BURIALS. 



395 



themselves do not object to Waswahili, and negro- 

 girls, bnt the single Arab wife — there is rarely 

 more than one — rules the concubines with a rod 

 of iron. 



Men, women, and children weep at funerals, 

 but it is not the custom to hire 'keeners.' The 

 feminine mourning dress is black, and the period, 

 as general among Moslems, lasts 40 days. Con- 

 trary to Arab custom, the graves are lined with 

 boarding. The exterior is a wall of coralline rag 

 and lime from a foot to a foot and a half high, 

 with little raised steps at the head and feet ; here a 

 porcelain saucer or an encaustic tile is sometimes 

 mortared in by way of ornament. Old ceme- 

 teries abound throughout the city and the suburbs, 

 sometimes showing offensive sights. A simple 

 slab sufficed for the late Sayyid's ancestors ; on 

 the spot, however, where he and his son Khalid 

 lie, they are building a dwarf truncated pyramid 

 of stone and cement, an unusual memorial to a 

 Bayazi or a Wahhabi. Of late years the Arabs 

 have begun to inter their slaves. Formerly the 

 corpses were thrown to the beasts or tossed into 

 the sea, and from the windows of H.M.'s Consul- 

 ate I have seen more than one body bleached 

 snow-white by sea-water, and stranded upon the 

 beach where no one cared to bury it. 



