Mat 1861.] 



Notes on Zanguehar. 



85 



Zanguebar with his new-born ship, and generally has the command 

 of her for the first voyage to Europe or Singapore, always with the 

 assistance of a European Navigator. On his return the Nakoodah 

 generally feels tired or sick, and desires to retire for a while ; to 

 which the Imam assents, and then the happy Arab seaman takes 

 to agriculture and settles down with ardour and industry in some 

 select spot of Zanguebar or Pemba, where he plants a few acres of 

 clove trees and goes on increasing his plantations every year. 

 When the happy Nakoodah has built a house and has some twenty 

 acres of clove trees in full bearing, he is startled one fine morning 

 at the Durbar, where he comes regularly to pay his respects to the 

 Sultan, by the announcement that His Highness wishes to purchase 

 his farm for one of the young Princes. The Nakoodah bows, says 

 " Alhumd-ool-illah," and receives a cheque on the Custom House 

 Collector for five hundred dollars, exactly the value of the jungle 

 he has so industriously cleared or planted — the actual value now 

 being ten thousand dollars — and some times what is yet worse the 

 Nakoodah has felled as many acres of cocoanut trees, the patri- 

 monial property of his family for many generations, to give place to 

 the more productive clove tree. 



It is not only Nakoodahs who are daily exposed to such com- 

 pulsory restitutions, bnt all persons in the employ of the Imam are 

 liable to be in this way unexpectedly called to account for their 

 past transgressions, and then the account is settled by the Imam 

 with interest at a heavy rate. To my knowledge during the ten 

 years from 1845 to 1854, about a dozen such sequestrations were 

 made by Seyed Said. One of his parasite servants has alone been 

 able to avoid the terrible day of settlement. This fortunate man 

 was well known at Zanguebar by all Europeans under the name of 

 Captain or Commodore Hassan, some of his European flatterers 

 gave him the title of Admiral Hassan. 



He was an old man when I knew him, with a sordid and mean 

 looking face, always very well dressed, and wearing double green 

 spectacles. He possessed one of the most comfortable houses in 

 Zanguebar, furnished in the best European style. Captain Hassan 

 had for a long time commanded the ships of His Highness, and 

 had made many voyages to England and the United States ; and 



