178 THE RETROSPECT OF THE YEAR. 



the Sultan he met a potentate rarely endowed with gen- 

 erous and royal attributes, a thorough Arab gentleman, 

 wearing his honors with that native grace and easy dignity 

 begotten of habits of authority and the instinct for com- 

 mand. Their relations afterwards became very close, — 

 so much so that the Sultan received with genuine emotion, 

 in August, the Consul's condolences on the death of a fav- 

 orite child, and often made occasions to discuss in the 

 manliest and most ingenuous spirit the relative claims to 

 reverence of the crescent and the cross. 



He had succeeded before the end of March in securing, 

 with Capt. Hassen's aid, a house for his consulate, — for 

 several j^ears the only foreign consulate at Zanzibar, — and 

 had his flag fl^^ing on Sunday, April 16, and ten days later 

 was able to give an official reception there to His Highness, 

 the Sultan, w^ho paid him an unannounced visit, accom- 

 panied by the young prince Syed Harled, his son, yet in 

 his teens, twenty or thirty grandees and as many soldiers. 

 From this time on His Majesty's attentions were unfailing. 

 Presents of preserved and fresh fruits, — pots of ginger 

 and bottles of sherbet, — testified to his friendly regard, 

 when periods of illness confined Mr. Waters within doors, 

 and on June 11 the Consul declined the Sultan's invitation 

 to ride with him to his pleasure grounds in the country, for 

 the reason that the day fixed was Sunday. The courtesy 

 was declined a second time next month for the same rea- 

 son, and afterwards the invitation was extended and ac- 

 cepted for another day, His Highness remarking that 

 amongst all the English and American Christians he had 

 known before, only one kept the sabbath strictly. In the 

 matter of religious scruple the Christians might have taken 

 a lesson from the Moslem oflicers of the household. On 

 the day of his arrival, receiving a call of welcome from a 

 party of these, — the captains of two Men-of-War among 



