40 



MOMBASAH TOWN. 



for Allah is begged to ^make her home Paradise, 

 with the best of its inmates.' 



The materials of the Gavana are brown thatch 

 huts, clustering round a few one-storied, flat- 

 roofed boxes of glaring lime and coral rag, 

 equally rude within and without. On the 

 N. West lies the ' native ' half, which prolongs 

 the Arab quarter beyond the enceinte; this 

 suburb is wholly composed of sun-burned and 

 wind-blackened hovels, forming a labyrinth of 

 narrow lanes. Outside the faubourg clusters a 

 thicketty plantation of cocoa and fruit trees ; 

 here was the favourite skirmishing-ground be- 

 tween the Sayyid's troops and the Mazrui de- 

 fenders of the city. Mombasah is, as far as 

 Nature made her, pleasing and picturesque, but 

 man has done his best to spoil her work. A 

 glorious 'bush,' a forest of tall trees, capped by 

 waving palms, laced with Uianas, and studded 

 with shady mangoes, thick guavas, and fat ba- 

 obabs, here forming natural avenues, there scat- 

 tered as in a pleasure-ground, overspreads the 

 vicinity of the town, whilst the more distant 

 parts to the West, S. West, and N. West, are 

 dense wild growths, virgin, as it were, and still 

 sheltering the monkey and the hog, the hyaena 

 and the wild cat. The presence of man is known 



