418 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONS, LL.D. 



The country round Tabora is exceedingly fertile, as the Arabs irrigate 

 portions of it, and cultivate it with care, and the merchants live in a state of 

 considerable comfort and even luxury : — 



" The plain in which the settlement is situated is exceedingly fertile, 

 though naked of trees ; the rich pasturage it furnishes permits them to keep 

 large herds of cattle and goats, from which they have an ample supply of milk, 

 cream, butter, and ghee. Rice is grown everywhere ; sweet potatoes, yams, 

 maize, millet, peas, are cheap everywhere, and always procurable. Around 

 their tembes the Arabs cultivate a little wheat for their own purposes, and 

 have planted orange, lemon, papaw, and mangoes, which thrive here fairly 

 well. Onions and garlic, chilies, cucumbers, tomatoes, and brinjalls, may be 

 procured by the white visitor from the more important Arabs, who are un- 

 doubted epicureans in their way. Their slaves convey to them from the coast, 

 once a year at least, their stores of tea, coffee, sugar, spices, jellies, curries, 

 wine, brandy, biscuits, sardines, salmon, and such fine clothes and articles as 

 they require for their own personal use. Almost every Arab of any eminence 

 is able to show a wealth of Persian carpets, and most luxurious bedding, com- 

 plete tea and coffee services, and magnificently carved dishes of tinned copper 

 and brass lavers. Several of them sport gold watches and chains ; mostly 

 all a watch and chain of some kind. And, as in Persia, Afghanistan, and 

 Turkey, the harems form an essential feature of every Arab household, the 

 sensualism of the Mohammedans is as prominent here as in the Orient. 



The finest-house in Unyanyembe belongs to Amram bin Mussoud, who paid 

 ivory for it to the value of about £700. "It is one hundred feet in length, 

 and twenty feet high, with walls four feet thick, neatly plastered over with 

 mud mortar. The great door is a marvel of carving-work for Unyanyembe 

 artizans. Each rafter in them is also carved with fine designs. Before the 

 front of the house is a young plantation of pomegranate trees, which flourish 

 here as if they were indigenous to the soil. A shadoof,* such as maybe seen 

 on the Nile, serves to draw water to irrigate the gardens." 



Ten days after his arrival, when he and his party had rested, Mr. Stanley 

 was visited by the principal Arab settlers of Tabora, which is the principal 

 Arab settlement of Central Asia. It consists of over one thousand houses, and 

 contains over five thousand inhabitants, Arabs and natives. The intelligence 

 he received as to the state of the country he would have to cross on his way to 

 Ujiji, was anything but reassuring. Mirambo, originally the head of a gang 

 of robbers, had usurped the lordship of a large tract of country to the west. 

 He had carried war and plunder far and wide, and becoming bolder with 

 success had, previous to Mr. Stanley's arrival, begun to rob Arab caravans 

 bound for Ujiji, and refuse them passage. 



*A rude hand-crane, worked with a lever. 



