Notes on Zanguelar. [No. 11, new series. 



highest prices in the market. Were it not for his continual sweet 

 smile, the qualities displayed by this erect and fair-looking old 

 man, his adroitness in steering through tempests of conflicting in- 

 terests, his unscrupulousness, his cool and pitiless severity, his af- 

 fectation of piety and superstitious fear of astrologers, his want of 

 bravery and inveterate hatred, never forgiving an offence, his suc- 

 cess in warfare, where though often beaten, he has always reaped 

 the fruits of victory, suggest to the student of history, the charac- 

 ter of Louis XI. so admirably depicted by Sir Walter Scott, in 

 Quentin Durward. 



Under these two high judicial functionaries there is a number of 

 Cazees, but very rarely will the inhabitants of Zanguebar have 

 any thing to do with them, unless to give legal sanction and force 

 to some deed of sale or other, by having it drawn up by the Cazee 

 or in his presence : the Cazee's powers do not exceed those of a 

 subordinate Police Officer in one sense and a notary in the other. 



All the time that Seyed Said can spare from his public duties, 

 he spends in the interior of his harem, and he is said to be a fond 

 parent. It is generally supposed that Seyed Said's Seraglio is 

 adorned with about a hundred ' Serayes,'* one-half of that number 

 being in town and the remnant at M'tony. In 1847 he married a 

 young Persian lady, said by some to be a Princess, by others a lady 

 of noble descent. It was my good fortune to see the Princess in 

 March 1854 riding a beautiful Arab horse, and I am bound to say 

 that no lady could sit more cavalier-like on horseback en califonr- 

 chon. Seyed Said has about forty children of all hues, but all are 

 children of Serayes, he never had any legitimate child, though he 

 has been married for the last forty years to one of his cousins who 

 is yet living. The Imam was in the habit of drawing every year 

 from Manonah five or six young and fair Abyssinian girls to re- 

 plenish his harem. But in 1847 and 1848 some English cruisers 

 resting on the treaties existing between his Highness and Great 

 Britain for the suppression of the Slave trade by Arab vessels to 



* Seraye is the Arabic denomination of all females not legitimately 

 married, whence the Europeans, mistaking the ' co;ife)>ant' for the 

 ' contenu* have probably made Seraglio, Serail, a word of no significa- 

 tion, Harem is the word for the house where the women live. 



