CHAPTER XII. 



PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE. 



' The port of Zanzibar has little or no trade ; that to Bom- 

 bay consists of a little gum and ivory, brought from the main- 

 land, with a few cloves, the only produce of the island ; and the 

 import trade is chiefly dates, and cloth from Muscat, to make 

 turbans. These things are sent in small country vessels, which 

 make only one voyage a year. The trade is consequently very 

 trifling.' — Capt. Hart, Commanding H. M. S. Imogene, 1834. 



The dry season — and uncommonly dry it had 

 been — was judged by all old hands unfit for travel, 

 and I was strongly advised to defer exploration 

 of the interior till after learning something of 

 the coast. The Rev. Mr Erhardt's Memoir on 

 the Chart of Eastern and Central Africa, which 

 threw into a huge uninterrupted Caspian half-a- 

 dozen central lakes, and called it in the south 

 Niandsha (Nyassa), in the north Ukerewe, and 

 on the coast Niasa and Bahari ya Uniamesi, 



