A DAY AT CHUGNANI. 
11 
The following day, at the invitation of the Sultan, 
we drove out with Mr. Holmwood and Mr. Drummond 
to Chugnani, to which royal palace we were conveyed 
in royal carriages driven by vassals in royal livery. 
The carriages were very shaky old “rattle traps,” and 
the horses anything but high steppers, while the livery 
consisted of a dirty red coat and a white garment 
which looked like a cross between a pair of Turkish 
trousers and an English petticoat. We were drawn 
in state through charming groves of cocoa-nut and 
mango trees and banana plantations, until we reached 
the palace which is delightfully situated on a pro¬ 
montory about eight miles south of the town. We 
were rather surprised to have got there without 
misadventure, for, though the horses were perfectly 
steady, the wheels of the carriages seemed disposed 
to break away. I had always been under the im¬ 
pression that a Sultan’s palace was an indescribable 
blaze of pillars set with sparkling gems of incalculable 
value, and that if you could pick out a single loose 
stone and return with it to your native land, a life 
with such ease and comfort as results from a large 
revenue, paid quarterly, would be your just reward. The 
Zanzibar palaces undeceived me, and led me to think 
that authors, of the most exciting and engrossing books 
of travel, were not always the most reliable authorities. 
I now believe I can venture to describe the royal 
palace of Chugnani without fear of being met with 
the charge of having been carried away by an exotic 
imagination, the result of basking in oriental magni- 
