FA AS PREFERS SLAVERY TO FREEDOM. 
2 59 
and vulture-like heads, they would be most beautiful 
birds. We eventually arrived at Mombasa on May 3rd, 
the few days spent here, while waiting for the homeward 
bound mail, being fully occupied in repacking our heads 
and skins for the voyage home, and in paying off our 
personal gun-bearers and those of the men that were 
not to return to H-. I proposed to purchase the 
freedom of my favourite gun-bearer, Faas ; but he told 
me he would prefer to remain a slave, as he then would 
always have a home to go to when out of employment ; 
I therefore saved the eight pounds that his emancipa¬ 
tion would have cost. 
The German colonists at this time were coming out 
in shoals by every monthly mail, and on the way back 
I made the acquaintance of one of the heads of their 
Association, who, like us, was returning home. In the 
course of conversation I gathered that the German 
notion of colonisation in these parts was somewhat 
arbitrary, and I ventured to prophesy to him that un¬ 
less they modified their intentions as to treatment of 
the natives, they would either drive the latter out of 
the country or become involved in serious distur¬ 
bances. Subsequent events, owing to the tactless 
and overbearing policy of some of these adven¬ 
turers, have, I fear, practically fulfilled my forecast, 
and consequently half-ruined a great number of 
the 7000 British subjects (chiefly Hindus and Par- 
sees) who live in Zanzibar and on the coast of the 
mainland. 
