4H 



THE WASAWAHILL 



of inferior development. The Mahadinm of Zanzi- 

 bar are evidently the ancient lords of the Island, 

 reduced to a manner of servitude by northern 

 conquerors. Though now free, and often slave- 

 owners, these Helots are subject, at the Prince's 

 order, to an occasional corvee, and to a poll-tax. 

 The amount of the latter affords a rude census ; the 

 adult males range between 10,000 and 12,000, 

 and the women, it is said, are proportionally more 

 numerous. 



The Wasawahili of the Island appear physically 

 inferior to those of the seaboard : as in the days 

 of Marco Polo, they are emphatically an ugly 

 race. If the girls in early youth show traces 

 of prettiness, it is a grotesque order of the beaute* du 

 diable. Some of the men have fine, large, strong, 

 and muscular figures, without being able to use 

 their strength, and as amongst uncivilized people 

 generally, the reality falls short of the promise. 

 The national peculiarity is the division of the 

 face into two distinct types, and the contrast 

 appears not a little singular. The upper, or 

 intellectual part, though capped by woolly hair, 

 is distinctly Semitic — with the suspicion of a 

 caricature — as far as the nose-bridge, and the 

 more ancient the family the more evident is the 

 mixture. The lower, or animal half, especially 



