ARRIVAL. 



33 



the centre, and commanding the anchorage, was 

 a square- curtained artless fort, conspicuous 

 withal, and fronted by a still more contemptible 

 battery. To its right and left the Imam's palace, 

 the various Consulates, and the large parallelo- 

 grammic buildings of the great, a tabular line of 

 flat roofs, glaring and dazzling like freshly white- 

 washed sepulchres, detached themselves from the 

 mass, and did their best to conceal the dingy 

 matted hovels of the inner town. Zanzibar city, 

 to become either picturesque or pleasing, must 

 be viewed, like Stambul, from afar. 



We floated past the guard-ship, an old 50-gun 

 frigate of Dutch form and Bombay build, be- 

 longing to 6 His Highness the Sayyid ; ' it was 

 modestly named Shah Allum (Alam), or c King 

 of the World.' The few dark faces on board 

 bawled out information unintelligible to our 

 pilot, and showed no colours, as is customary 

 when a foreign cruizer enters the port. We set 

 this clown to the fact of their being blacks — 

 * careless Ethiopians.' But flags being absent 

 from all the masts, and here, as in West Africa 

 and in the Brazil, every 'house' flies its own 

 bunting, we decided that there must be some 

 cause for the omission, and we became anxious 

 accordingly. 



VOL. L 3 



