THE FIRST DEPARTURE. 



43 



over a sandy soil, thick with thorns and bush, which in 

 places project across the way. Thence ascending a 

 wave of ground where cocoas and the wild arrow-root 

 flourish, it looks clown upon park land like that de- 

 scribed by travellers in Kaffraria, a fair expanse of 

 sand veiled with humus, here and there growing rice, 

 with mangoes and other tall trees, regularly disposed 

 as if by the hand of man. Finally, after crossing a 

 muddy grass-grown swamp, and a sandy bottom full 

 of water when rain has been heavy, the path, passing 

 through luxuriant cultivation, enters Kuingani. Such 

 is the " nakl," or preparatory- stage of Arab travellers, 

 an invariable first departure, where porters who find 

 their load too heavy, or travellers who suspect that 

 they are too light, can return to Kaole and re-form. 



The little settlement of Kuingani is composed of a 

 few bee-hive huts, and a Bandani or wall-less thatched 

 roof — the village palaver-house — clustering orderless 

 round a cleared central space. Outside, cocoas, old and 

 dwarfed, mangoes almost wild, the papaw, the cotton 

 shrub, the perfumed Rayhan or Basil, and a sage-like 

 herb, the sugarcane, and the Hibiscus called by the 

 Goanese " Rosel," vary the fields of rice, holcus, and 

 " Turiyan," or the Cajanus Indicus. The vegetation is, 

 in fact, that of the Malabar coast ; the habitations are 

 peculiarly African. 



The 28th of June was a halt at Kuingani, where I was 

 visited by Ramji and two brother Bhattias, Govindji 

 and Kesulji. The former was equipped, as least be- 

 comes the Banyan man, with sword, dudgeon, and 

 assegai. But Ramji was a heaven-made soldier; he 

 had taken an active part in the military operations 

 directed by His Highness the late Sayyid Said against 

 the people of the mainland, and about thirteen years 



