THE ARABS OF TABORA. 669 



accredit his assurance, that his people were as much delighted 

 as himself at the prodigal plenitude visible on his table, and in 

 his yard. A slaughtered ox and a feast wound up the ceremony 

 of settlement, and all hands turned in to sweeter rest than they 

 had known for many days. 



The next day the Arab magnates from Tabora came on a 

 formal visit. Tabora is the place mentioned by Captain Burton 

 as Kazeh, the first Arab settlement in Unyanyembe. It is the. 

 principal settlement in the country. " It contains," according 

 to Mr. Stanley's estimate, " over a thousand huts and tembes, 

 and one may safely estimate the population, Arabs, Wangwana 

 and natives, at five thousand people." Between Tabora and 

 Kwihara, where Mr. Stanley had his quarters, rise two rugged 

 hill-ridges, separated from each other by a low saddle, over the 

 top of which Tabora is always visible from Kwihara. 



It is astonishing what luxury is conveyed into the heart of 

 Africa by these Arab merchant princes. The fertile plain about 

 their villages, kept in the highest state of cultivation, yields 

 marvellous abundance and endless variety of vegetables, and 

 supports vast herds of cattle, and sheep aud goats innumerable ; 

 while just about the tembes the orange, lemon, papaws and 

 mangoes may be seen thriving finely. Add to these the tea, 

 coffee, sugar, spices, jellies, curries, wine, brandy, biscuits, sar- 

 dines, salmon, and such fine cloths as they need for their own 

 use, brought from the coast every year by their slaves ; associate 

 these with a wealth of Persian carpets, most luxurious bedding, 

 complete services of silver for tea and coffee, with magnificently 

 carved dishes of tinned copper and brass lavers ; and we have a 

 catalogue out of which our imagination produces pictures of 

 luxury that, amid the wildness and rudeness of that barbarous 

 land, seem more like the magician's work than tangible realities, 

 which await the worn-out traveller across six hundred miles of 

 plains and mountains and rivers and swamps, where a succession 

 of naked, staring, menacing savages throng the path in wonder 

 at a white face. 



The representatives of this splendid living, who had called to 

 pay their respects to Mr. Stanley, were the donors of the gifts 

 which had surprised him on the day before, and had they been 

 less prepossessing than they were, their kindness would have 



