616 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.R 



enter, and see how it fares with his Highness Burghash bin Said, the Prince 

 of Zanzibar and Pemba. As we may have merely made an appointment 

 with him, as private citizens of a free and independent foreign Court, and are 

 escorted only by a brother citizen of the same rank, etiquette forbids that the 

 Seyyid should come down into the street to receive his visitor. Were we her 

 Britannic Majesty's Consul or Political Resident, his Highness would deem it 

 but due to our official rank to descend into the street and meet us exactly 

 twenty-four steps from the palace door. Were we an Envoy Extraordinary, 

 the Prince would meet us some fifty or seventy-five paces from his gate. We 

 are but private citizens, however, and the only honour we get is an exhibition 

 of the guards — Beloochis, Persians, and half-castes — drawn up on each side of 

 the door, their uniforms consisting of lengthy, butternut-coloured dishdashehs, 

 or shirts, which reach from the nape of the neck to the ancles of each. 



" We have ascended a flight of steep wooden steps when we discover the 

 Prince, ready to receive us with his usual cordial and frank smile and pleasant 

 greeting ; and during a shower of good-natured queries respecting our health 

 we are escorted to the other end of the barely furnished room, where we are 

 invited to be seated. I have had (adopting the first person singular again) a 

 long conversation with the Prince of Zanzibar ; but, omitting all extraneous 

 matter, I shall only touch upon such portion of our conversation as relates to 

 a subject in which we are all interested, viz., the slave-trade, and the diplo- 

 matic mission of Sir Bartle Frere. We have all read the dispatches of Sir 

 Bartle, relating his intercourse officially with the Sultan of Zanzibar ; we have 

 also heard from his own lips his views upon East African slavery ; but none 

 of your readers have heard the story of the Sultan himself, with his views of 

 slavery and of the mission of Sir Bartle Frere. Without pretence of literal 

 and exact record of what the Sultan said, I yet declare that the spirit of what 

 he said will be found embodied in the following : — ' During Majid, my 

 brother's time, Speke came here, and travelled into Africa, and what he said 

 about us Arabs caused us a little trouble. The Consuls too have given us 

 great trouble. Some have written home much that is not quite true ; but 

 some time ago my brother Majid died, and by the grace of Grod I succeeded 

 him. The trouble which my brother Majid endured was as nothing compared 

 to that which has been the result of Doctor Livingstone's letters. I maintain 

 that those letters you brought from him and carried to England were the 

 cause of all this great trouble. Indeed, I have had a troublous time of it 

 ever since I came to the throne. First, there was the hurricane of two years 

 ago (April, 1872), which destroyed my entire fleet and all the ships of my 

 people, and devastated the island and the coast. We were well off before 

 that time, and we became suddenly poor. I had seven ships and steamers of 

 war lost, and my people lost about two hundred ships ; and if you doubt my 

 word respecting the devastation on the land, take one of my horses and ride 



