APPENDIX III. 



501 



Poultry is plentiful and cheap ; sixteen large or eighteen 

 small fowls may be bought for a dollar ; but, what is a 

 little extraordinary, eggs are both scarce and dear, and 

 when procured are generally bad : they have also Mus- 

 covy ducks and Guinea-fowl_, which last are found wild 

 on the island. The variety of birds and wild fowl is 

 not great. The principal are the whistling duck and 

 curlews, and the ibis of the ancients, so numerous on the 

 banks of the Nile, pigeons, doves, and a few others. 



Spanish dollars and German crowns are the coins com- 

 monly current among them ; and though they will take 

 some others, they prefer these. Among the shoals and 

 rocks which connect the small islands that surround the 

 harbour, and in the harbour itself, delicious fish of great 

 variety are usually taken in plenty, either with nets or 

 with the line and hook ; and those who will take the 

 trouble to examine the shoals at low-water during spring- 

 tides, will find their labour amply repaid by a collection of 

 curious and rare shells, which for beauty are not to be 

 surpassed by any in the known world. 



Notwithstanding the heat of the climate, the vast 

 quantity of wood, and filthy manners of the inhabitants, it 

 does not appear that Zanzibar is an unhealthy island, 

 except during the rainy season, when fevers and fluxes 

 are, from the above causes, very prevalent, but which by 

 proper regulations might be easily obviated. In a place 

 where there is no medical assistance or receptacles for the 

 diseased, it may be supposed numerous miserable objects 

 would be met with ; this, however, is not the case. In 

 walking about the town, I did not remark a larger pro- 

 portion of these unfortunate beings than is generally to 

 be met with in most of our own settlements in India. 



