8 UNDER THE AFRICAN SUN 



The clove-trees, most of them old, are planted in straight rows 

 of considerable length, and form picturesque groves. 



Passing through the native quarter, I came across an Arab 

 school. Teacher and pupils were sitting cross-legged on mats ; 

 each pupil was using, instead of a slate, a scapula or shoulder- 

 blade of some animal. 



By the roadside I saw a native doctor cupping a patient, and 

 two women were waiting for their turn. He used a goat-horn, 

 perforated at the top with a small aperture which he blocked 

 W'ith a piece of wax. Having made two or three tiny incisions 

 on the skin of the patient, the practitioner passed the mouth of 

 the horn over a fiame and then clapped it over the wound. 

 After a few minutes, by removing the plug of wax, the horn 

 was withdrawn, and in most cases a large clot of blood came 

 away with it. 



Apparently everybody in Zanzibar, who can possibly afford 

 it, keeps a carriage. Arabs and Indians may be seen taking 

 daily their afternoon drive along the Xazimoja road in a variety 

 of elegant vehicles. 



On my second visit to Zanzibar the island had just been 

 visited by a severe epidemic ; the German doctor had suc- 

 cumbed to it, and the English doctor was ill. I happened to 

 take my watch to a shop to be repaired. The watchmaker, a 

 European, was covered with boils from head to foot. He did 

 not know^ that 1 belonged to the medical profession, when he 

 explained to me that he was treating himself, having found in 

 some old obscure pamphlet an excellent prescription for draw- 

 ing out the bad blood I " What's the good of going to doctors ? " 

 he said, "they can't even cure themselves; there's the German 

 doctor dead, and the other doctor very ill ! " He assured me, in 

 proof of the efficacy of his own treatment, that he had not a 

 single boil till he began to treat himself; "and now look !" he 

 exclaimed, pointing triumphantly to his blotched face which 

 might have done credit to a severe attack of small-pox. He 

 w^as not satisfied apparently at the success on his own person, 

 but had tried the treatment also on his unfortunate wife and 

 child, who were summoned to show' themselves to me. Allow- 

 ing that he represented the superlative degree of an exodus 

 of boils, his family represented a very good comparative and 

 positive stage respectively. The next time I visited Zanzibar 

 he and his family had disappeared ; possibly he went some- 



