134 



TONGO-NI RUINS. 



tery the grave of a Wali or Santon, whose very 

 name had perished. His last resting-place, how- 

 ever, was covered with a cajan roof, floored with 

 tamped earth, cleanly swept and garnished with 

 a red and white 'flag. Other tombs bore caco- 

 phonous Wasawahili appellations embalmed in 

 mortally bad Arabic epitaphs : these denoted an 

 antiquity of about 200 years. Beyond the legend 

 above noticed, none could give me information 

 concerning the people that have passed away : 

 the architecture, however, denoted a race far 

 superior to the present owners of the land. 



Each of the principal mausolea had its tall 

 stele of cut coralline, denoting, like the Egyptian 

 and Syrian Shahadali, the position of the corpse's 

 head. In one of these, the gem of the place, 

 was fixed a chipped fragment of Persian glazed 

 tile, with large azure letters in the beautiful 

 character called ' Euka'a,' enamelled on a dirty- 

 yellow ground. The legend, ^^^^ (Shid i 

 raushan, the 'bright sun'), may be part of a 

 panegyrical or devotional verse removed from the 

 frieze of some tomb or mosque. The country 

 people hold it an impregnable proof that the men 

 qf Ajem once ruled in Tongo-ni:^ but the tile, 



^ Eor the Persian ruins on this coast the reader will consult 

 Herr Eichard Branner's Eorschungen in Ost Afrika, Mittheil- 

 ungen, 1868. 



