great families, a dis- tinction hitherto disregarded by travellers. The Shirazi, or nobles, derive themselves from the Shangaya settlement, also called Shiraz, on the coast north of Lamu in about S. lat. 2'' ; thence they extended to Tungi, four days' sail south of the Rufuma river. Asserting themselves to be Alawi Sayyids (descended from the Khalifah Ali) they take the title of Muigni, 'lord,' equiva- lent to the Arab ' Sherif,' whereas the other chiefs are addressed as B'ana — master. The last Msawahili Sultan in the days of the Arab conqueror, Ahmed bin Said, was Ahmed bin Sultan bin Hasan el Alawi. The actual head of the family is entitled Muigni Mku by his people ; by the Europeans, ' King of the Sawahili.' His name is mentioned in the Khutbah or Eriday Sermon ; he collects the poU-tax, and receives a ORIGIN OF THE WASAWAHILL 411 percentage, some say one half, others only S2000, when paying it into the Sayjad's treasury. He was never, however, admitted to any equahty hy the Arab ruler. The Shirazi clan does not now contain more than a hundred families. The Wasawahili race appears, from the ' Kilwa Chronicle ' (Huma Chronica dos E^eys de Quiloa) mentioned by De Barros (1st Decade of Asia, viii. 4, 5), to have been derived from the ' Emozaydis ' (Amm Zayd) or followers of their Imam, Zayd bin Ali Zayn el Abidin bin llusayn, the grandson of the Prophet. He was proclaimed Khalifah at Kufa in a. n. 122 (a. d. 739), under the Khalifat of El Hesham bin Abd el Melek, the Ommiade, by whom he was conquered and slain. The pre- tender's son, Yahya, fled to Khorasan, where the Abbasides were already making head against the Ommiades, and the tenets of his followers, the Zaydis, spread throughout Yemen, where they formed, and they still form, a numerous and influential class. Other ' Shiah ' partisans took refuge from persecution in East Africa, fortified themselves upon the littoral about Shangaya, and, extending southwards, became lords of the land. Some generations afterwards an emigration of Sunni Ai'abs from El Ilasa, in three ships, commanded by seven brothers flying from the 412 THE ' EMOZAYDIS: tyranny of their chief, visited the coast, founded Makdishu and Brava, and extended to Sofala. The ' Emozaydis,' unwilling to accept orthodox rule, retired into the interior, intermingled with the Kafir race, and hecame the Bedawin of the country. The second Persian emigration took place early in our eleventh century. A certain Ali, son of a ' Moorish ' Sultan Hasan, who governed Shiraz, hy an Ahyssinian slave, finding himself despised by his six brethren, fled wdth wife and family in two ships from Hormuz to East Africa. At Makdishu and Brava, finding Arabs of another faith (Sunnis), he went to KUwa Island, bought land with cloth, took the title of Sultan, and fortified himself against the Kafirs and against the Moslems of Songo-Songo and Changa, whose dominion extended to Mompana (Mafiyeh). The latter, together with other islets, was conquered by his son. Sultan ' Ali Bumale,' and the dynasty lasted a grand total of 541 lunar years before the arrival of Cabral at Kilwa in July, A. D. 1500. These Shirazis originated the noble family of the Wasawahili, who do not claim - descent from the older ' Emozaydis.'^ ^ The Mahadimu, or serviles, a word derived from the Arabic Makhadim, the ' Mohaydin ' of ' Further details will be given in Part II. chap xi. SERVILE WASAWAHILL 413 Europeans, compose the mass of the Wasawahili race. They are popularly derived from the slaves Jcft upon the Island by the Portuguese. It must, however, be observed that most of the great families in Eastern and Southern Africa have congener clients, or rather outcastes, who are probably, Uke the Spartan Helots, remnants of subjugated rivals. Thus, to quote but a few, there are the jMidgans amongst the Somal, the Walangulo or Ariangulo and Dalialo amongst the Southern Gallas,^ and the Wandurobo amongst the Wakwafi. The Wasumbara have their Washenzi ; the Hottentots their Bushmen, and the Kafirs then' Eingos. In a former volume I have shown that even the Arabs of Oman and Yemen are mixed with Khadims, a system of race within race, as contrary to the spirit of El Islam as of Chris- tianity. These servile castes are distinguished by swarthier skins, weaker frames, and other signs ' A highly interesting account is given of this almost unknown race by the Eev. Thomas Wakefield in his 'Footprints in Eastern Africa, or Notes of a Visit to the Southern Gallas ' (London, Eeed. 1866, pp. 7G— 79). We are told that 'the Galas never stab a ]\Ilaugulo, but removing the blades of their spears, they thrash him to death with the shafts or handles: ' moreover, that ' tlie Walangulo approach a Gala on their knees, crying, "tiririsho! tiririsho ! tiririsho ! " until their greeting is acknowledged by a grunt from their lord or by the latter spitting out a little saliva ! ' 414 THE WASAWAHILI. of inferior development. The Mahadimu of Zanzi- bar are evidently the ancient lords of the Island, reduced to a manner of servitude by northern conquerors. Though now free, and often slave- owners, these Helots are subject, at the Prince's order, to an occasional corvee, and to a poll-tax. The amount of the latter affords a rude census ; the adult males range between 10,000 and 12,000, and the women, it is said, are proportionally more numerous. The Wasawahili of the Island appear physically inferior to those of the seaboard : as in the days of Marco Polo, they are emphatically an ugly race. If the girls in early youth show traces of prettinesSjit is a grotesque order of the beauts du diable. Some of the men have fine, large, strong, and muscular figures, without being able to use theu' strength, and as amongst uncivilized people generally, the reality falls short of the promise. The national peculiarity is the division of the face into two distinct types, and the contrast appears not a little singular. The upper, or intellectual part, though capped by woolly hau% is distinctly Semitic — with the suspicion of a caricature — as far as the nose-bridge, and the more ancient the family the more evident is the mixture. The lower, or animal half, especially THE WASAWAHILI. 415 the nostrils, lip, jaws, and chin is unmistakably African. There are a few Albinos with silk-cocoon- coloured hair, and tender-red eyes, their pinkish skins are cobwebbed by darker reticulations and rough from pellagrous disease. Leucosis, however, is rare ; we saw only two cases, one on the Island, the other a youth near Tangd. The Wasawahili are by no means a jet-black people, as Pritchard, misled by Dr Bird, has as- sumed ; nor, indeed, is this the distinction of the Zanzibarian races generally. The skin is a choco- late-brown, varying in shades, as amongst our- selves, but usually not darker than the complexion of Southern Arabia. About Lamu and Patta the coloiu' is yellow-brown ; at Mombasah and Zanzi- bar dark -brown; and south of Kilwa, I am told, l)lack-brown. Mostly the hah' is jetty, unless sunburnt ; crisp, and curling short ; it splits after growing a few inches long, and often it is planted like the body pile, in distinct 'pepper-corns.' The barbule is a degeneracy from the Arab goatee, and the mustachios are short and scanty. The oval skull, too dolichocephalous to be purely Caucasi- an, is much flatttmcd at the walls, and sometimes tlic u])p(n* brow (the reflective region of Gall) is loo highly developed for the lower. The eyes, with dark-brown pupils and cornea stained duty 416 THE WASAWAHILL bilious-yellow, are straight and well- opened, but the nose is flat and patulous, the mouth is coarse and ill-cut ; the lips, often everted, project un- duly; the teeth are obhquely set, and the jaw is prognathous. The figure is loose and pulpy, and even in early manhood the waist is seldom finely formed; in many men I have seen the nipples placed unusually low down, whilst the women have the flaccid pendulous breasts of negresses. Both sexes fail in point of hips, which are lank and angular, whereas those of the inner savages are finely rounded. The shanks are bowed for- wards, the calf is high raised and bunchy, the heel is long, and the extremities are coarse and large. There is another proof of African blood which can hardly be quoted here : many overland travellers have remarked it amongst the boatmen of Egypt.^ Veritable half-castes, the Wasawahih have in- herited the characters of both parents. Erom the Arab they derive shrewd thinking and practice in concealing thought : they will welcome a man with the determination to murder him ; they have unusual confidence, self-esteem, and complacency ; ^ The curious reader will find it in the Travels of Marco Polo (chap, xxxvii. note 1, p. 432, of "Bohn's x^utiquarian Library). THE WASAWAHILL 417 fondness for praise, honours, and distinctions; keenness together with short-sightedness in matters of business, and a nameless horror of re- sponsibihty and regular occupation. Afi'ica has gifted them with comparative freedom from bigotry — they are not admodum dediti re- ligiorfibus. Usually the Moslem combines com- merce with proselytizing, opposed to our sys- tem, which divides by a wide gidf the merchant's career from that of the Missionary, and which unites them only upon the subscription sheet. These people care little to make converts : their African languor upon doctrinal points pre- vents their becoming fanatics or proselytizers. African also is their eternal, restless suspicion, the wisdom of serf and slave compensating for their sluggish imagination and small powers of concen- tration. They excel in negro duplicity ; they are infinitely great in the ' Small wares and petty points of cunning,' and they Mill boast of this vile eminence, saying, ' Are we not Wasawahili ? ' men who obtain their ends by f oxship ? Natum mendacio genus, truth is unknown to it ; honesty and candour are ignored even by name. AMien they assert th(^y probably lie, when they swear they certainly lie. The favourite oath is ' Mi mi wad (or M'ana) hanimf — I am a bastard if,' &c., VOL. I. 27 418 THE WASAWAHILI. &c., and it is never respected. The language is very foul, and sucli expressions as Komanyoko are never out of the mouth. The Msawahili will not ask a thing openly : he waits, fidgeting withal, till the subject edge itself in, and then he will rather hint than speak out. At the same time he is an inveterate beggar, and the outstretching of hands seems to relieve his brain. When his mind is set upon an acquisition, he becomes a mono- maniac, like that child-man the savage. His nonchalance, carelessness, and improvidence pass all bounds. He will light his pipe under a dozen leaky kegs of gunpowder ; ' he will set a house on fire, as it were, to roast his eggs ; ' he will wreck his ship because anchoring her to the beach saves trouble in loading; he might make his coast a mine of wealth, but he will not work till hunger compels him, and his pure insouciance has al- lowed his valuable commerce to be wrested from him by Europeans, Hindus, and Arabs. His dis- like of direct action exceeds that of the Bedawi, and yet he quotes a proverb touching procrastin- ation, 'Leo kabli ya kesho,' — to-day is before to- morrow — better than our ' To-morrow never comes.' In disposition the Msawahili is at once coward- ly and destructive : his quarrelsome temper leads THE WASAWAHILI. 419 him into trouble, but be figbts only by being brought to bay. Sensual and degraded, his self- indulgence is that of the brutes. He drinks, and always drinks to excess. He would stake and lose his mother at play. Chastity is unknown in this land of hot temperaments — the man places paradise in the pleasures of the sixth sense, and the Avoman yields herself to the first advances. Upon the coast, when an adulterer is openly de- tected, he is fined according to the 'injured husband's ' rank ; mostly, however, such pecca- dillos are little noticed. Unnatural crimes are held conducive to health. * * * The manners of ' the perverse race of Kush ' are rough and free, especially compared with those of India, yet dashed with a queer African cere- moniousness. Then* conversation turns wholly upon the subjects of women and money. AVith these optimists all that is is good, or, at least, it is not worth the trouble of a change for the ])etter. They 'make a stand upon the ancient way,' and they hold that old custom, because it is old, must be fit for all time. This savage con- servatism, combined with tlieir traditional and now instinctive dread of the white face, and p(M'hn])s with a not unreasonable fear of present and future loss, has made them close the interior 420 THE WASAWAHILI. to Europeans. They hare no especial dislike to, at tlie same time no fondness for, foreigners, who in mind as well as hody are separated from them longo intervallo. The characteristic good points of the coast race are careless merriment, an ahundance of animal sphits ; strong attachments and devoted family affection. There is amongst men an artificial fraternity which reminds us of the ' fostering ' of Ireland and the ' Lamhmas hrother and sister ' of the local Kermess, St Olla's Fair : a similar hrotherhood is found at Madagascar. Amongst the negro races generally each sucks or exchanges hlood from an arm yein, and the two then swear relationship. The operation is called Ku chanjana and the oath Sare or Sogu, — the Arahs, hy Avhose law it is forbidden, name it Mushati- beh. Girls, even though their parents he living, adopt a Kungwi or stead-mother, who may or who may not be of the family : the latter attends her ' Mwari ' (adopted child) when the first ablution for puberty is performed, and at the wedding sits upon the couch till decency forbids. The con- nection reminds us of the Persian proverb, ' The nurse is kinder than the mother.' Like Orientals and certain peoples of Southern Europe, they make little distinction between near and distant THE WASAWAHILI. 421 relationsliip : a man's son may come from the same city and his brother perhaps from the same province. So in West Africa ' brother ' has an extensive signification. The Wasawahili from Makdishu to Mozam- bique (Mussumbeg) are all Moslems and Shafei, as they were in the 14th century when Ibn Batuta reported them chaste and honest, peace- ful and religious. Possibly under the orthodox denomination they may still preserve the hereti- cal Zaydi tenets of theu' ancestors ; but of this point I was not familiar enough with them to judge. If Persians, they must date from the"" days before the universal prevalence of Tashayyu (Shiitism), or they have abandoned their ancient faith. Feuds with the late Sayyid Said spread the school alone: the coast, and his Bavjizi sub- jects became Sunnis in spite, even as Irishmen and Romans sometimes turn Protestants. El Islam, however, only fringes the Continent. "U'ith their savage irreverence for holy things, the "Wasawahili calling themselves Moslems know little beyond the Kalmah, or profession of faith, rarely pray, and fast only by compulsion. Like nindostanis, Persians, and Egyptians, nations pro- fessing El Islam at a distance from the fountain- head, amongst whom local usage has been largely 422 THE WASAWAHILI. incorporated with the pure practice of the Paith, they have retained a mass of superstitions and idolatries belonging to their pagan forefathers. They have a terror of the sorcerers, with whom. Maskat is said to swarm, and they tell fright- ful stories of men transformed into hyaenas, dogs, sheep, camels, and other animals. They defend themselves and their huts against evil spirits (Jann) and had men by Koranic versets, greegrees, and various talismans, mostly bought from the pagan Mganga or Medicine-man. They believe in alchemy and in Rimbwata, or love-r philters, the latter, as usual in the East, containing various abominations. The slave gnls from about Mangcio, a small port near Kilwa, are famous for concocting draughts which, after bringing on a possibly fatal sickness, subjugate for ever the affections of the patient. Similarly in India, Sind, Egypt, and Persia, no man will touch sherbet under the roof of his betrothed and pre- pared by her mother, unless his future father-in- law set him the example. Some of the Kimb- wata or philters are peculiar : a few grains of Jowari are 'forced' in an exceptional way till they sprout ; they are then pounded and mixed with the food. This harmless adhibition causes, say the people, either death by violent disease or SUPERSTITIONS. 423' intense affection. It is a superstition common to the Western East, and I have found it in India and Sind, in Peru and Egypt. Ghosts and larvae haunt the houses in which men have died, a Eetish belief which does not properly belong to El Islam or to Christianity : the British Consulate has a bad name on account of the terrible fate of its owner, the late Sayyid's nephew. Descended from 'devil-worshippers,' the Wasawahili rather fear the ' Shaytani ' than love Allah, and to the malignant powers of preternatural beings they attribute sickness and all the evils of human life. A Zanzibar negroid will not even fetch a leech from the marsh, for fear of offending him to A\ liom the animal is ' Ju-ju,' or sacred. Generally, the Msawahili Alim or Hterato, though capable of reading the Koran, cannot write a common Ai'abic letter. Some, however, attain high proficiency : I may quote as an instance the Kazi ^luhiyy el Din. These negroids begin arith- metic early, a practice which, perhaps, they have learned from the Banyans. Thev excel in memory and in quickness of apprehension from early cliild- hood to the age of puberty: the same has been remarked about the Arabs, and Anglo-Indians observe it in the natives of Ilindostan. Whether at the virile epoch there is an airest of develop- 424 NAMES. ment, or the brain suffers from exclusive, excessive obedience to the natural law, ' increase and multiply ' and its consequent affections, is a question still to be settled. Boys are sent to school when aged seven, and finish their Khitmah (perlection of the Koran) in one to three years ; after this they are usually removed to assist their fathers in the business of life. Upon the Island the Msawahili child receives some corrupted Moslem name, as Taufiki (Taufik) Muamadi (Mohammed), Tani (Usman), Shibu (Nasib), Muhina (Muhinna), Usy (Ali), or Hadi. Upon the coast the appellations are mostly heathen : I may quote the following from the Benu Kendij tribe — Bori, Chumi, Kambi, Kangaya, Kirwasha, Mareka, Mkame, Mkhokho, Mombe, or Mwambe, Mwere, Nun- gu, Shangora, Shcnkambi, Zingaji. The wilder Wasawahili communities adopt very charac- teristic compounds : such are Machuzi wa Sliimba (fish-soup), Mrima-khonde (mountain plantation),^ Mkata-Moyyo (cutter-out of heart), Khiro-kota (treasure trove), Mchupio wa Keti ^ Mr Cooley (Greog. 37) tells us that ' Couda, in Congoese and also in Sawaliili, means hill.' It certainly does not in Zanzibar, where Konda is an adjective, lean or thin. Konde means the fist (in Arabic ^^-►), and Khonde is applied, to a iShamba or plantation. NAMES. 425 (leaper upon a chair), Mshindo-Mamba (con- queror of crocodile), Kliombe la Simba (lion's claw), Mguru Mfupi (short-legs), Mui' Mvua (Mister rain), Mkia ya Nyani (monkey's tail), Masimbi (cowries), and Ugali (stirabout). Girls take Arabic names, as Mamai Khamisi (Mother Thursday), Fatimah, and Arusi, or they borrow from the pagans Magonera, Zawadi and Apewai (a gift), Timeh, Siti, Bahati, Tinisi, and Machoyao (their eyes). The ceremonial address to men is Bwana (pronounced B'ana) master, possibly a corruption of the Arabic ' Abuna :' it is prefixed to proper names, especially Arabic, as B'and Muamadi. The diminutive Kib'aml is the ItaUan ' Signorino.' The fe- minine form Mwana (M'ana) has equal claims of descent from the Arabic Ummana, our mother. It means, however, ' child ' generi- cally in the proverb M'ana uwwji Mze, Mze hawwd M'dna — child slays parent, parent slays not child — the equivalent of the Italian Amor de- scende non ascende, and the Arab's ' My heart is on my son, my son's is on a stone.' Amongst certain interior tribes it is still prefixed to the names of chiefs ; hence probably the ' Emperor ' Monomo- tapa (M'ana Mtapa) which J. de Barros writes Benomotapa : the latter may not be a misprint. 426 MARRIAGES. but represent ' B'dnd Mtapa.' Muigni, contracted to Mui', is applied to Sayyids, Sherifs, and tem- poral rulers, and Shelie is the equivalent of Shaykh. Mkambi belongs to the sultan or chief, and the Anglo- Arab ' Seedy ' (Sidi = my lord) is unknown. The marriages (Maowano) of the Wasawahili are operose, as might be expected amongst a race whose family festivals are, as in the far north of Europe, their only public amusements. I may, perhaps, here remark that in matcliing, as well as in despatching, even civilization has not thrown off all traces of the old barbarism, and that the visit to M. le Mane and the wedding breakfast, to mention no other troubles and disagreeables, should make us uncommonly lenient to those less advanced than ourselves. The relatives of the bridegroom, as soon as he reaches the mature age of 15, having found for him a fit and proper mate, repair to the parents ; propose a Mahr, or settlement, varying according to means from $15 to $25, and obtain the reply ancipital. The women then visit one another; the answer emerges into distinctness, and all fall to cooking. In due time Coelebs receives, as a token of acceptance, a large Siniyyah, a tray of rice, meat, and confectionery, a ' treat ' for his MARRIAGES. 427 friends, forwarded by the future fatlier-in-law. The feast concludes the betrothal ;^ either of the twain most concerned is still at liberty to jilt ; but in such a case, as usual throughout the Moslem East, enmity between the families inevit- ably results. The wedding festivities outlast the month : there are great ' affinities of gossips;' tympanum et tripudium; hard eating and harder wetting of the driest clay with the longest draughts of Tembo K'hali (sour toddy), of Pombe beer (the Kafir Chuala), and of the maddening Zerambo. Processions of free women and slave girls, pre- ceded by chattels performing on various utensils of music, perambulate the streets, singing and dancing in every court. At length the Kazi, or any other man of letters, recites the Patiheh, and the two become one, either at the bridegroom's or at the bride's house. The Avomen are present when the happy man enters the nuptial chamber, and they always require to be ejected by main force. Unlike the Arabs, they retain the Jewish practice of inspection : if the process be satis- factory, the bridegroom presents $10 to $50 to his new connections, while the exemplary ' M. Guillaiu (Part II. 108) calls the preliminary ceremony ' Oiitoumba,' and I cannot help thinking that he was grossly ' sold' by some exceediugly impudent interpreter. 428 MARRIAGES. young person is blessed, congratulated, and petted with small gifts by papa and mamma. She often owes, it is whispered, her blushing honours to the simple process of cutting a pigeon's tlu'oat. In case of a disappointment, there is a violent scene of abuse and recrimin- ation ; but when lungs and wrath are exhausted, the storm is lulled without blows or even divorce. The first ' Mfungato,' i. e. seven (days) after consummation, is devoted to the wildest revehy, the 'Walimeh,' or wedding feast, concluding only with the materials for feasting. The Msawahili is allowed to breathe his last upon a couch, and the corpse, after being washed by an Alim or by some kinsman, is hastily wrapped in a perfumed winding-sheet. Women of the highest rank sit at home in solitary grief. The middle-classes stain their faces, assume dark or dingy-coloured dresses, and repair to the sea- shore for the purpose of washing the dead man's clothes before dividing them amongst his rela- tions or distributing them to the poor. The^ slave girls shave their heads like Hindus, bathe, and go about the streets siuging Nenise, and mourning aloud. Meanwhile a collection, tech- nically known as San da (the winding-sheet), is made amongst the people, who are almost all DEATHS. 429 connected by a near or distant tie. One of the blood-kinsmen acts Munddi, or crier. As each one appears with his quotum, he shouts ' lo ! such a person (naming him) has bought such and such articles for his brother's funeral feast.' This publicity tends of course to make men liberal. The corpse is buried, as is customary amongst Moslems, on the day, generally the evening, of decease, and there is a popular belief, in which some Europeans join, that deaths take place mostly when the tide ebbs, at the full and change of the moon. The custom of abusing the corpse, accompanied with the greatest in- decencies, is confined to the least civilized settlements. After the funeral all apply them- selves to eating, drinking, and what we should call meniment ; whilst music and dancing are kept up as long as weak human nature permits. The object is not that of the Yorkshire Aiwills, to refresh those who attended from afar — it is confess- edly to ' take the sorrow out of the heart.' So the Velorio of Yucatan is para divertise — to distract kin-grief. As in the matter of marriage, however, so in funerals, we can hardly deride barbarous races whilst we keep up our pomp and expense of ridi- culous trappings, taxing even the poor for mutes and carriages, for ' gloves, scarves, and hatbands.' 430 MUSIC. The Wasawahili have all the African passion for the dance and song : they may be said to exist upon manioc and betel, palm-wine and spirits, music and dancing. The Ngoma Khu, or huge drum, a hollowed cocoa-stem bound with leather braces, and thumped with fists, palms, or large sticks, plays an important and complex part in the business of life : it sounds when a man falls sick, when he revives, or when he dies ; at births and at marriages ; at funerals and at festivals ; when a stranger arrives or departs ; when a fight begins or ends, and generally when- ever there is nothing else to do. It is accom- panied by the ' Siwa,' a huge pipe of black wood or ebony, and by the ' Zumari,' a more handy variety of the same instrument. On occasions which justify full orchestras, an ' Upatu,' or brass pan, is placed upon the ground in a wooden tray, and is tapped with two bits of palm-frond. Some wealthy men possess gongs, from which the cudgel draws lugubrious, sounds. The other implements are ' Tabl,' or tomtoms of gourd, provided with goatskin; the Tambire, or Arab Barbut, a kind of lute ; the Malagash ' Zeze,' a Calabash-banjo, whose single string is scraped with a bow ; and finally horns of the cow, of the Addax, and the Oryx antelopes. These people are DANCING. 431 excellent timeists, but tlieir music, being all in the minor key, and the song being a mere recitative without change of words, both are monotonous to the last degree. The dancing resembles that of the Somal, and, as amongst the slaves, both sexes prance together. The Diwans, or chiefs, caper with drawn swords, whilst the women move in regular time, shaking skirts with the right hand. The ' figures ' are, unlike the music, complicated and difficult : they seem to vary in almost every village. The only constant characteristic appears to be that tremulous motion from the waist downwards, and that lively pantomime of love which was so fiercely satirized by the eminently moral Juvenal. It is, indeed, the groundwork of all ' Oriental ' dancing from Morocco to Japan. The principal occupation of the "Wasawahili is agriculture ; they form the farmer class of the Island, and everywhere in the interior we find their Uttle settlements of cajan-thatched huts of wattle and dab, with flying roofs, acting chimney as well as ventilator — a right sensible contrivance, worthy of imitation. The furniture consists of a few mats ; of low stools, mostly cut out of a single block ; of chairs, a skin being stretched on a wooden frame ; and invariably of a Kitt'uuhi, 432 DISHONESTY. or cartel of coii' and sticks ; even the begi Avill not sleep or sit upon the damp face of liis mother earth. The dwelling is divided into several rooms, or rather closets, by partition Avails the height of a man ; as usual in tropical lands, the interior is kept dark. Sometimes the hovel boasts the convenience of a Cho'oni or Shironi (latrina), but in no case is there a window. Gossips meet under the shade of huge Calabashes and other trees. Like the Somal, the Wasawahih are essentially a trading race, a crumenimulga natio, and they do business with the characteristic dishonesty of Africans. They defraud and even offer violence to Banyans, and acting as trade-men to European merchants, they never allow a purchase without deducting their percentage. At the same time theu' plausibility, like that of the travelKng Dragoman, so impresses upon the icivilized dupe, whom they hedge round with an entourage of then' own, and whom it is then' life-business to cozen, that nothing can convince him of their rascality. Some of them make considerable fortunes : I heard of one who lately purchased an estate for $14,000. They are also commercial travellers of no mean order. Upon the Zanzibar coast they cut rafters and firewood ; they dig DRESS. 433 for copal, and they act as middlemen ; they wander far into the interior, buying hides, slaves, and ivory, and they have thus become familiar with the Lake Regions, which are now attracting our attention. The poorest classes employ themselves in fishing, and many may be seen by day plying about the harbour in little ' Monoxyles,' which they manage with admirable dexterity. Others have learned to make the rude hardwares with which the mainland is supplied: there are also rough masons, boat-builders, and carpenters of pecuhar awkwardness. E-espectable Wasawahili dress like Arabs in ' Kofiyya,' here meaning red caps, and the long Disdasliah, or night-gown ; the loins are girt with a ' Kamarband '-shawl, and sandals j)rotect the feet. Others are contented with the Ham- mam-toilette, waist-cloth (Shukkah or Tanga) and shoulder-sheets (Izar), always adorned witli the favourite fringe (Tambua or Taraza). This is at once the simplest and one of the most ancient of attires ; the plate from Montfaucon's Cosmas Indicopleustes (170G, Topographia Cliris- tiana) reproduced by Vincent (Periplus, Appendix, part I.) shows the kilt to have been the general dress of the ancient ^Ethiopians, as the spear was VOL. I. 28 434 WOMEN'S DRESS. their weapon. Before superiors they bare the shaven poll, an nn-Oriental custom probably learned from the Portuguese. As amongst the Arab Bedawin, the Syrian Bayahs, and the Per- sian Iliyat, the women mostly go abroad unveiled. The ' Murungawanah,' or freeborn, however, is distinguished out-of-doors by her rude mantilla, and ' ladies ' affect an Ukaya, or fillet of indigo- dyed cotton, or muslin, somewhat like that of the Somal and the Syrians. The feminine garb is a Kisitu, or length of stained cotton, blue and red being the pet colours. It resembles the Kitambi of the Malagash, and it is the nearest approach to the primitive African kilt of skin or tree bark. Wrapped tightly round the unsup- ported bosom, and extending from the armpits to the heels, this ungraceful garb depresses the breast, spoils the figure, and conceals nothing of its deficiencies. The hair, like the body, drips with unfragrant cocoa-nut oil ; and though there is not much material to work upon, it is worked in various fanciful styles. Many shave clean ; some wear a half-crop, like a skull-cap of Astracan wool ; others a full-groAvn bush covering the whole head. These part it down the middle, with an asinine cross over the regions of vener- ation; those draw longitudinal lines above the ORNAMENTS. 435 ears, making a threeMd parting ; there are also garnishings and outworks of stunted pigtails, forniinc^ stiff and savasre accroche-coeurs. Two peculiar coiffures at once attract the stranger's eve. One makes the head look as if split into a pair of peaks, the side hair being raised from sinciput to occiput in tall double unpadded rolls, parted by a deep central hollow : this style is nowhere so pronounced as near the Gaboon, river, where the heads of the Mpongwe girls appear short-horned. The other consists of frizzly twists trained lengthwise from nape to brow, and the whitish etiolated scalp showing itself between the lines as though the razor had been used : the stripes suggest the sections of a musk-melon or tlie meridians of a map. The favourite feminine necklace is a row of sharks' teeth ; some use beads, others bits of copal, but the amber so highly valued in the Somali country is here not prized. I have alluded before to the artificial deformity of ear-lobes dis- tended by means of the ^Mpogo, a mixture of raw Copal (Chakazi) and Cinnabar. The left nostril is usually honoured with some simple decoration — a stud or rose-shaped button of wood or bone, of ivory or of precious metal, and at times its place is taken by a clove or a pin of Cassava. The tattoo 436 TOBACCO. is not so common on the Island as upon tlie Con- tinent. These women are said to be prolific, but apparently they have small families : the child is carried in a cloth called Mbereko, and, curious to say, they do not bind up its head immediately after birth. They are hard-worked; and, like the dames of Harar, they buy and sell with men in the bazar. Their food is manioc, holcus, rice, and sometimes fish ; a fowl is the extent of luxury, flesh being mostly beyond their means. Pew smoke, but almost all chew tobacco as lustily as their husbands, and then mouths are horrid chasms full of ' Tambiil ' — quids of betel-nut and areca leaf peppered with coarse shell-lime.^ This astringent, like the Kola-nut of the Guinea Regions, acts preventive against the effect of damp heat,' and it is a stomachic, consequently a tonic. The habit of ' chawing ' it becomes inveterate : Hindostanis visiting Portugal, and unable to procure the favourite 'Pan-Supdri,' have imitated it with cuttings of cypress-apples and ivy leaves. Ibn Batuta declares the betel to be highly aphrodisiac, and hence partly the high esteem in which this masticatory is held. ' The areca-nut is called in Arabic Fofol, and in Kisa- waliili Popo : the betel-nut, Tambul and Tambuli, and the lime Nurah and Choka. THE KISAWAHILI TONGUE. 437 The Wasawahili are not an honoured race; even the savage Somal call them ' Abid, or serviles, and bitterly deride their peculiarities. The unerr- ing instinct of mankind has pointed them out for slaves, and they have readily accepted the position. As Moslems they should be free, and the Faith forbids them, to trade in Moslems. Yet by local usage, as the children become the property not of the parents, but of the mother's brother, the latter can sell any or all of his nephews and nieces ; in- deed, he would be subject to popular contempt if, when poor, he did not thus ' raise the wind.' The most interesting point connected with these coast negroids is their language, the Kisawa- liili. It was anciently called Kingozi, from Ungozi or the region lying about the Dana, or rather Zana, the river known to its Galla accoloe as ' Maro,' and ' Pokomoni ' from the heathen Pokomo vc\\Oi living near its course, form the southern boundary of Galla-land proper. The dialect is still spoken with the greatest purity about Patta and the other ancient settlements be- tween Lamu and Mombasah. Oral tongues are essentially fluctuating ; having no standard, the roots of words soon wither and die, whilst terms, idioms, and expressions once popular speedily fall into oblivion, and are supplanted by neologisms. 438 THE KISAWAHILL Thus tlie origin of words must often be sought by collation with the wilder kindred dialects of the coast tribes; for instance, the root of 'Mbua' (rain), which has died out of Kisawahili, still visits in Kinyika — ku bua, to rain. In Zanzibar Island Kisawahili is most corrupted ; the vocabulary, varying with every generation, has become a mere conglomerate which combines South African, Arabic, Persian, Hindi, and even Portuguese, an epitome of local history. On the coast it greatly varies, being constantly modified by the migra- tion and mixture of tribes. Like the Malay of the Indian Islands, it has become the Lingua Pranca, the Lingoa Geral of commerce from Ra'as Hafun to the Mozambique and throughout Cen- tral Intertropical Africa. This Urdu Zaban, or Hindostani of East Africa, is indispensable to the explorer, who disdains mere 'geography;' almost every inland tribe has some vagrant man who can speak it. My principle being never to travel where the language is unknown to me, I was careful to study it at once on arriving at Zan- zibar; and though sometimes in the interior question and answer had to pass through three and even four media, immense advantage has derived from the modicum of direct intercourse. The base of Kisawahili is distinctly African ; THE EISA WA HILL 439 and, totally unlike its limitrophe the Galla, it grammatically ignores the Semitic element. It is now time for writers to unlearn that, ' all the languages over the face of the earth, however remotely different and however widely spread, appear to be all reducible to the one or the other of three radically distinct tongues ' (Dr Beke, p. 352, Appendix to Jacob's Flight. London, Long- mans, 1865)/ It is only, I believe, the mono- genist pure and simple who in these days would assert ' there exist three linguistic types, as there are three physical types, the black, the yellow, and the white ' (M. de Quatrefages, p. 31, Anthro- pological Heview, No. xxviii.). To the old and obsolete triad of Turanian, Semitic, and Aryan, or Turanian, Semitic, and Iranian, we must now add at least another pair — without noticing the Asianesian — namely, the American or Sentence language, and the prefixitive South African family. ^ This is repeated by my friend (p. 59, The Idol iu Horeb : Evidence tliat the golden image at IMount Siuai was a cone, and not a calf. London : Tinsleys, 1871), who, however, informs us that in 184G ]\Iajor, now Sir Henry, Eawlinson agreed with hira iu saying that, ' the class of languages to which the designation Semitic or Semitish is properly applicable is that comprising the whole of the aboriginal languages of Asia, Polynesia, and America.' This latter continent, however, should not have been included without proofs, and hitherto we liavo failed to find them. 440 THE KISAWAHILI. These two great tongues, one extending over half a world, the other through half a continent, are, I helieve with Lichtenstein and Marsden, unbor- rowed, indigenous, and marked with all the pecu- liarities which distinguish their inventors. Both are idioms which seem to indicate nice linguistic perceptions and high intellectual development ; history, however, supplies many cases of civiliza- tion simphfying and curtailing the complicated tongues of barbarians, thus making language the means, not the end, of instruction. The limits of the South African family may be roughly laid down as extending from the Equator to the Cape of Good Ilope. The Equatorial Gaboon on the Western Coast ^ evidently belongs to it; and upon the Congo river I found that whole sentences of Kisawahili were easily made intelligible to the people.^ Though the language is evidently one in point of construction through- out this immense area, isolation and hostilities be- tween tribes have split it into a multitude of 1 Grammar of the Bakcle language, &c., bj the Missionaries of the A. B. C. F. M. Gaboon Station, Western Africa. New York : Pratt, 1854. Also Grammar of the Mpougwe language, &c., by the same. New York : Snowdon and Pratt, 1847. 2 A Vocabulary of the Malemba and Embomma Languages. (Appendix I. Tuckey's Expedition to the Eiver Zaire. London : Murra}^ 1818.) Also Er. B. M. de Cannecatim's Diccionario da Lingua Buuda. Lisboa, 1804. THE KISAWAHILI. 441 dialects. Almost every people, at the distance of 30 to 50 miles, has its peculiar speech, and in these regions it would not be difficult to collect ' Speci- mens of a hundred African Languages.' The older travellers remarked that the Tower of Babel must have been near the Gulf of Guinea ; they would have found the same throughout the in- terior and Eastern Coast. My experience^ of the tongues spoken to the west of the Zanzibar coast proper is that their amount of difference greatly varies : some average that of the English counties, others of the three great Neo-Latin languages, whilst in some the degree amounts to that between English, Ger- man, and Dutch. And generally, I may remark, the East- West extremities of the lingual area are more closely connected than the North-South : the language of Angola, for instance, is more like Kisawahili than the Sichuana. I am at pain to understand why Dr KLi-apf should have named this linguistic family, Orplmo- (dark -brown) Hamitic, Orphno-Cushite, Nilo-IIamitic, and ISi- lotic,- when it is far more intimately connected ^ When travelling in East Africa I took as a base the vocabulary of Catherine of Russia, and filled it up with five dialects, viz., those of the Sawahil, Uzaramo, Khutu, Usagara, and Unyamwezi. ■'' 111 these days, however, we cannot say, w ith the Opener 442 THE KISAWAHILI. with the Kafir regions, the Congo and the Zam- beze rivers, than with ^Ethiopia or the Nile Valley proper. Mr Cooley's term ' Zangian ' or ' Zin- gian ' also unduly limits the area to that of a mere sub-family. The crux grammaticorum of the great South African language is its highly artificial system of principiatives or preformatives.^ In the three recognized Kngual types of the old world the work of inflexion, the business of grammar, and the mechanism of speech disclose themselves at the ends of vocables. In this prefixitive tongue the changes of mood, tense, case, and number, are effected at the beginning of words by preposi- tive modifying particles, which are evidently con- tractions of significant terms, and whose apparatus supplies the total want of inflexion. This de- velopment, arrested in other languages — the Coptic, for instance — here obtains a significance which isolates it from all linguistic society. The practised student at once discovers that he is dealing with a completely new family by the unusual difficulty which unvaried terminations of iDuer Africa (p. 123), ' The Nilotic family of languages no- where extends into the basin of the Nile.' ^ I have sketched the distinguishing points of the Hamitic tongues in my Preface (p. xxii.) to ' Wit and Wisdom from West Africa' (London: Tinsleys, 1865). THE KISAWAHILL 443 aud initial changes present to one accustomed only to the terminal. The minor characteristics of the KisawahiK are the peculiarities of the negative system in suh- stantives and adjectives, pronouns, adnouns, and verbs; for instance, Asie, he or she who is not, Isie, it which is not. Secondly, are the broad lines of distinction di'awn between words de- noting the rational and the iiTational, and in a minor degree the rational-animate (as man), and the rational-inanimate (as ass). In most cases the rational-animate affixes Wa as a plural sign : the UTational-animate Ma. Umbu, a sister, properly makes "'i^^aumbu, sisters : the ignorant, however, and the Islanders often say Maumbu (sisters) like Map'hunda (asses). Thus personality supplies the place of gender, a phe- nomenon that already dawns in the Persian and in other Indo-European tongues. Xext is the artful and intricated system of irregular plurals, and last, not least, the characteristic alliteration, an assonance apparently the debris of many an- cient dialects based upon an euphonious concord not always appreciable by us, and therefore not yet sul)jccted by our writers to rule. We under- stand, for instance, that an alliterative sjieakor should say Mtu mema (a good man), and AYatu 444 THE KISAWAHILL wema (good men) ; but why is the regularity altered to Mahali ^dngo (my place), p'hunda ^ango (my donkey), and Mtu lua Rashidi (E-ashid's man), instead of mango, pango, and ma? These distinctions appear far too empirical, arbitrary, and artificial for the wants of primitive speech. The Kisawahili is an oral tongue — an illi- terate language in the sense assigned to the term by Professor Lepsius. The people, like the Somal and the Gallas, never invented a syllabarium. This absence of alphabet is a curious proof of deficient constructiveness in a race that cultivates rude eloquence, and that speaks dialects which express even delicate shades of meaning : it contrasts wonderfully with the Arabs and Hindus, who adapt to each language some form of Phoenician or Dewanagari. The coast races use the modern Arabic alphabet, which, admirable for its proper purpose, re- presents African sounds imperfectly, as those of Sindi and Turkish, and is condemned to emulate the anomalous orthography or cacography of our English. The character is large, square, and old-fashioned, resembling later Kufic even more than that of Harar, and he must be a first-rate scholar who can read at sight all the letter of a man to his friend. Literature is THE EISA WAHILI. 445 confined to a few sheets upon the suhject of Bao or Uganga (Rami or geomaucy), to proverbs and proverbial sayings, mostly quatrains ; to riddles and rabbit tales, which here represent the hare legends of the Namaquas and the spider stories of the Gold Coast ; to Mashairi, or songs rhymeless, measureless, and unmusical, and to ' Utenzi,' religious poems, and eulogies of the brave. In Zanzibar Island Arabic is ever making inroads upon the African tongue, and the student who knows the former will soon master the latter. The first short vocabulary, by Mr Salt, was published in 1814, and was presently followed by others, especially the ' Soahili vocabulary ' of the late Mr Samuel K. Masury, of Zanzibar (Memoirs of the American Academy, Cambridge, May, 1815), and Mr J. Uoss Browne's ' Speci- men of the Sowhelian Language' (Etchings of a Whaling Cruise. New York, 1816).^ Strange to say, the ' Mombas Mission ' translated the Gospels into the obscure local Kinyika, when only three chapters of Genesis and a version of the English Prayer Book (Tubingen, 1850 — 5 1) ' ]\Ir Ross Bi-owno lias lately been eno;aged in writing a voluminous report to tlio Government at AVashington upon the mineral resources of tiie Western States of the Union. 446 THE KI8AWAHILL were published ' in the one language, by the instrumentality of which the missionary and the merchant can master in a short time all the dialects spoken from the Line down to the Caj)e of Good Hope.' Dr Krapf s ' Outline of the Elements of the Kisauaheli Language ' (Tubingen, 1850) requires great alterations and additions, especially in the alliterative and other characteristic parts of the tongue. Messrs E-ebmann and Erhardt, who both were callable of writing a scholar-like book, or of perfecting the ' Outline,' turned their attention to the languages of the Nyassa, Usumbara, and the Wakwafi. In 1857 M. Guillain published, as an Appendix to his third volume, a short gram- mar and vocabulary of the ' langue Souahheli : ' they are mere bald sketches, and they convey but the scantiest idea of what they attempt to illustrate. A good study of Kisawahili would facilitate the acquisition of the whole sub-family. For my own use I commenced a grammar in- tended to illustrate the intricate and difficult combinations and the peculiar euphony which here seems to be the first object of speech : unfortunately my transfer to West Africa left it, like my vocabularies, in a state of MS. My friend Mr Triibner has lately advertised a THE EISA WAHILI. 447 volume called ' East African folk-lore, Swahili Tales, as told by the natives of Zanzibar,' Avitli an English translation by Edward Steere, L.L.D., Rector of Little Steeping, Lincolnshire, and Chaplain to Bishop Tozer (London : Bell and Daldy, 1870) ; ^ and Dr Krapf has proposed to publish the Juo ya Herkal (Book of Heraclius), ' an account of the wars of Mohammed with Askaf, Governor of Syria, to the Greek Emperor Heraclius, in rhyme ; a MS. in ancient Ki-Suahili written in Arabic characters.' Also ' Juo ja Utenzi, Poems and Mottoes in rhyme,' the dialect being that formerly spoken in the Islands of Patta and Lamu. Both the * linguistic trea- sures ' were presented to the Oriental Society of Halle. The last publications which I have seen are ' Specimens of the Swahili Language ' (Zanzibar, 1866) ; ' Collections for a Handbook of the Swahili Language, as spoken at Zanzibar,' by Bishop Tozer and Bev. E. Steere (Zanzibar, 1865), and the Rev. E. Steere's ' Collections for a Handbook of the Shambala Language ' (Zanzi- * Messrs Mouteiro and Gamitto (O Muata Cazembel, Appendix, 470) doubt whether the Tete grammar can bo reduced to an intelligible system of verba. I see no diniculty. Capt. Boteler, K. N. (Appendix, vol. i. Voyage to Africa, Bentlcy, 183.5) easily collected a ' Delagoa Vocabulary ' from George, his interpreter. 448 THE KISAWAHILI. bar, 1867), the ' tongue spoken in the country- called in our maps Usumbara, which is a moun- tainous district on the mainland of Africa, lying opposite to the Island of Pemba, and visible in clear weather from the town of Zanzibar.' Kisawahili is at once rich and poor. It may contain 20,000 words, of which, perhaps, 3000 are generally used, and 10,000 have been pub- lished. Copious to cumbrousness in concrete, collective, and ideal words, it abounds in names of sensuous objects ; there is a term for every tree, shrub, plant, grass, and bulb, and I have shown that the several ages of the cocoa-nut are differently called. It wants compounds, abstract and metaphysical expressions : these must be borrowed from the Arabic, fitted with terminal and internal vowels, to suit the tongue, and modified according to the organs of the people, harsh and guttural consonants being exchanged for easy cognates. Even the numerals beyond twenty are mere Semitic corruptions. All new ideas, that of servant, for instance, must be expressed by a short description. In the more advanced South African dialects, as in the Mpongwe of the Gaboon, a compound or a derivative would be found to include all require- THE KISAWAHILI. 449 ments. The sound would be soft and harmonious were it not for the double initial consonants, aspirated or not ; for the perpetual reduplications (the Arabic E,adif)/ a savage and childish con- trivance to intensify the word, and for the undue recurrence of the coarse letter K. Possibly the fondness of the people for tautology may have tended to develop their tautophony and euphony. Abounding in vowels and hquids, the language admits of vast volubility of utterance; in auger or excitement the words flow like a torrent, and each dovetails into its neighbour till the whole speech becomes one vocable. Withal, every vowel has its distinct and equal articulation. It wants the short and obscure sound of the English and otlier European languages (e. g. a li«r, h/iv N''^ S P E K E. i8s< N'3. SPE KE H. GR A NT . 1^53 N"4 SIR S.W.BAKER '864 tajLM'^ ; ^_ f:^ 1^ ^ VICTORIA N V A N Z A \c; APPENDIX. 497 ence of snowy feeders. Some years ago a Swiss traveller drew my attention to tlie fact tHat glacier-water would ex- plain the term WLite river as opposed to Blue river. The quantity of melted snow or glacier- water which finds its way to the true Nile may be comparatively inconsider- able, but that little may perhaps modify the colourless complexion of rain-water when its suspended matter has been deposited, and distinguish it from the pure azure of a stream issuing from a Lake Greneva. In 1857 Captain Speke, an experienced Himalayan, easily detected, when drinking from the Pangar-ni or Rufu river, the rough flavour of snow water. More important, however, than Baringo is the new Lake announced to us by Mr Wakefield's African Pandit, Sadi bin Ahedi. The latter ignoring Nyanza, calls it Ny- anja, possibly a dialectic varietj^ and therefore a difference neither to be dwelt upon too much nor wholly to be neg- lected. Of greater value is the name Bahari ya Pili, or Second Sea, not called so, we are expresslj'- informed, be- cause inland of the First Sea — Indian Ocean — but evi- dently because leading to a neighbouring water on the west. Most suggestive of all, and therefore adopted by me, is the term ' Bahari ya Ukara,' or Sea of Ukara, the latter being the region on the Eastern shore. Here we detect the true origin of the ancient Garava, and of Cap- tain Speke's Ukewere, which he applied to a peninsula projecting from the Eastern shore, and which the Wan- yamwezi, translating 'island water,' gave to the Oriental portion of the so-called Victoria Nyanza. Respecting the length of the Ukara Lake, Siidi was informed that it could be crossed by canoes in G full days, paddling from sunrise to sunset ; but if the men went on VOL. I. 32 498 APPENDIX. night and day, tlie voyage is to be accomplished in three days. Now the native craft used upon these dangerous plateau- waters never dare to cross them : the voyager may rush over the narrow parts of the Tanganyika Lake, but of course he would not attempt the physical impossi- bility of navigating without chart or compass beyond sight of land. It is impossible to believe in a canoe-cruise of 6 days across the lake : it is evident that a coasting-cruise is meant. The total of hours, allowing the day to be 12, and without halts, would be 72. Upon the Tanganyika I estimated the rate at a little more than 2 knots an hour. Thus, in round numbers, we have 145 miles, which pro- bably require reduction : an estimate of the mean amount of error distributed on the whole of Mr Wakefield's ' Routes ' gives, according to the annotator, an exagger- ation of 1.24 : 1.0 ; and of course, when estimating the length of these distant and dangerous navigations, exag- geration would be excessive. AVe may, therefore, fairly assume the semi-circumference of the Ukara Lake at 120 miles, and the total circumference at 240. Sadi, we are told (p. 309), made Bahari-ni on the Eastern shore the terminus of his long journey from Tanga Bandar to the 'Lake Nyanza' (Nyanja?). Let us protract the full 145 miles as the exceptional rate of 3 knots an hour upon Captain Speke's last map, without allowing anything for the sinuosities of the coast, and the end would strike the entrance of ' Jordan Nullah ' off the ' Bengal Archi- pelago,' about half the width of the so-called ' Victoria Nyanza.' As regards the breadth of the Ukara Lake, we read (p. 310), 'Standing on the Eastern shore, Sadi said he could descrv nothing of land in a Avcstern direction, except APPENDIX. 499 the very faint outline of a mountain summit, far, far away on ttie horizon.' This passage is again suggestive. The sandy and level Eastern shore of the Nyanja (i. e. water) or Ukara Lake about Bahari-ni, whence Sadi sighted, it is pro- babl}' in E. long. (G.) S-j" 10'. The easternmost, that is, the nearest, point of the Karagwah, or, as Captain Speke writes it, the Karague Highlands, is in E. long. (G.) 32'* 30'. Thus the minimum A^-idth is 165 miles, whilst man's vision under such circumstances would hardly cover a dozen. Here, again, we have room for a First as well as for a Second Sea. Mr Johnston suggests that the mountain-simimit in question might be an island rising high in the midst of the Lake ; but, he adds, such a feature could not well have been missed entirely by Captain Speke. Here I join issue with him for reasons which can be deduced from these pages — my companion and second in command never saw or heard of the Ukara Lake. But it is highly improbable that those who could tell Sadi the number of days required to cross or to coast along the Lake would not have known whether the summit was that of a mountain on terra firma or of a lacustrine islet. The latter feature is not un- familiar to Mr Wakefield's informant : he does not fail to mention (p. 324) the small conical hill in the southern waters of the Baringo Lake. When Sadi declared that ' he travelled GO days (marches ?) along the shore without perceiving any signs of itstennination,' he evidently sjioke wildly, as Africans will. His assertion that the natives with whom he conversed were unable to give him any information about its northern or southern limit, simply means that in this part of the African interior neither caravans nor individuals trust themselves in strange lands, cspeciallv with the prospect 500 APPENDIX. of meeting such, dangerous plunderers as the Wasuku. Similarly a 'two months' journey' and 'going to Egypt,' asserted by ' all authorities without exception, African and Arab,' signify nothing but the total ignorance of the in- formant concerning the country a few leagues beyond his home. A lake 120 miles in length, that is to say, even a little smaller than the Baringo is supposed to be, will amply satisfy all requirements in this matter. Finally, we have Sadi's report that 8 or 9 3^ ears ago (before 1867 ?) the TJkara Lake was navigated by Eiiropeans. Certain very white men, we are told, who bought only short ivories (Scri vellos) , refusing long tusks, and who purchased large quantities of eggs — Africans have learnt by some curious process to connect Europeans with oophagy — came up in a large vessel, carrying three masts and another in front (bowsprit?), with many white cloths (sails). The event took place only a month and a half before he reached the Lake, and it is described with an exactness of detail which seems to vouch for its truth. If this be a fact, it is clear that the Nyanja cannot be Captain Speke's Nyanza, and that the visitors could not have made it via his ' White Nile,' with its immense and manifold obstruc- tions. But it may be that of which he heard (Journal, p. 338) from the ' Kidi officers,' who reported a high moun- tain to rise behind the Asua (Nyarus ?) river, and a lake navigated by the Gallas in very large vessels. We now understand why the ' King ' Mtesa (Ibid. p. 294) offered to send the traveller home (to Zanzibar) in one month by a frequented route, doubtless through the Wamasai and other tribes living between the Nyanja and the Nyanza. Thus Irungu of Uganda (Ibid. p. 187) expressed his surprise that Captain Speke had come all the way round to that country. APPEXDIX. 501 when he could have taken the short and safe direct route up the mid- length of his own lake — via Umasai and Usoga, by which an Arab caravan had travelled. The Ukara Lake will be found laid down (a.d. 1712) in the Africa of John Senex, F.R.S. (quoted by the late Mr John Ilogg, F.R.S., ' On some old maps of Africa, in which the central equatorial lakes are laid down nearly in their true positions '). It is evidently the Garava of Merca- tor (a.d. 1623), whose atlas supplies it with a northern ef- fluent draining to the Kile. The ' Couir ' of D'AnviUe's folio atlas (a.d. 1740), and placed where the Lake iSTo and the Bahr el Ghazal actually exist, may be a confusion M'ith the equatorial Lake Kura Kawar, given by Ja'afar Mo- hammed bin Musa el Khwarazmi (a.d. 833) in the Rasm el Arzi, published in Lelawel's Geograj)hie du Moyen Age (Brussels, 1850), and, like Garava, both may be de- rived from Ukara. The third water is evidently the Nyanza of which I first heard at Kazah of Unyamwezi, whence Captain Speke was despatched on a reconnoitre between July 29 and August 25, 1858. After returning, he reported that this lake being nearly flush with the surface of the level country to the south, bears signs of overflowing for some 13 miles during the rains. The second expedition found no traces of flood on the marshy lands to the North and the N. West of the so-called ' A^'ictoria Nyanza.' This fact, combined with a difference of level amounting to 400 feet in the surface of the two waters, speaks for itself. "We arc justi- fied in suspecting a fourth lake, or broadening of a river along whose banks Captain SjDcke and Grant travelled northward to Uganda, and there must be more than one, if all his effluents be correctly laid down. 502 APPENDIX. Briefly to resume : Mr Wakefield's very valuable * Routes ' teacli us tliese novelties : 1. That the I3aringo is a Lake distinct from the so- called Victoria Nj^anza ; that it has a northern effluent, the Nyarus, and consequently that its waters are sweet. 2. That the JN^yanja, Ukara, Ukerewe, Garava or Bahari ya Pili, is a long narrow formation like the Baringo, per- haps 20 miles broad, with 240 of circumference, and possibly drained to the White Ptiver or true Nile by a navigable channel. And I have long ago come to the following con- clusions : 1. That the 30,000 square miles representing upon our maps the area of the so-called Victoria Nyanza rej)resent not a lake, but a Lake Pegion. 2. That the Victoria Nyanza Proper is a water — pos- sibly a swamp — distinct from the two mentioned above, flooding the lands to the south, showing no sign of depth and swelling during the hot season of the Nile, and vice versa. 3. That the Northern and N. Western portions of the so-called ' Victoria Nyanza ' must be divided into sundry independent broads or lakes, one of them marshy, reed- margined, and probably shallow, in order to account for three large effluents within a little more than 60 miles. I cannot finish tliese lines without expressing my gra- titude to Mr Wakefield for the interesting information with which he supplied us. He has returned to his labours at Morabasah, amongst the Wasawahili and the Wanyika, and as he has, I am assured by my friend Captain George, APPENDIX. 50:3 E,. JN^., qualified liiraself to take astronomical observations, we may rest assured that with his aid the ' Mombas Mission ' will lose nothing of its well-won fame for linguistic study and African exploration. KM) OF VOL. I. 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