342 



JOHANNA-MEN. 



ing a passage on board our cruisers, insisting 

 upon the guard being turned out, and claiming 

 from our gullible countrymen all the honours of 

 kinghood, has proved to be a cook or a bumboat- 

 man. Unscrupulous as bigoted, they have in- 

 duced half-starved Europeans to apostatize by 

 promises of making them chiefs and of marry- 

 ing them to princesses ; after circumcision, the 

 wretches were left to starve. The Comoro men 

 settled at Zanzibar are mostly servants in 

 European houses, where they recommend them- 

 selves by exceeding impudence and by being 

 handy at any fraud. Others are rude artisans, 

 and the rest are Mercuries, beach-combers, and 

 bumboat-men, who supply sailors with Venus 

 and Bacchus, both execrably bad. When expect- 

 ing invasion, Sayyid Majid equipped about 130 of 

 these fellows as a garde de corps : they had 

 flint muskets, two spears apiece, and lozenge- 

 shaped hats, whereas the common troops wore 

 woollen night-caps. Einally, they are cowardly as 

 they are dishonest : it was not without astonish- 

 ment that I heard of Dr Livingstone engaging a 

 party of them for exploration in the African 

 interior, and the trick which they played him is 

 now a matter of history. 



The Diwans or chiefs of the mainland ports 



