38 Wanderings in Eastern Africa. 
peaked cap upon his head ; a heavy mustache, twisted 
into points, in the Napoleonic fashion, and coloured 
green, upon his lip ; spectacles across his nose ; a 
paper in one hand and a reed-pen in the other ; 
his head bent forward, his eyes peering through his 
glasses at the paper below, he looks the personifica- 
tion of abstraction ; he might be an alchemist on the 
verge of discovering the philosopher s stone, or a 
divine about to seize upon the origin of moral evil. 
This man is one of the great powers in Eastern 
Africa. 
The Borahs are a somewhat respectable class of 
men ; in business ability a match for the Banians. 
They are keen, sagacious, but over-grasping. Their 
object is to make money, and to make it as fast as 
they can. They are Moslems, but are considered 
corrupt by the Arabs and Wasuahili, so are looked 
upon askance by their co-religionists. They hold 
their own views with obstinacy, but they are not 
bigoted, like the Arabs. They know too much of 
what the English have done for India to feel other 
than a profound respect for Englishmen. In com- 
mercial matters these men would make a most useful 
ally with western peoples. 
Another section of the Indian residents are the 
stall-keepers in all the bazaars. They are not a 
prepossessing people. They possess the long, sharp, 
regular features of western Asiatics, but they carry 
in their countenances an expression of dulness pecu- 
liarly their own. Perhaps their mode of life will 
account for this. Confined as they are to the narrow 
precincts of their stalls, with no other occupation than 
that of serving out to their customers the various 
