36 
THE KILIMA-NJAR0 EXPEDITION. 
the houses and mosques are gracefully designed in 
Saracenic style. Considerable Persian influence is 
evident in the 
general architec¬ 
ture and interior 
decoration of 
the mosques and 
larger buildings, 
and the Persian 
pointed arch (dif¬ 
ferent in shape 
from the Syrian 
or the Moorish) 
is constantly met 
with. In fact, 
to a student of 
Saracenic archi¬ 
tecture, Zanzibar 
and the Zangian 
coast are very in¬ 
teresting, as they 
offer not only 
buildings of great age, some of the mosques dating 
back to the tenth century of our era, but of archaic 
style, recalling most unmistakably the kind of archi¬ 
tecture met with in Saracenic monuments in Spain of 
the same age, showing thus how universal with the 
early Arab rule was that distinct architectural style 
which they developed from the late Byzantine. Just 
as there are words in Portuguese and Swahili 2 derived 
2 Swahili is the name given to the predominant language of the 
Zanzibar negroes. It is derived from the Arabic “ Sahel,” the coast. 
Swahili belongs to the Bantu family of African languages, vide 
Chapter XX. 
Fig. 13.—A Street in Zanzibar. 
