DESCRIPTION OF ZANZIBAR. 615 



whites, we resemble, rniscroscopically, society at home. We have our good 

 men, and true, and sociable men ; we have large-hearted hospitable men, our 

 peg-giving friends, our hail-fellows- well- met, and perambulating gossips. Our 

 houses are large, roomy, and cool ; we have plenty of servants ; we have good 

 fruit on the island ; we enjoy health while we have it ; and with our tastes, 

 education, and natural love of refinement, we have contrived to surround our- 

 selves with such luxuries as serve to prolong good health, peace of mind, and 

 life, and Inshallah I shall continue to do so while we stay in Zanzibar. The 

 above is but the frank, outspoken description of himself, that might be given 

 by a dignified and worthy Zanzibar merchant of long standing, and of Euro- 

 pean extraction. And your Commisioner will declare that it is as near truth 

 as though the Zanzibar merchant of long standing and experience had written 

 it himself. 



"Now we have had the Europeans of Zanzibar, their houses, and mode 

 and law of life described, let us get into the street and endeavour to see for 

 ourselves the nature of the native and the Semitic resident, and ascertain 

 how far they differ from the Anglo-American sublimities. As we move away 

 towards the Seyyid's Palace, we gradually become conscious that we have 

 left the plastered streets with their small narrow gutters, which re-echoed our 

 footsteps so noisily. The tall houses where the Europeans live, separated by 

 but a narrow passage ten feet wide, shut out the heat and dazzling glare 

 which otherwise the clean whitewashed walls would have reflected. When 

 we leave these behind we come across the hateful blinding sunlight, and our 

 nostrils become irritated by an amber-coloured dust, from the ' garbling ' of 

 copal and orchilla weed, and we are sensible of two separate smells which 

 affect the senses. One is the sweet fragrance of cloves, the other is the odour 

 which a crowd of slaves bearing clove bags exhale from their perspiring bodies. 

 Shortly we come across an irregular square blank in the buildings which had 

 hemmed us in from the sunlight. A fetid garbage heap, debris of mud houses, 

 sugar-cane leavings, orange and banana peelings, make piles which, festering 

 and rotting in the sun, are unsightly to the eye and offensive to the nostrils. 

 And just by we see the semi-ruinous Portuguese fort, a most feeble and dila- 

 pidated structure. Several rusty and antique cannon lie strewn along the 

 base of its front wall, and a dozen or so of dusky and beggarly-looking half- 

 castes, armed with long straight swords and antique Muscat matchlocks, affect 

 to be soldiers and guardians of the gate. Fortunately, however, for the peace 

 of the town and the reigning Prince, the prisoners whom the soldiers guard are 

 mild mannered and gentle enough, few of them having committed a worse 

 crime than participating in a bloodless street brawl, or being found intoxi- 

 cated in the street. Passing the noisy and dusty Custom House, with its 

 hives of singing porters at work, and herds of jabbering busybodies, nobodies, 

 and somebodies, we shortly arrive at the Palace, where we might as well 



