CHAPTER IV.
A STROLL THROUGH ZANZIBAR CITY.
‘E dahi se foi à Ilha de Zanzibar, que he aquèm de Mombaça vinte leguas e tão pegada à terra firma que as náos que passarem per entre ellas, hão de ser vistas.’—DE BARROS, 1, vii. 4.
And first of the Port.
Zanzibar harbour is a fine specimen of the true Atoll, barrier or fringing reef, built upon a subsiding foundation, probably of sandstone. The original lagoon, charged with sediment and washings from the uplands, must have burst during some greater flood, and split into narrow water-ways the one continuous coralline rim. The same influences may account for the gaps in the straight-lined reef whose breach gave a name to Brazilian Pernambuco.
The port varies in depth from 9 to 13 fathoms, with overfalls, and the rise of the tide is 13 feet. Here the Hormos Episalos (statio fluctuosa, or open roadstead of the Periplus, chap. 8) has been converted into a basin by the industry of the lithophyte. These ants of the ocean have built up an arc of
‘Sea-girt isles, That, like to rich and various gems, inlay The unadorned bosom of the deep.’
There is a front harbour and a back bay. The latter enables ships landing cargo to avoid the heavy swell of the N.E. monsoon. The two are separated by Ras Changáni[17]—Sandy Point. The name, corrupted to Shangany, has attached itself in our charts to the whole city.
These coral-based islet clumps are readily made in these seas. The rough ridges of a ‘wash,’ where currents meet, are soon heaped with sea-weed, with drift-wood, and with scatters of parasitical testaceæ, which decaying form a thin but fruitful soil. Seeds brought by winds, waves, and birds then germinate; and matter, animal as well as vegetable, is ever added till a humus-bed is formed for thick shrubbery and trees. Unless deposition and vegetation continue to bind the rock, it is liable to be undermined by the sea, when it forms banks dangerous to navigation.
Dr Ruschenberger, repeated by a modern traveller, informs us that there are ‘four minor reefs, looking like great arks, whose bows and sterns hang bushing over the waters.’ As all the plans show, there are five. The northernmost link of the broken chain is Champáni (not ‘Chapany’), the Isle des Français of French charts. It became a God’s-acre for Europeans, whose infidel corpses here, as at Maskat, and in ancient Madeira before the days of Captain Cook, had during less latitudinarian times the choice of the dunghill of the cove, or of a hole in the street. Formerly it was frequented by turtle-fishers and egg-seekers: ‘black Muhogo,’[18] however, has been scared away by visions of fever- stricken, yellow-faced ghosts rising ghastly from the scatter of Christian graves. The bit of sandy bush, distinguished from its neighbours by absence of tall trees, is frequented (1857) by naval and commercial Nimrods, with ‘shooting irons’ and ‘smelling dogs,’ curs with clipped ears and shorn tails, bought from bumboat men: _en bon chasseurs_, they shoot the Sayyid’s little antelopes which troop up expecting food; and sometimes these sportsmen make targets of certain buff-coloured objects imperfectly seen through the bushes. The mouldering sepulchres in their neglected clearings make the prospect of a last home here peculiarly unsavoury, almost as bad as in Brazilian Santos. Yet there are traditions of French picnics visiting it to eat monkey—a proceeding which might have been interrupted _en ville_.
Westward the line of natural breakwaters is prolonged by Kibondiko, Le Ponton, or the Hulk. A mere mass of jungle, it has never been utilized. The eye, however, rests with pleasure upon the sheet of sparkling foam tumbling white over its coralline outliers, backed by dark purple-blue distance, and fronted by tranquil, leek-green shoal water. Connected with its neighbour by a reef practicable at low tides, it is separated from Changu, or Middle Island, by ‘French channel,’ deep enough for men- of-war. The shoals about it supply a small rock-oyster. The Crustacea, however, is uncultivated, and amongst Moslems it is _escargot_ to the typical John Bull.
The most important is Báwi or Turtle Island, a low, dry bank, slightly undulated, with a beautifully verdant undergrowth, fringed and tasseled with the tallest cocoas. The Chelonian (K’hasa) of the East coast, eaten in April and May, by no means equals that of Fernando Po or of Ascension; moreover, here no man is master of the art and mystery of developing callipash and callipee. Turtle, cooked by a ‘cook-boy,’ suggests the flesh of small green Saurians (Susmár), which the haughty Persians of Firdausi thus objected to their Semitic neighbours—
‘Can the Arab’s greed thus have grown so great, From his camels’ milk and his lizards’ meat, That he casts on Kayyanian crowns his eye? Fie on thee! thou swift-rolling world, O fie!’
The tortoise-shell, so often mentioned in the Periplus as an export from Menouthias (chap. xv.) and Rhapta (chap. xvii.), has until lately been neglected. Like Bombay Calabar, and our Isle of Dogs in the olden time, the few acres of Turtle Island were used to ‘keep antelopes, goats, and other beasts of delight,’ while vicious baboons were deported to it from the city. Below it is the celebrated ‘Harpshell Bank,’ now mercilessly spoiled. Southernmost is Chumbi Island, alias La Passe, which, mistaken for the Turtle, has caused, many a wreck. These mishaps are not always accidental. One day Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton saw, through his glass, the master of a Frenchman deliberately stow himself and his luggage in the gig, put off, and leave his ship to run her nose upon the nearest reef.
These islands form the well-known ‘Passes,’ channels intricate with lithodom-reefs and mollusk-beds. They number four, namely, the northern or English Pass, between Champáni and Zanzibar; the N. W. or French Pass, between Kibondiko and Changu; the great or middle, between Changu and Báwi; and the western, south of Báwi. The principal entrance was buoyed by the late Sayyid, but these precautions soon disappeared. Within the line of break-waters is the anchorage, which may be pronounced excellent; ships ride close to shore in 7 to 8 fathoms, and the area between the islets and the island may be set down at 3·8 square miles. It presents an animated scene. Mosquito fleets of ‘ngaráwa’ or monoxyles cut the wavelets like flying proas, under the nice conduct of the sable fishermen, who take advantage of the calm weather. The northerners from about Brava have retained the broad-brimmed straw hat, big as an average parasol. Like that of Malabar, Morocco, and West Africa, it was adopted by their Portuguese conquerors. The machua or ‘little boats’ of the Lusiads, which De Barros calls ‘Sambucos,’[19] are still the same, except that a disproportioned sail of merkani (American domestics), based upon a pair of outriggers, now supplies the primitive propeller,
‘d’humas folhas de palma bem tecidas.’
The outrigger is rarely neglected. Here and there a giant shark shoots up from the depths, and stares at the fishermen with a cruel, fixed, and colourless eye, that makes his blood run cold. Only the poorest of poor devils will venture into a ‘dug-out,’ which is driven before the wind or paddled with a broad, curved, spoon-like blade. These Matumbi, or hollowed logs, form a curious national contrast with the launches and lighters that land European merchandise; ponderous and solid squares, their build shows nothing graceful or picturesque.
The N. E. monsoon is now (December) doing its duty well, and bringing various native craft from Madagascar, Mozambique, the minor islands of the Indian Ocean, Bombay and Guzerat, the Somali coast, the Red Sea, Maskat, and the Persian Gulf. Numbering 60 to 70, they anchor close in shore—O Semites and Hamites, wondrously apathetic!—where the least sea would bump them to bits. About half a mile outside the ‘country shipping,’ ride, in 5 to 6 fathoms, half a dozen square-rigged merchantmen—Americans, French, and Hamburgers; England is not represented. What with bad water, and worse liquor, the Briton finds it hard to live at Zanzibar. All are awaiting cargoes of copal and ivory, of hides, and of the cowries which we used to call ‘blackamoor’s teeth.’
The quaintest and freshest local build is to us the Mtepe, which the Arabs call Muntafiyah.[20] This lineal descendant of the Ploaria Rhapta (Naviculæ Consutæ, Periplus, chap. 16), that floated upon these seas 20 centuries ago, is a favourite from Lamu to Kilwa. The shell has a beam one-third of its length, and swims the tide buoyantly as a sea-bird. This breadth, combined with elasticity, enables it to stand any amount of grounding and bumping, nor is it ever beached for the S. W. monsoon. It is pegged together, not nailed, and mostly, as the old traveller says, ‘sewn, like clothes, with twine.’ The tapering mast, raking forwards, carries any amount of square matting, by no means air-tight, and the stern is long and projecting, as if amphisbænic. The swan-throat of the arched prow is the cheniscus of the classical galley-stem. Necklaced with strips of hide and bunches of talismans, it bears a red head; and the latter, as in the ark of Osiris and in the Chinese junk, has the round eyes painted white,—possibly, in the beginning holes for hawsers. The ‘Mtepe’ carries from 12 to 20 tons, and can go to windward of everything propelled by wind.
The Badan, from Sur, Sohar, and Maskat, has a standing plank-covering, and being able to make 11 knots an hour is preferred by passengers, Arab loafers, and sorners, one being allowed per ton in short trips. Descried from afar through the haze, her preposterous sail has caused the Zanzibarites to fly their flags in anticipation of home news; nearer, the long, narrow, quoin-shaped craft, with towering stern-post and powerful rudder, like the caudal fin of some monstrous fish, presents an exceptional physiognomy. The uncouth Arab Dau (dow) dates probably from the days of the Phœnicians, and is found all over the Indian Ocean. She ranges from 50 to 500 tons, and her sharp projecting bow makes her deck nearly a quarter longer than the keel, giving her, when under weigh, a peculiar stumbling, shambling, tottering gait. The open poop is a mass of immense outworks, and there is the normal giant steering-tackle, often secured only by lashings: a single mast is stepped a little ahead of amidships; it rakes forward, as is the rule of primitive craft, and it supports a huge square sail of coarse material. The Kidau (small dow) is similar, but with open stern-cabins; it is generally sewn together with coir or rope of cocoa fibre, and caulked with the same. The bottom is paid over with a composition of lime and shark’s-oil, which, hardening under water, preserves the hull from sea-worms. Thus sheathed, ships which have made two feet of leakage become tight as if newly coppered. Similarly, the Irish fishermen coat their craft with marl and oil. Talc and tallow are employed in different parts of Europe: and the Chinese use a putty of oil and burnt gypsum; according to others, a composition of lime and resin of the Tongshu-tree applied over the oakum of bamboo (Astley, 4, 128).
The ‘Grab’ (properly ‘Ghurab,’ meaning a raven) is an overgrown Pattimar. A model of the latter craft, primitive and Hindu, was submitted to the British public during _the_ Great Exhibition. Rigged barque-like, it is wondrous ark-like and uncouth. Baghlahs (she-mules) and Ganjas (Ghancheh), from Cutch, are old tubs with low projecting prows and elevated sterns, elaborately carved and painted. Low down in the fore, their lean bows split like giant wedges the opposing waves, which hiss and seethe as they fly past in broad arrow-heads. Dangerous in heavy seas, these coffins are preserved by popular prejudice for the antique and by the difficulty of choosing other models. Add sundry Batelas, with poop-cabinets, closed and roomy, some with masts struck, others ready to weigh anchor—I am not writing, gentle reader, a report on Moslem naval architecture—and you have an idea of the outlandish fleet, interesting withal, which bethrongs the port of Zanzibar.
The much-puffed squadron of the late Sayyid, stationed during his life at Mto-ni, and now being divided amongst the rival heirs, flanks with its single and double tiers of guns these peaceful traders, of whom, by- the-by, some are desperate pirates. The number is imposing; but the decks have no awnings against the weather, the masts are struck and stripped to save rigging, the yards lie fore-and-aft upon the booms, the crews consist of half-a-dozen thievish, servile ‘sons of water’ (M’áná Májí); rats and cockroaches compose the live stock; the ammunition is nowhere, and though the quarter and main decks are sometimes swept, everything below is foul with garbage and vermin. The exteriors are dingy; the interiors are so thoroughly rotted by fresh water that the ships are always ready to go down at their anchors. The whole thing is a mistake amongst Arabs, who are fitted only for a ‘buggalow,’ or at best a ‘grab.’ The late Sayyid once attempted English sailors, who behaved well as long as they did what they pleased, especially in the minor matters of ’baccy and grog; but when the dark-faced skipper began loud speaking and tall threats, they incontinently thrashed him upon his own quarterdeck, and were perforce ‘dismissed the service.’ Every captain in the R. N. Maskat, besides impudently falsifying the muster-rolls, will steal the fighting-lanterns, the hammocks, and other articles useful at home; whilst the care-takers sell in the bazar, junk, rope, and line; copper bolts, brass-work, and carpenter’s chests bearing the government mark. When a ship is wanted an Arab Nakhoda (here called Náhozá), a Muallim or sailing-master, and a couple of Sukkanis (pilots), are sent on board with a crew composed of a few Arab non-commissioned officers and ‘able seamen,’ Baloch, Maskatis, and slaves. The commander, who receives some 50 dollars per lunar month, kills time with the cognac bottle; the sailing-master (7 dollars) dozes like a lap-dog in his own arm-chair on the quarter-deck; and the seamen do nothing, Jack helping Bill. One of these vessels sent to England a few years ago lost, by want of provisions and bad water, 86 out of its crew—100 men; and can we wonder at it? A single small screw-steamer, carrying a heavy gun, and manned and commanded by Europeans, would have been more efficient in warfare, and far more useful in peace, than the whole squadron of hulks. It is, however, vain to assure the Arab brain that mere number is not might; and, indeed, so it is when people believe in it.
The high and glassless windows of H. M.’s Consulate enable us to prospect the city. Zanzibar, in round, numbers 6° south of the line, occupies the western edge and about the midway length of the coral reef that forms the island. The latter is separated by a Manche or channel from the continent, a raised strip of blue land, broken by tall and remarkable cones all rejoicing in names still mysterious enough to flutter the traveller’s nerves. The inclination of the island from N.N.W. to S.S.E. shelters the harbour from the Indian Ocean, whilst the bulge of the mainland breaks the force of dangerous Hippalus, the S.W. monsoon. The minimum breadth of the Manche is 16 geographical miles; from the Fort to the opposite coast there are 24, and from the bottom of Menai Bay 35. The Periplus gives to the Menouthian Channel about 300 stadia, in round numbers 30 geographical miles: 600 common stadia correspond, within a fraction of the real measurement, with a degree of latitude (1° = 1/360 of the earth’s circumference). Marinus of Tyre and Ptolemy, however, unduly reduced the latter to 500 stadia.
Zanzibar city is built upon a triangular spit, breaking the line of its wide, irregular, and shallow bay. The peninsula is connected with the island by an isthmus some 300 yards wide, and it is backed by swamp and lagoon, bush and forest. Arc-shaped, with the chord formed by the sea- frontage, and the segment of the circle facing landwards, its greatest length is from N.E. to S.W., and it is disposed beachways, like the sea- ports of Oman. The front is a mere ‘dicky,’ a clean show concealing uncleanness. Instead, however, of a neat marine parade and a T-shaped pier, the foreground is a line of sand fearfully impure. Corpses float at times upon the heavy water; the shore is a cess-pool, and the younger blacks of both sexes disport themselves in an absence of costume which would startle even Margate. Round-barrelled bulls, the saints of the Banyans, and therefore called by us ‘Brahmani,’ push and butt, by way of excitement, the gangs of serviles who carry huge sacks of cowries, and pile high their hides and logwood. Others wash and scrape ivory, which suggested to a young traveller the idea that the precious bone, here so plentiful, is swept up by the sea. At night the front often flares as if on fire. The cause is lime-burning on the shore, in small, round, built- up heaps.
Another evil, arising from want of quay and breakwater, is that the sea at times finds its way into the lower parts of the town. The nuisance increases, as this part of the Island appears to be undergoing depression, not an uncommon process in fictile madrepore formations. Off Changáni Point, where in 1823 stood a hut-clump and a mosque, four fathoms of water now roll. The British Consulate, formerly many yards distant from the surf, must be protected by piles and rubble. Some of the larger houses have sunk four, and have sloped nine feet from terrace to ground, owing to the instability of their soppy foundations. The ‘Tree-island’ of our earliest charts has been undermined and carried away bodily by the waves; whilst to the north the sea has encroached upon Mto-ni, where the Sayyid’s flag-staff has four times required removal. On the other hand, about 15 years ago, the ‘Middle Shoal’ of the harbour was awash; now it is high and dry.
In 1835 Dr Ruschenberger estimated the census of Zanzibar at 12,000 souls, of whom two-thirds were slaves. In 1844 Dr Krapf proposed 100,000 as the population of the island, the greater number living in the capital. Captain Guillain, in 1846, gave 20,000 to 25,000, slaves included. I assumed the number, in 1857, as 25,000, which during the N.E. monsoon, when a large floating population flocks in, may rise to 40,000, and even to 45,000. The Consular report of 1849 asserts it to be ‘about 60,000.’
The city is divided into 18 quarters (Mahallat), each having its own name; and when travellers inform us that it is called ‘Hamuz,’ Moafilah, or Baur, they simply take a part for the whole.[21] The west-end boasts the best houses, chiefly those which wealthy natives let to stranger merchants. The Central, or Fort quarter, is the seat of government and of commerce, whilst few foreigners inhabit the eastern extremities, the hottest and the most unhealthy. The streets are, as they should be under such a sky, deep and winding alleys, hardly 20 feet broad, and travellers compare them with the threads of a tangled skein. In the west-end a pavement of Chunam, or tamped lime, is provided with a gutter, which secures dryness and cleanliness—it is the first that I have seen in an African city. As we go eastward all such signs of civilization vanish; the sun and wind are the only engineers, and the frequent green and black puddles, like those of the filthy Ghetto, or Jews’ quarter, at Damascus, argue a preponderance of black population. Here, as on the odious sands, the festering impurities render strolling a task that requires some resolution, and the streets are unfit for a decent (white) woman to walk through. I may say the same of almost every city where the negro element abounds.
As in the coast settlements of the Red Sea and of Madagascar, the house material is wholly coral rag, a substance at once easily worked and durable—stone and lime in one. The irregularity of the place is excessive, and it is by no means easy to describe its peculiar physiognomy. The public buildings are poor and mean. The mosques which adorn Arab towns with light and airy turrets, breaking the monotony of square white tenements, magnified claret-chests, are here in the simplest Wahhabi form. About 30 of these useful, but by no means ornamental, ‘meeting-houses’ are scattered about the city for the use of the ‘established church.’ They are oblong rooms, with stuccoed walls, and matted floors; the flat roofs are supported by dwarf rows of square piers and polygonal columns; whilst Saracenic arches, broad, pointed, and lanceated, and windows low-placed for convenience of expectoration, with inner emarginations in the normal shape of scallops or crescents, divide the interior. Two Shafei mosques, one called after Mohammed Abd el Kadir, the other from Mohammed el Aughan (Afghan), have minarets, dwindled turrets like the steeples of Brazilian villages; another boasts of a diminutive cone, most like an Egyptian pigeon-tower; and a fourth has a dwarf excrescence, suggesting the lantern of a light-house. The Shiahs, who are numerous, meet for prayer in the Kipondah quarter, and the Kojahs have a ruined mosque outside the city.
The best houses are on the Arab plan familiar to travellers in Ebro-land and her colonies. The type has extended to France and even to Galway, where we still find it in the oldest buildings. A dark narrow entrance leads from the street, and the centre of the tenements is a hypæthral quadrangle, the Iberian Patio or Quintal. We miss, however, the shady trees, the sweet flowers, and bright verdure with which the southern European and the Hispano-American beautify their dwellings. Here the ‘Dár’ is a dirty yard, paved or unpaved, usually encumbered with piles of wood or hides, stored for sale, and tenanted by poultry, dogs, donkeys, and lounging slaves. A steep and narrow, dark and dangerous staircase of rough stone, like a companion-ladder, connects it with the first floor, the ‘noble-quarter.’ There are galleries for the several storeys, and doors opening upon the court admit light into the rooms. Zanzibarian architecture, as among ‘Orientals’ generally, is at a low ebb. The masonry shows not a single straight line; the arches are never similar in form or size; the floors may have a foot of depression between the middle and the corners of the room; whilst no two apartments are on the same level, and they seldom open into each other. Joiner’s work and iron-work must both be brought from India.
The ‘azotéas’[22] flat roofs, or rather terraces, are supported by mangrove-trunks, locally called ‘Zanzibar rafters,’ and the walls, of massive thickness, are copiously ‘chunam’d.’ Here the inmates delight to spread their mats, and at suitable seasons to ‘smell the air.’ Bándá or bándáni, pent-roofed huts of plaited palm-leaf (makuti or cajan) garnish the roofs of the native town. Europeans do not patronize these look- outs, fires being frequent and the slaves dangerous. Some foreigners have secured the comfort of a cool night by building upper cabins of planking, and have paid for the enjoyment in rheumatism, ague, and fever.
Koranic sentences on slips of paper, fastened to the entrances, and an inscription cut in the wooden lintel, secure the house from witchcraft, like the crocodile in Egypt; whilst a yard of ship’s cable drives away thieves. The higher the tenement, the bigger the gateway, the heavier the padlock, and the huger the iron studs which nail the door of heavy timber, the greater is the owner’s dignity. All seems ready for a state of siege. Even the little square holes pierced high up in the walls, and doing duty as ventilators, are closely barred. As heat prevents the use of glass in sleeping-rooms, shutters of plain or painted plank supply its place, and persiennes deform the best habitations. The northern European who sleeps for the first time in one of these blockhouses fairly realizes the first sensations of a jail. Of course the object is defence, therefore the form is still common to Egypt and Zanzibar, Syria and Asia Minor.
Arabs here, as elsewhere, prefer long narrow rooms (40 feet × 15 to 20), generally much higher than their breadth, open to the sea-breeze, which is the health-giver; and they close the eastern side-walls against the ‘fever-wind,’ the cool, damp, spicy land-draught. The Sala or reception- hall is mostly on the ground-floor. It contrasts strongly with our English apartments, where the comfortless profusion and confusion of furniture, and where the undue crowding of ornamental ornaments, spoil the proportions and ‘put out’ the eye. The protracted lines of walls and rows of arched and shallow niches, which take the place of tables and consoles, are unbroken save by a few weapons. Pictures and engravings are almost unknown; chandeliers and mirrors are confined to the wealthy; and the result, which in England would be bald and barn-like, here suggests the coolness and pleasing simplicity of an Italian villa—in Italy. A bright-tinted carpet, a gorgeous but tasteful Persian rug for the daïs, matting on the lower floor, which is of the usual chunam; a divan in old-fashioned houses; and, in the best of the modern style, half a dozen stiff chairs of East Indian blackwood or China-work, compose the upholstery of an Arab ‘palazzo.’ In the rooms of the few who can or will afford such trifles, ornaments of porcelain or glassware, and French or Yankee knicknacks fill the niches. Of course the inner apartments are more showily dressed, but these we may not explore.
About half way down the front of the city we debouch upon the ‘Gurayza’ or fort. The material is the usual coral-rag, cemented with lime of the same formation, rudely burnt, and the style as well as the name (Igreja- Ecclesia) recall to mind the Portuguese of the heroic sixteenth century. It is one of those naïve, crenelated structures, flanked by polygonal towers, each pierced for one small gun, and connected by the comparatively low curtains, in which our ancestors put their trust. A narrow open space runs round it, and it is faced by a straight-lined detached battery, commanding the landing, and about 12 yards long. The embrasures of this outwork are so close that the first broadside would blow open the thin wall; and the score of guns is so placed that every bullet striking the fort must send a billet or two into the men that serve them. A ‘_place d’armes_,’ about 50 feet wide, divides the two, and represents the naval and military arsenal—two dozen iron carronades lying piled to the right of the first entrance, and as much neglected and worm-eaten as though they belonged to our happy colony, Cape Coast Castle. Amongst the guns of different calibre we find a few fine old brass pieces, one of which bears the dint of a heavy blow. They are probably the plunder of Hormuz or of Maskat, where the small matter of a ‘piece of ham wrapped up in paper’[23] caused, in the middle of the seventeenth century, a general massacre of the Portuguese.’
The gateway is the usual intricate barbican. Here in olden times, after the prayers of el Asr (3 p.M.) the governor and three judges, patriarchs with long grey beards, unclean white robes, and sabres in hand, held courts of justice, and distributed rough-and-ready law to peaceful Banyans, noisy negroes, and groups of fierce Arabs. The square bastion projecting from the curtain now contains upper rooms for the Baloch Jemadar (commandant). The ground-floor is a large vestibule, upon whose shady masonry-benches the soldiery and their armed slaves lounge and chat, laugh and squabble, play and chew betel. On the left of the outer gate is a Cajan shed, where native artists are setting up carriages for the guns whose lodging is now the hot ground. The experiment of firing a piece was lately tried; it reared up and fell backwards, smashing its frail woodwork and killing two artillery ‘chattels.’
Travellers have observed that a launch could easily dismantle this stronghold. It was once, the legend runs, attacked and taken by a single ‘Jack,’ for the honour of whose birthplace Europe and America vainly contend. Determined to liberate two brother-tars from the ignoble bilboes, he placed himself at the head of a party consisting of a Newfoundland dog. He fell upon the guard _sabre au poing_, and, left master of the field, he waved his bandanna in vinous triumph from the battlements. Sad to relate, this Caucasian hero succumbed to Hamitic fraud. The discomfited slaves rallied. Holding a long rope, they ran round and round the enemy, till, wound about like a windlass or a silk cocoon, he was compelled to surrender at discretion.
The interior of the fort is jammed with soldiers’ huts, and divided into courts by ricketty walls. Here, too, is the only jail in Zanzibar. The stocks (Makantarah), the fetters, the iron collars, and the heavy waist- chains, do not prevent black man from conversationizing, singing comic songs, and gambling with pebbles. The same was the case with our gruel- houses—‘Kanji-Khanah,’ vulgò ‘Conjee-Connah’—in British India. The Sepoys laughed at them and at our beards. The Bombay Presidency jail is known to Arabs as El Bistan (El Bostan, the Garden), because the courts show a few shrubs, and with Ishmaelites a ‘Bistan’ has ever an _arrière pensée_ of Paradise. But the most mutinous white salt that ever floored skipper would ‘squirm’ at the idea of a second night in the black-hole of Zanzibar. Such is the Oriental beau-ideal of a prison—a place whose very name should develope the goose-skin, and which the Chinese significantly call ‘hell.’
In my day foreigners visited the prison to see its curio, a poor devil cateran who had beaten the death-drum whilst his headman was torturing M. Maizan. An Arab expedition sent into the interior returned with this wretch, declaring him to be the murderer in chief, and for two years he lay chained in front of the French Consulate. Since 1847 he was heavily ironed to a gun, under a mat-shed, where he could neither stand up nor lie down. The fellow looked fat and well, but he died before our return from the interior in 1859.
Below the eastern bastion of the ‘Gurayza’ is the most characteristic spot in Zanzibar city, the Salt Market, so called from the heaps of dingy saline sand offered for sale by the Maskati Arabs and the Mekranis. Being near the Custom House, it is always thronged, and like the bazars of Cairo and Damascus it gives an exaggerated idea of the population. There are besides this three other ‘Suk.’ The Suk Muhogo, or Manioc market, to the south of the city, supplies the local staff of life. It is the sweet variety of Jatropha, called in the Brazil Aypim, or Macacheira, and known to us as white cassava: it will not make wood- meal, called κατ’ ἔξοχην, farinha, the flour. The poisonous Manioc (Jatropha Manihot) must be soaked in water, or rasped, squeezed, and toasted, to expel its deleterious juice, which the Brazilian ‘Indians,’ and the people of the Antilles, convert by boiling into sugar, vinegar, and cassareep for ‘pepper-pot’—I heard of this ‘black cassava’ in inner East Africa. The Suk Muhogo sells, besides the negro’s daily bread, cloth and cotton, grain and paddy, vegetables, and other provisions. The shops are the usual holes in the wall, raised a foot above the street, and the owners sit or squat, writing upon a knee by way of desk, with the slow, absorbing reed-pen and the clotted clammy fluid called ink. Behind, and hard by, is the fish-market, which is tolerably supplied between 4 and 6 p.m.—in the morning you buy the remnants of the last day. Further eastward, in the Melindini quarter, is the Suk Melindi, where the butchers expose their vendibles. As in most hot countries, the best articles are here sold early, at least before 7 a.m. A scarcity of meat is by no means rare at Zanzibar, and sometimes it has lasted four or five months.
In the Furzani quarter, eastward of and close to the salt bazar, stands the Custom House. This is an Arab bourse, where millions of dollars annually change hands under the foulest of sheds, a long, low mat-roof, supported by two dozen rough tree-stems. From the sea it is conspicuous as the centre of circulation, the heart from and to which twin streams of blacks are ever ebbing and flowing, whilst the beach and the waters opposite it are crowded with shore-boats, big and small. Inland, it is backed by sacks and bales, baskets and packages, hillocks of hides, old ship’s-tanks, piles of valuable woods, heaps of ivories, and a heterogeneous mass of waifs and strays; there is also a rude lock-up, for ware-housing the more valuable goods. A small adjacent square shows an unfinished and dilapidated row of arches, the fragments of a new Custom House. It was begun 26 or 27 years ago (1857), but Jayaram, the benevolent and superstitious Hindu who farmed the customs it is said for $150,000 per annum, had waxed fat under the matting, and was not sure that he would thrive as much within stone and lime. This is a general idea throughout the nearer East. The people are full of saws and instances concerning the downfall of great men who have exposed themselves to the shafts of misfortune by enlarging their gates or by building for themselves two-storeyed abodes. But the hat it seems has lately got the better of the turban, and there will be a handsome new building, half paid by the Prince and half by his farmer of Customs.
An open space now leads us to the finest building in the city, the palace of the late Sayyid, which we visit in a future chapter. I may remark that it is the workhouse style, though hardly so ignoble as that of H. Hellenic Majesty; but at Zanzibar the windows are far higher up, and the jail-like aspect is far more pronounced. Beyond it commences the east-end, and here lives my kind friend M. Cochet, Consul de France. He came, expecting to find civilization, whist in the evening, ladies’ society, and the pianoforte: he had been hoaxed in Paris about Colonel Hamerten’s daughters. He is thoroughly disgusted. Even the Consular residence is the meanest of its kind. No wonder that M. Le Capitaine Guillain was ‘froissé dans son amour-propre national’ when he entered it.
Far better, and more open to the breeze, is the house of the hospitable M. Bérard, agent to Messrs Rabaud Frères, of Marseille. The one disadvantage of the site is the quantity of Khoprá, or cocoa-nut meat, split and sun-dried. It evolves, especially at night-time, a noxious gas, and the strongest stomachs cannot long resist the oily, nausea- breeding odour which tarnishes silver, and which produces fatal dysentery. The Zanzibar trade, with the exception of cloves, is not generally aromatic. Copal, being washed in an over-kept solution of soda, smells not, as was remarked to the ‘Dragon of Wantley,’ like balsam. And ton upon ton of cowries, strewed in the sun, or piled up in huge heaps till the mollusc decays away, can hardly be deemed Sabæan or even commonly wholesome.
To our right, in rear of the fronting ‘dicky,’ and at both flanks of the city, is the native town,—a filthy labyrinth, a capricious arabesque of disorderly lanes, and alleys, and impasses, here broad, there narrow; now heaped with offal, then choked with ruins. It would be the work of weeks to learn the threading of this planless maze, and what white man would have the heart to learn it? Curiosity may lead us to it in earliest morning, before the black world returns to life. During the day sun or rain, mud or dust, with the certain effluvia of carrion and negro, make it impossible to flâner through the foul mass of densely crowded dwelling-places where the slaves and the poor ‘pig’ together. The pauper classes are contented with mere sheds, and only the mildness of the climate keeps them from starving. The meanest hovels are of palm- matting, blackened by wind or sun, thatched with cajan or grass, and with or without walls of wattle-and-dab. They are hardly less wretched than the west Ireland shanty. Internally the huts are cut up into a ‘but’ and a ‘ben,’ and are furnished with pots, gourds, cocoa rasps, low stools hewn out of a single block, a mortar similarly cut, trays, pots, and troughs for food, foul mats, and kitandahs or cartels of palm-fibre rope twisted round a frame of the rudest carpenter’s work. The better abodes are enlarged boxes of stone, mostly surrounded by deep, projecting eaves, forming a kind of verandah on poles, and shading benches of masonry or tamped earth, where articles are exposed for sale. The windows are loop-holes, and the doors are miracles of rudeness. Lastly, there are the wretched shops, which supply the few wants of the population.
We are now at the mouth of the Lagoon, which, at high tides, almost encircles the city. I am told that of late years the natives have built all round this backwater. In 1857 the Eastern or landward side was hush and plantation. As the waters retired they left behind them a rich legacy of fevers and terrible diseases; especially in the inner town, a dead flat, excluded from the sea breeze, and exposed to the pestiferous breath of the maremma.
Ships anchoring off this inlet soon stock French Islet. The whalers and American and Hamburg vessels, that prefer Changáni Point and the west end of the city, often escape without a single case of sickness. Similarly at Havannah, crews exposed to breezes from the Mangrove swamps have lost half their numbers by yellow fever; and the history of our West Indian settlements proves, if proof be required, how fatal is night exposure.
Zanzibar, city and island, is plentifully supplied with bad drinking water. Below the old sea-beach, and near the shore, it is necessary only to scrape a hole in the soft ground. Throughout the interior the wells, though deep, are dry during the hot season, and the people flock to the surface-draining rivulets. West Africans generally will not drink rain- water for fear of dysentery; and so with us—when showers fell in large drops men avoided it, or were careful to consume it soon lest it should putrefy. The purest element is found at Kokotoni, a settlement on the N. W. coast of the island, and in the Bububu, a settlement some five miles north of the city, where Sayyid Suleyman bin Hamid, once governor of Zanzibar, had a small establishment, and where Hasan bin Ibrahim built a large house called Chuweni or Leopard’s Place. So at São Paulo de Loanda the drinking water must be brought from the Bengo river. The best near the city is from a spring which rises behind the royal Cascine, Mto-ni. Here the late Sayyid built a stone tank and an aqueduct 2000 yards long, which, passing through his establishment, came out upon the beach. Casks could then be filled by the hose, but soon the masonry channel got out of repair, and sailors will not willingly drink water flowing through a dwelling-house.
The produce of the town greatly varies. Some wells are hard with sulphate and carbonate of lime, whilst others are salt as the sea itself; and often, as in Sind and Cutch, of two near together one supplies potable and the other undrinkable water. A few to the south of the city are tolerably sweet. The pits are numerous, and a square shaft, usually from 12 to 15 feet deep, may be found at every 40 or 50 yards. There are no casings; the edges are flush with the filthy ground about them, and the sites must frequently be changed, as the porosity of the coral rock and the regular seaward slope direct the drainage into them. Similarly, nearer home the bright sparkling element is not unfrequently charged with all the seeds of disease. When rain has not fallen for some time the water becomes thick as that of a horsepond, and when allowed to stand it readily taints. I could hardly bear to look at the women as they filled with cocoa-shells the jars to be carried off upon their heads.
Formerly Europeans were not allowed, for religious reasons, to ship water from the wells near the town. Also, cask-filling was carried on at low tide, to prevent the supply of the Mto-ni being brackish, and the exhalations of the black mud were of course extra-dangerous. It is no wonder that dysentery and fever resulted from the use of such a ‘necessary.’ The French frigate Le Berceau, after watering here, was visited by the local pest, and lost 90 men on her way home. Even in January, the most wholesome month, Lieut. Christopher had 16 deaths amongst his scanty crew. In this case, however, the lancet, so fatal near the Line, and the deadly Zerámbo, or toddy-brandy, were partly to blame. As early as 1824 Captain Owen condemned the supply of Zanzibar, as liable to cause dysentery. It has this effect during and after heavy rains, unless allowed to deposit its animal and vegetable matter. During the second visit of H. M. S. Andromache, in August, 1824, Commander Nourse and several of his officers spent one night in a country house, after which the former and the greater number of the latter died. The water, as well as the air, doubtless tended to cause the catastrophe. In the dry season the element sometimes produces, according to natives and strangers, obstinate costiveness. Between Zanzibar and the Cape, five brigs lost collectively 125 men from fever, dysentery, and inflammation of the neck of the vesica; whilst others were compelled to start their casks, and to touch at different ‘aguadas’ en route. Hence skippers learned to fear and shun Zanzibar. During her 14 months’ exploration of the island and the coast the Ducouëdic lost 16 men; and to keep up a crew of 122 to 128, no less than 226 hands were transferred to her from the naval division of Bourbon and Madagascar. Each visit to Unguja was followed by an epidemic attack. Formerly as many as seven whalers lay in harbour at one time; now (1857) they prefer to water and refresh at Nossi-beh, Mayotta, and especially at the Seychelles, a free port, with a comparatively cool and healthy climate, where supplies are cheap and plentiful.
Besides the lagoon and the water nuisances there is yet another. The drainage of the Zanzibar water-front is good, owing to the slope of the site seaward. But at low tides, and after dark, when the sulphuretted hydrogen is not raised from the sands by solar heat, a veil of noxious gas overhangs the shore, whose whole length becomes exceedingly offensive. This is caused by the shironi (latrinæ) opening upon the water edge. ‘Intermural sepulture’ is also here common, though not after the fashion of West African Yoruba; and the city contains sundry unenclosed plots of ground, in which dwarf lime-plastered walls, four to five feet long, fancifully terminated above, and showing, instead of epitaph, a china saucer or bits of porcelain set in the stone, denote tombs.
Drainage and cleanliness are panaceas for the evils of malaria where tropical suns shine. Drainage of swamps and lagoons can improve S’a Leone, and can take away the stink from South African barracks. Zanzibar city, I contend, owes much of its fatality to want of drainage, and it might readily be drained into comparative healthiness. But the East African Arab holds the possibility of pestilence and the probability of fever to be less real evils than those of cutting a ditch, of digging a drain, or of opening a line for ventilation. The Dollar-hunters from Europe are a mere floating population, ever looking to the deluge in prospect, and of course unwilling to do every man’s business, that is—to drain.
Such was Zanzibar city when I first walked through it. Though dating beyond the days of Arab history, and made, by its insular and central situation, the depôt of the richest trade in Eastern Africa, its present buildings are almost all modern. At the beginning of this our nineteenth century it consisted of a fort and a ragged line of huts, where the ‘Suk Muhogo’ now stands. Dr Ruschenberger (1835) satisfied himself that ‘the town of Zanzibar and its inhabitants possess as few attractions for a Christian stranger as any place and people in the wide world.’ As late as 1842 this chief emporium of a most wealthy coast boasted but five store-houses of the humblest description, and the east end was a palm plantation. Since my departure the city, as the trade returns show, has, despite unfavourable political circumstances, progressed. A Catholic mission, sent by France, has established an hospital, and two schools for boys and girls, and the English Central African Mission has followed suit. These establishments must differ strangely from the normal thing— the white-bearded pedagogue, hugging his bones or rocking himself before a large chintz-covered copy of the Koran, placed upon a stand two feet high, so as to be above man’s girdle, and, when done with, swathed in cloth and stowed away. A change, too, there must be in the pupils; formerly half a dozen ragged boys, some reciting with nasal monotonous voices sentences to be afterwards understood by instinct, others scraping the primitive writing-board with a pointed stick.
We will now return to the centre of attraction, the Salt Bazar, and prospect the people. The staple material is a double line of black youth and negresses sitting on the ground, with legs outstretched like compasses. At each apex of the angle is a little heap of fruit, salt, sugar, sun-dried manioc, greasy fritters, redolent fish, or square ‘fids’ of shark-flesh,[24] the favourite ‘kitchen’ with Wasawahíli and slaves; it brings from Maskat and the Benadir a goût so high that it takes away the breath. These vendors vary the tedium of inaction by mat- making, plaiting leaves, ‘palavers,’ and ‘pow-wows,’ which argue an admirable conformation of the articulating organs and a mighty lax morality. Sellers, indeed, seem here to double the number of buyers, and yet somehow buying and selling goes on.
Motley is the name of the crowd. One officer in the service of His Highness stalks down the market followed by a Hieland tail, proudly, as if he were lord of the three Arabias. Negroes who dislike the whip clear out like hawk-frightened pigeons. A yellow man, with short, thin beard, and high, meagre, and impassive features, he is well-dressed and gorgeously armed. Observe that he is ‘breek-less’: trowsers are ‘un- Arab,’ and unpopular as were the servile braccæ amongst the Romans. The legs, which, though spare are generally muscular and well-turned, appear beneath the upper coat, which falls to the knee. He adheres to the national sandals, thick soles of undyed leather, with coloured and spangled straps over the instep, whilst a narrow thong passes between the big toe and its neighbour. The foot-gear gives him that peculiar strut which is deemed dignified, and if he has a long walk before him—a very improbable contingency—he must remove his chaussure. I never yet saw a European who could wear the sandal without foot-chafing.
Right meek by the side of the Arab’s fierceness appears the Banyan, the local Jew. These men are Bhattias from Cutch in western India; unarmed burghers, with placid, satisfied countenances, and plump, sleek, rounded forms, suggesting the idea of happy, well-to-do cows. Such is the effect of a diet which embraces only bread, rice, and milk, sweetmeats, vegetables, and clarified butter. Their skins are smoother and their complexions are lighter than the Arabs’; their features are as high though by no means so thin. They wear the long mustachio, not the beard, and a Chinese pig-tail is allowed to spring from the poll of the carefully shaven head. These top-knots are folded, when the owners are full-dressed, under high turbans of spotted purple or crimson stuff edged with gold. The latter are complicated affairs, somewhat suggesting the oldest fashion of a bishop’s mitre; bound round in fine transverse plaits, not twisted like the Arabs’, and peaked in the centre above the forehead with a manner of horn. Their snowy cotton coats fit close to the neck, like collarless shirts; shawl-girt under the arms, they are short-waisted as the dresses of our grandmothers; the sleeves are tight and profusely wrinkled, being nearly double the needful length, and the immaculate loin-cloth displays the lower part of the thigh, leaving the leg bare. Their slippers of red leather are sharp-toed, with points turning upwards and backwards, somewhat as in the knightly days of Europe.
Another conspicuous type is the Baloch mercenary from Mekran or Maskat. A comely, brown man, with regular features, he is distinguished from the Arab by the silkiness and the superior length of his flowing beard, which is carefully anointed after being made glossy with henna and indigo. He adheres to his primitive matchlock, a barrel lengthened out to suit the weak powder in use, damascened with gold and silver, and fastened to the frail stock by more metal rings than the old French ‘Brown Bess’ ever had. The match is about double the thickness of our whipcord, and is wound in many a coil round the stalk or stock. A curved iron, about four inches long, and forked in the upper part to hold the igniter, plays in a groove cut lengthways through the wood and the trigger, a prolongation of the match-holder, guides the fire into the open priming-pan. When the match is not immediately wanted it is made fast to a batten under the breeching. (A parenthesis. Were I again to travel in wet tropical lands, I should take with me two flint-guns, which could, if necessary, be converted into matchlocks. Of course they would shoot slow, but they would not want caps, and they would prove serviceable when the percussion gun and the breech-loader would not.) This mercenary carries also two powder-gourds, one containing coarse material for loading, the other a finer article, English, if possible, for priming. He is never without flint, steel, and tinder; and disposed about his person are spare cartridges in reed cases. His sabre is of the Persian form; his dagger is straighter and handier than that of the Arab; and altogether his tools, like his demeanour, are those of a disciplined, or rather of a disciplinable, man.
The wildest and most picturesque figures are the half-breeds from the western shores of the Persian Gulf—light brown, meagre Ishmaels and Orsons, who look like bundles of fibre bound up in highly-dried human skin. Their unkempt elf-locks fall in mighty masses over unclean, saffron-stained shirts, which suggest the ‘night-gown’ of other days, and these are apparently the only articles of wear. Their straight, heavy swords hang ever ready by a strap passing over the left shoulder; their right hands rest lovingly upon the dagger-hafts, and their small round targes of boiled hippopotamus hide—one of the ‘industries’ of Zanzibar—apparently await immediate use. Leaning on their long matchlocks, they stand cross-legged, with the left foot planted to the right of the right, or vice versâ, and they prowl about like beasts of prey, as they are, eyeing the peaceful, busy crowd with a greedy cut- throat stare, or with the suspicious, side-long glance of a cat o’ mountain.
These barbarian ‘Gulf Arabs’ differ singularly from the muscular porters of Hazramaut, in whose Semitic blood there is a palpable African mixture. They hobble along in pairs, like the Hammals of Constantinople, carrying huge bales of goods and packs of hides suspended from a pole, ever chaunting the same monotonous grunt-song, and kicking out of the way the humped cows that are munching fruit and vegetables under the shadow of their worshippers, the Banyans. Add half a dozen pale-skinned ‘Khojahs,’ tricky-faced men with evil eyes, treacherous smiles, fit for the descendants of the ‘Assassins,’ straight, silky beards, forked after the fashion of ancient Rustam, and armed with Chinese umbrellas. Complete the group by throwing in a European—how ghastly appears his blanched face, and how frightful his tight garb!—stalking down the streets in the worst of tempers, and using his stick upon the mangy ‘pariah dogs’ and the naked shoulders of the ‘niggers’ that obstruct him. At times the Arabs, when their toes or heels are trampled upon, will turn and fiercely finger their daggers; but a fear which is by no means personal prevents their going further.
Such is the aristocracy of the land. As in all servile societies, every white man (i.e. non-negro) is his white neighbour’s equal; whilst the highest black man (i.e. servile) ranks below the lowest pale-face.
Far more novel to us is the slave population, male and female. What first strikes every stranger is the scrupulous politeness and the ceremonious earnestness of greetings when friends meet. The idea of standing in the broiling sun to dialogue as follows is not a little remarkable:
_A._ Yambo (pronounced Dyambo) or Hali gáná?—The state! _B._ Yambo Sáná—My state is very (good). _A._ Siyambo (or amongst the Arabized Wasawahíli, Marhabá)—Right welcome! _B._ Hast thou eaten and slept? _A._ I have made my reverential bow! _B._ Yambo? _A._ Siyambo Sáná! _B._ Like unto gold? _A._ Like unto gold! _B._ Like unto coral? _A._ Like unto coral! _B._ Like unto pearl? _A._ Like unto pearl! _B._ The happiness—Kua-heri! (farewell!). _A._ In happiness let us meet, if Allah please! _B._ Hem! _A._ Hem! (drawn out as long as possible).
The fact is they are going about ‘Ku amkía,’ to salute their friends, and to waste time by running from house to house. Even freemen generally begin their mornings thus, and idle through the working hours.
The males tie, for only garb, a yard of cotton round the waist, and let it fall to the knees; bead necklaces and similar trash complete the costume. Like all negroes they will wear, if possible, the shock-head of wool, which is not pierceable by power of any sun; and they gradually unclothe down to the feet, which, requiring most defence, are the least defended—‘Fashion’ must account for the anomaly. To the initiated eye the tattoo distinguishes the vast confusion of races. The variety of national and tribal marks, the stars, raised lumps and scars, the beauty-slashes and carved patterns, further diversified by the effects of pelagra, psoris, and small-pox, is a Chinese puzzle to the new-comer. Domestic slaves, bearing their burdens on the head, not on the shoulder, are known by a comparatively civilized aspect. They copy their masters, and strangers remark that the countenance is cheerful and not destitute of intelligence. The Bozals, or freshly-trapped chattels, are far more original and interesting. See those Nyassa-men, with their teeth filed to represent the cat or the crocodile, chaffing some old Shylock, an Arab dealer in human flesh and blood; or those wild Uzegura-men, with patterned skins and lower incisors knocked out, like the Shilluks to the west of the Nile, scowling evilly, and muttering curses at the Nakhuda (skipper) from Súr, the professional kidnapper of their kind.
The ‘fairer’ half of black world is not less note-worthy. There is the tall and sooty-skinned woman from Uhiáo, distinguished by the shape of her upper lip. A thorn-pierced hole is enlarged with stalks of green reed till it can admit a disk of white-painted wood nearly as big as a dollar. The same is the system of the Dors, the tribe dwelling north of the equator and west of the Nile; their lip-plates equal the thick end of a cheroot; and the ‘pelele’ of the southern regions is a similar disk of bamboo, ivory, or tin, which causes the upper lip to project some two inches beyond the nose-tip, giving it an anserine proportion. In the elder women the ornament is especially hideous. As a rule, the South American ‘Indians’ pierce for their labrets the lower lip, evidently the more unclean fashion—no wonder that kissing (should I say osculation?) is unknown. Yet even amongst the Somal, if you attempt to salute a woman—supposing that you have the right—she will draw back in horror from the act of incipient cannibalism. Often the lip-disk is absent, and then through the unsightly gap a pearly tooth is seen to gleam, set off by the outer darkness of ‘Spoonbill’s’ skin. This woman, broad- shouldered and thick-waisted, is almost as stalwart as her Mhiás, whose tattoo (chale) is a single line forked at both ends:[25] in others the cuticle and cutis are branded, worked, and raised in an intricate embroidery over all the muscular trunk. An abnormal equality of strength and stature between the sexes prevails amongst many African tribes, especially the agricultural, where women are the workers. The same may be observed in parts of North Britain and of northern Europe. The difference in this matter between the Teutonic and the Latin races never struck me so strongly as when seeing German families land at Rio de Janeiro.
The half-caste Zanzibar girl enviously eyes the Arab woman, a heap of unwashed cottons on invisible feet, with the Maskat masque exposing only her unrecognizable eyeballs. The former wears a single loose piece of red silk or chequered cotton. Her frizzly hair is twisted into pigtails; her eyelids are stained black; her eye-brows are lengthened with paint; her ear-rims are riddled with a dozen holes to admit rings, wooden buttons, or metal studs, whilst the slit lobes, distended by elastic twists of coloured palm-leaf, whose continual expansion prodigiously enlarges the aperture, are fitted with a painted disk, an inch and a half in diameter. The same device was practised (according to the missionary Gumilla) by the Aberne tribe of the Orinoco. If pretty, and therefore wealthy, she wears heavy silver earrings run through the shell of the ear; her thumbs have similar decorations, and massive bangles of white metal adorn, like manacles and fetters, her wrists and ancles. One wing of her nose is bored to admit a stud—even the patches of Europe were not more barbarous. The Zanzibarian slave girl shaves her head smooth, till it shows brown and shiny like a well-polished cocoa-nut; and she drags along her ‘hopeful’—she has seldom more than one—a small black imp, wholly innocent of clothing. The thing already carries on its head a water-jar bigger than its own ‘pot-belly,’ and it screams Ná-kujá (I come!) to other small fry disporting itself more amusingly.
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Footnote 17:
Changa (large sands), in the plural Michanga, sands (of great extent). Mchanga (sand generally), at Mombasah and on the coast which preserve the older dialect, becomes Mtángá, and means a sandy place. The islanders of Zanzibar, for instance, will say Nti (the land or earth), the continentals, Nchi: these prefer Ku Changanyika (to meet together), those Ku Tanganyika. Foreigners often confound chyá with jyá, and pronounce, for instance, Msijyáná for Msichyáná—a lass. The Arabs, who cannot articulate the ch, convert it into their familiar sh, e. g. Ku Shimba for Ku Chimba (to dig).
Footnote 18:
Manioc, often erroneously written Mahogo.
Footnote 19:
I have described (Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah) the modern Sambúk of the Red Sea, and find the word ‘Sonboúk’ in the French translation of Ibn Batutah. Sir Gardner Wilkinson quotes Athenæus, who makes the ‘Sambuca’ (a musical instrument) ‘resemble a ship with a ladder placed over it.’
Footnote 20:
It is written Mutaifiyah in the Arab Chronicle of Mombasah History, translated and included in Captain Owen’s work (Voyages to Africa, vol. i. 416, Arabia, etc., London, Bentley, 1833).
Footnote 21:
The quarters, beginning from Changáni, the most western, are, the Baghani, which contains the English Consulate; the Mnazi-Moya to the south, with a grave-yard, and a bazar where milk and grain are sold; the Fuga adjoining it, the Zambarani, the Kajifichemi, the Kunazemi, and the Námbo to the south-east; the Gurayzani, containing the fort; and the Furdani with the Custom House; the Kipondah, where the French Consulate is; the Ziwani (Mitha-pani of the Hindus) further to the south; the Suk Muhogo, where manure and fish are sold; the Melindi, or Melindini, occupied by Hindus, and boasting a bazar; and lastly the Mnawi, the Kokoni, and the Fungu extend to the easternmost quarter, the Malagash, where the Lagoon, an inlet of the sea, bounds the city. I did not hear any of the three names mentioned in the text; they are probably now obsolete.
Footnote 22:
The Iberian name (in Arabic الستح, El Sat’h) of the flat roof-terrace, borrowed from the dry lands of Western Asia.
Footnote 23:
Chap. 7. Captain Hamilton’s ‘New Account of the East Indies.’
Footnote 24:
The Arabs here call the shark ‘jarjúr,’ the Wasawahíli p’hápá. I do not know why Captain Guillain (ii. 391) says, ‘le requin, nommé par les Arabs _lebah_—‘Lebah is the Somali name for a lion.
Footnote 25:
Uhiáo is the Iáo of Mr Cooley, who calls the people M’yau (Mhiáo) and Miyáo (Wahiáo). They are the ‘Monjou’ of Salt, and the Mujao of the Portuguese. M. Macqueen (On the Geography of Central Africa) says, ‘The inhabitants on the west side of the Lake are called Yoah, and are Mohammedans.’ They are still pagans. Capt. Guillain (1, 390) remarks, ‘Les historiens Portuguais nous paraissent avoir donné au pays le nom que les indigènes donnent à ses habitants. Moudjâou, ou plutôt Moniâo et, par contraction, M’iâo signifie un homme du pays de Iáo.’ Uhiáo would be the country; Mhiáo and Wahiáo (singular and plural), its people.