472 



INTRIGUES. 



thing less than a ship of war stationed at the 

 port would open the road to a £ Muzungu ' (white 

 man). 



The Consul had also warned me that my in- 

 quiries into the country trade, and the practice of 

 writing down answers — without which, however, 

 no report could have been compiled — were ex- 

 citing ill will. The short-sighted traders dreaded, 

 like Orientals, that competition might result 

 from our discoveries, and their brains were too 

 dull to perceive that the development of the re- 

 sources of the interior would benefit all those 

 connected with the coast. Houses that had 

 amassed in a few years large fortunes by the 

 Zanzibar trade, were exceedingly anxious to 6 let 

 sleeping dogs lie.' As far as dinners and similar 

 hospitality, the white merchants resident on the 

 Island received us with the usual African pro- 

 fuseness. There w r ere, of course, honourable ex- 

 ceptions : I have especially mentioned Captain 

 Mansfield, Mr Masury, and M. B^rard ; but not 

 a few — exempla sunt odiosa — spread reports 

 amongst the natives, Banyans, Arabs, and Wasa- 

 wahili, which were very likely to secure for us the 

 disastrous fate of M. Maizan. Captain Speke, 

 who subsequently ignored this fact, threatened to 

 throw one of the ' first houses ' out of the win- 



