GLIMPSES OF EAST AFRICA AND ZANZIBAR 



English name they have caught hold of — if you are 

 English ; or if German or French then it is a 

 German or French name they announce. This 

 amuses the passenger and he takes the boy on. 



Many of the dusky scamps lie in wait for Jack 

 Tar, and guide him to all sorts of places, good, 

 bad, and indifferent. I have seen a sailor more than 

 half tipsy being persuaded to come somewhere or 

 other, for no good I felt sure, by one of these boys ; 

 somehow it was particularly disgusting to see the 

 money-making black, alert and keen, with a per- 

 suasive tongue, leading astray what ought to have 

 been his superior. 



Unblushingly these boys will come up and say 

 they are ** intelligent guides ". But we got rid of 

 their importunities by telling them in their own 

 language we had no need of their assistance. 



From the agent's house to the hotel seemed a 

 long mysterious way, though really quite short, by 

 narrow little passages winding in and out between 

 very tall houses. I felt I should never know my 

 way about alone, and I still think so, for after 

 several months, I continued to lose myself. The 

 houses themselves are made of coral rag and lime, — 

 nearly all old Arab dwellings with an open square 

 well in the middle and the house built round it, 

 keeping the rooms cool. The rooms as a rule are 

 long and narrow, the width being the length of the 

 mangrove poles the floors are built of. The archi- 



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