92 



THE SALT MARKET. 



and well, but he died before our return from the 

 interior in 1859. 



Below the eastern bastion of the 6 Gurayza ' 

 is the most characteristic spot in Zanzibar city, 

 the Salt Market, so called from the heaps of 

 dingy saline sand offered for sale by the Maskati 

 Arabs and the Mekranis. Being near the Cus- 

 tom House, it is always thronged, and like the 

 bazars of Cairo and Damascus it gives an ex- 

 aggerated idea of the population. There are be- 

 sides this three other £ Suk.' The Suk Muhogo, 

 or Manioc market, to the south of the city, 

 supplies the local staff of life. It is the sweet 

 variety of Jatropha, called in the Brazil Aypim, 

 or Macacheira, and known to us as white cas- 

 sava : it will not make wood-meal, called year 

 ^l°X 7 3 v ' farinha, the flour. The poisonous Manioc 

 (Jatropha Manihot) must be soaked in water, or 

 rasped, squeezed, and toasted, to expel its dele- 

 terious juice, which the Brazilian ' Indians,' and 

 the people of the Antilles, convert by boiling into 

 sugar, vinegar, and cassareep for c pepper-pot ' — 

 I heard of this 6 black cassava ' in inner East 

 Africa. The Suk Muhogo sells, besides the 

 negro's daily bread, cloth and cotton, grain and 

 paddy, vegetables, and other provisions. The 

 shops are the usual holes in the wall, raised a 



