Zanzibar, 
27 
occupied by Arabs, Hindoos, and others. Along the 
front, remarkable for their meanness, are the custom 
house and the chief fortifications of the place. The 
first is a miserable hut, surrounded by low sheds ; 
the latter is a long, straight, low, thick wall, bestuck 
with guns through its entire length, yet looking one 
of the most harmless affairs in the world. To an 
ordinary unmilitary observer it appears the merest 
mockery of a fort. Farther south, on the Ras 
Changani, is the missionary establishment of the 
Oxford and Cambridge Universities, a very con- 
spicuous object in the scene. The architecture of 
the whole is of the plainest description, most of the 
buildings being quadrangular, hollow-square erec- 
tions, solid enough in appearance, but totally wanting 
in ornamentation. All are built of rough coral and 
mortar, finished off by a covering of the whitest 
plaster, the glare of which, under a noonday tropical 
sun, is almost blinding. A remarkable feature in the 
appearance of these buildings is the straight, regular, 
factory-like rows of windows, which are the only relief 
to the insufferable glare and monotony of white walls. 
The best building of the whole is the mission house ; 
the next, that of the German consulate ; the English 
consulate is utterly unworthy of our great nation ; 
while the French consulate is execrable. Beyond, 
and behind Ras Changani, are, first, a low, brown, 
gloomy-looking structure, built by the English con- 
sul for a jail ; and the other a flat claret-box "shaped 
house, intended, we believe, to become, before long, 
an hotel and restaurant^ for the accommodation of 
the naval and other visitors of Zanzibar, 
With regard to the jail, it is a significant fact, that 
