644 MEIMA COAST. 



the wants of rich soil. The banks of the backwaters are lined 

 with forests of white and red mangrove. When the tide is out 

 the cone-shaped root-work supporting each tree rises naked from 

 the deep sea-ooze ; parasitical oysters cluster over the trunks at 

 water level, and between the adults rise slender young shoots, 

 tipped with bunches of brilliant green. The pure white sand is 

 bound together by a kind of convolvulus, whose large fleshy 

 leaves and lilac-colored flowers creep along the loose soil, 

 where, raised high above the ocean level, the coast is a wall of 

 verdure. Plots of bald old trees, bent by the regular breezes, 

 betray the positions of settlements, which, generally sheltered 

 from sight, besprinkle the coast in a long straggling line like 

 the suburbs of a populous city. Thirteen of these settlements 

 were counted in a space of three miles. Here and there the 

 monotony of green is relieved by dwarf earth-cliffs and scaurs 

 of rufous hue. And behind the foreground of alluvial plain, at 

 a distance varying from three to five miles, rises a blue line of 

 higher level conspicuous even from Zanzibar island — the 

 frontier of the wild men. In the narrow strip between this 

 frontier of absolute barbarism and the coast, the region we have 

 described, where the semi-civilization has its foothold, the 

 principal part of the population are soldiers, who call them- 

 selves Baloch. Many of them were born in Arabia, where they 

 were fakirs, sailors, porters, and day-laborers, barbers, date- 

 gleaners, beggars, and thieves. They are a turbulent bragga- 

 docio set : as young men, with no loftier ambition than may be 

 gratified in smoking, chatting, and idle controversy ; as old men 

 they are silly, babbling patriarchs with white beards, telling 

 wondrous stories of former times and distant places. Young or 

 old, they are notorious liars and vagabonds. Next to these in 

 dignity are the Wamrima, whose highest aspiration is the 

 privilege of idleness and luxury, which comes easily to them by 

 unscrupulous exactions from travellers and traders, and the 

 labor of the slaves who cultivate their fields. Mingling with 

 the sofcfters and Wamrima are numerous representatives of the 

 inland tribes in various capacities. The half-caste Arab, too, is 

 a conspicuous character in the motley society of Mrima. A 

 degraded licentious class, loving the freedom from restraint, 

 which is the license of barbarism, and wearing with boastful 



