Chapter XI: Section 5: Notes on the Flora of Zanzibar

The prosperity of Zanzibar, the Island, has hitherto depended upon the cocoa and the clove-tree. The former grows in a broad band around the shore: on the Continent it follows the streams as far as 60 miles inland. In Zanzibar the Arab saying that ‘cocoa and date cannot co- exist,’ is literally correct; near Mombasah town, however, there is a fruit-bearing phœnix, and on the promontory, fronting the fort, there is a plantation of small stunted trees. Everywhere on the Pangani river we found the ‘brab,’ a wild phœnix, as the word derived from the Portuguese ‘brabo,’ corrupted from ‘bravo,’ or rather in the feminine (palma) ‘brava,’ suggests; and it would appear that the cultivated variety might be induced to thrive. The country was almost denuded of the cocoa to make room for cloves, when the late Sayyid threatened confiscation to those who did not plant in proportion of one to three. There are now (1857) extensive nurseries in the Máshámbá (plantations), and as this palm bears after six or seven years, it soon recovered its normal status. Many trees are prostrated by gusts and tornados: the Hindus replant them by digging a hole, and hauling up the bole with ropes made fast to the neighbouring stems—this simple contrivance is here unknown.

The Wasawahili have many different names for the nut, viz. Kidáka, too green when it falls to the ground for any use but fuel; Dáfú, or Kitále, when the milk is drinkable, the husk is burned, and the shell is made into a ladle (maghraf); the Koróma, when the meat is fit to eat, and Nází,[54] the full-grown nut ready for oil-making. This most useful of plants supplies, besides meat, wine and spirits, syrup and vinegar, cords, mats, strainers, tinder, firewood, houses and palings, boats and sails—briefly, all the wants of barbarous life. Every part of it may be pressed into man’s service, from the sheath of the first or lowest leaf, used as a sieve, to the stalk of the young fruit, which, divested of the outer coat, is somewhat like our chestnut. During the hot N. East monsoon the refrigerating, diuretic milk is a favourite with strangers, and much feared by natives. A respectable man is derided if seen eating a bit of ripe cocoa-nut, a food for slaves and savages from the far west, but he greedily consumes the blanc-mange-like pulp of the Dáfu, which is supposed, probably from its appearance, to secrete virility. Rasped, the ripe kernel enters into many dishes; the cream squeezed from it is mixed with boiled rice, and the meat, kneaded with wheat-flour and clarified butter, is made, as at Goa, into scone-like cakes. No palm- wine is so delicious as that of the cocoa-tree, and the vinegar is proportionally good. The Zerambo, or distillation from ‘toddy,’ is adulterated with lime, sugar, and other ingredients, which render it unpalatable as it is pernicious.

Formerly there were many cocoa-nut oil-mills in the town; now (1857) they are transferred to the plantations where Sesamum (Simsim) is also crushed. The ‘Engenho’ is ruder than in the Brazil. A camel, blind- folded to prevent it eating the oil-cake or striking work, paces slowly round the ‘horse-walk,’ moving a heavy beam; this rolls a pestle of 6 inches in diameter in a conical wooden mortar, flat-rimmed above, and 4 feet deep, by 3 wide. Formerly as many as 70,000 lbs. were exported in a single vessel. Now the people save trouble by selling the dried nut, and when oil is wanted for home use they press and bruise it in water, which is then boiled; consequently, though the tree again begins to cover the Island Coast, the oil is three times dearer than at Bombay. It is calculated that 12,000,000 nuts were exported last year (1856) for the soap and candle trades, and a single French house has an establishment capable of curing 50,000 per diem. Demand has prodigiously raised the price of this article. In 1842 the thousand cost from $2 to $2.50; in 1857 it was $12.50. Though the coir of Zanzibar is remarkably fine and was much admired at Calcutta, little use is made of it: some years ago certain Indian Moslems tried to obtain a contract from the local Government, and did not succeed, prepayment being the first thing insisted upon.[55]

The constitutional indolence of the people, their dislike to settled and regular work, and their Semitic unwillingness to venture money, have, despite cheap labour and low ground-rents, prevented the Island from taking to its most appropriate industry—sugar-growing. Refiners are agreed that the cane in Zanzibar and Pemba is equal to that in any part of Asia. About three years ago (1857) the late Sayyid established a factory at his estate of Mohayra under a Frenchman, M. Classun, an assistant, and 32 supervisors. Compelled to live in the interior, they sickened, and died off, and thus Mauritius lost another dangerous rival. A superior article was also made by the Persians, but they all caught fever, and either perished or disappeared. The sugar now grown is consumed on the Island, and there is only one steam-mill belonging to the Sayyid.

Cotton is said to thrive upon the Island, but the irregular rains must often damage the crop. At present a small quantity for domestic use is brought from the coast, where there are plots of the shrub growing almost wild. In the drier parts of the Benadir, however, the material for hand-made cloth must be brought from India, mostly from Surat.

The virgin soils of Zanzibar, in fact, labour under only one disadvantage,—the fainéantise of the people, but that one is all in all, hence complaints concerning the expense. In the West India plantations 1 head was allowed per acre of cane, per 2 acres of cotton, and per 3 acres of coffee. Here 4 head would hardly do the work; slave labour is bad, and free labour is worse.

Coffee was once tried in the Island, but the clove soon killed it; now not a parcel is raised for sale. The berry, which was large and flavourless, was not found to keep well. The overrich soil produces an undue luxuriance of leafage, and the shrub lacks its necessary wintering.

In the Brazil the richest lands are given to coffee, the next best to sugar, and the worst to cotton and cereals. The Zanzibar coast from Mombasah to Mozambique produces small quantities of coffee. Here great care is given to it; the berry has a peculiarly dry and bitter flavour, pleasant when familiar, and producing when first taken wakefulness and nervous excitement. At present the Island imports her supplies from Malabar and Yemen. The consumption is not great; the Arabs, who hold it a necessary of life at home, here find it bilious, and end by changing it for betel-nut. The coast growth sells in small lots, at various prices, and may become an article of export. In the African interior the shrub is indigenous between Northern Unyamwezi (S. Lat. 1° 0′) and Southern Abyssinia (N. Lat. 10°); and, as it is found on the Western Coast growing wild about the Rivers Nunez and Pongo (N. Lat. 10° 1′), it probably extends in a broken band across the Continent. There appear to be many varieties of the shrub. In Karagwah the wild bean is little bigger than a pin’s head. Harar exports a peculiarly large species, which sells as Mocha, and the Mozambique coffee does not at all resemble in flavour that of West Africa. Dr Livingstone (Missionary Travels, chap. x.) tells us that coffee brought from Southern Arabia to Angola by the Jesuits was spread probably by agency of birds to 300 leagues from the coast. It has long been ‘monkeys’ food,’ but it is now worked by the ex-slavers.

Indigo here, as well as in most parts of intertropical Africa, grows wild. The great expense of establishments, with the time and trouble, the skill and attention required for the manufacture, will leave it in the hands of Nature for many years to come.

Tobacco might be raised: the plant extends thoughout Eastern and Central Africa, wherever the equinoctial rains fall. Usumbara exports to Zanzibar stiff, thin, round cakes which have been pounded in wooden mortars, and neatly packed in plantain leaves. It is dark and well- flavoured: sailors pronounce it to be very ‘chawable.’ Here it sells at two pice,[56] or 3/4_d._, per cake; at Usumbara it commands about one- fifth of that price, paid in cloth and food.

The oil palm (Elæis Guineensis), whose produce has done so much for the Guinea Coast and the fatal Bight of Biafra, is found, I am told, on the Island of Pemba, and at other places near Zanzibar. About the Lake Tanganyika it grows in abundance; the fruit, however, is a raceme, like the date’s, not a spike, as in the Bonny river. The ‘Mchikichi’ is, therefore, a different and probably an unknown species. Like that of West Africa, it supplies wine as well as oil (The Lake Regions of Central Africa, vol. ii. p. 59). The palm-oil might easily be introduced into Zanzibar, and would doubtless thrive; but the people have enough to do without it.

The Mbono or Palma Christi springs up spontaneously, as in most tropical regions, throughout Zanzibar Island and on the coast. The Hindus say of a man with more vanity than merit, ‘The castor shrub grows where other plants can’t.’ The seed is toasted in iron pots, pounded, and boiled to float the oil. After aloes it is the popular cathartic, and it is rubbed upon the skin to soften the muscles, with an effect which I leave to the nasal imagination.

Cinnamon and nutmeg trees were planted by the late Sayyid, and flourished well on some soils. The latter takes nine years, it is said, before bearing fruit, and gives trouble—two fatal objections in Arabs’ eyes. The spice is now imported from India. When at Kazah of Unyamwezi I saw specimens brought, it is said, from the Highlands of Karagwah, but the plentiful supply from the farther East would prevent this trade being here developed. The cacao shrub (chocolate), which thrives so well at Prince’s Island and Fernando Po in the Biafran Bight, has never, I believe, been tried in Zanzibar.

The Mpira, or caoutchouc tree, flourishes in the Island, and on the adjacent Continent. The people of Eastern Madagascar tap it in the cold season, and have sent large cargoes to America. Mr Macmillan, U. S. Consul, Zanzibar, offered $1000 for good specimens, but the Wasawahili would not take the trouble to make a few incisions. I heard of two varieties, a ficus and a lliana; there are probably many more: about the Gaboon river the valuable gum is the produce of a vine or climber, with an edible fruit, and the people have learned to extract a coarse article, and to adulterate it till it is hardly tradeable. Here they use the thinner branches, well oiled for suppleness, as ‘bakurs’—the policeman’s truncheon, the cat-o’-nine-tails, the ‘Chob,’ and the ‘Palmatorio’ of E. Africa. I may here remark that our gourd-shaped articles resist the climate of Zanzibar, whilst the squares and the vulcanized preparations become sticky and useless. The London-made blankets of smooth and glazed caoutchouc are so valuable that no traveller should be without them: those that are not polished, however, cannot be called waterproof; becoming wet inside, they are unpleasantly cold. For exposure to the sun white impermeables must be preferred to black, and a first-rate article is required; our cheap boots and cloaks soon opened, and when exposed to great heat they were converted into a viscid mass.

The tamarind, as in India, is a splendid tree, but the fruit, though used for acidulated drinks, is not prepared for exportation. A smooth- rooted sarsaparilla, of lighter colour than the growth of the Brazil and Jamaica, is found wild upon the Island and the coast. The orchilla, which gives its name to the Insulæ Purpurariæ, has been tried, and, resembling that of the Somali country, it gives good colour. This lichen chooses the forks of trees in every lagoon. In the Consular report by Lieutenant-Colonel Playfair on the trade of Zanzibar for the year 1863, I find—‘Orchilla is obtained from the more arid parts of the coast to the north: none grows on the Island.’

The people of Zanzibar are fond of fruits, especially the mango, the orange, the banana, and the pine-apple. All of these, however, except the plantain—the bread-fruit of Africa—are seedlings, and engrafting is not practised. Wall-fruit is of course unknown.

The mango, originally imported from India, and as yet unplanted in the central regions, is of many varieties, which lack, however, distinguishing names. Two kinds are common—a large green fruit like the Alphonse (Affonso) of Western India, and a longer pome, with bright red- yellow skin, resembling the Goanese ‘Kola.’ These, with care, might rival the famous produce of Bombay: even in their half-wild state the flavour of turpentine is hardly perceptible. The fruit is said to be heating, and to cause boils. The Arabs spoil its taste by using steel knives: with the unripe fruit they make, however, excellent jams, and pickles[57] eaten in broths of fowl or meat. The pounded kernels are administered in dysenteries, but the relish or sauce of which the Gaboon people are so fond is unknown here and even in India. The fruit is most plentiful during the N. East monsoon.

There are many varieties of the orange, all, however, inferior to the produce of the Azores and the Brazil, of Malta and the Mozambique. The ‘native’ fruit, supposed to be indigenous, is green, not so sweet as the kinds grown by the Portuguese, and the coat must be loosened by two days’ exposure to the sun or it can hardly be removed. It seldom ripens before the beginning of July, and it is best in August. The Persian variety, from about Bandar Abbas, comes to market in early May; it has grown common since 1842, and it has excelled its original stock. The peel is loose and green, and the meat, when cleared of pips, tastes somewhat like currants. The small brick-red Mandarin is good, and resembles the African and Brazilian Tangerine. The trees want care, they run to wood, the fruit is often covered with a hard, rough, thick, and almost inseparable rind, and the inside is full of bitter seeds, pithy placenta, and fluffy skins. The wild oranges upon the Island and the Continent resemble those which we call Seville. As a rule the ‘golden apple’ abounds from May to October. It is considered cooling, antibilious, and antiseptic, especially when eaten before other food in the early morning. Thus it was a saying in the Brazil that the physician does not enter that house where orange-peel is strewed about. In West Africa the Rev. Mr Brown[58] of Texas judged the fruit harshly, and predicted the death of a brother missionary who was too fond of it. Many boxes and bags of oranges are carried as presents from Zanzibar to the northern ports (Banadir), Aden, and even Bombay; ‘Gulf-Arabs,’ who have not such luxuries at home, will here devour a basket-full at a sitting. The sweet limes of Zanzibar are considered inferior to none by those who enjoy the sickly ‘mawkish’ flavour: the acid limes are cheap, plentiful, and aromatic; they are second only to those grown about Maskat, the ne plus ultra of perfume and flavour. The Pamplemouse or Shaddock, the Pummalo of Bombay (Citrus Decumana), has been planted upon the Island, but the people declare that it will not ripen: the same is said of the citron, and the Zanzibarians ignore the Persian art of preserving it.

Bananas at Zanzibar are of two varieties, red and yellow: they are not remarkable for delicacy of taste. In the highlands of the interior, as Usumbara and Karagwah, the ‘musa’ may be called the staff of life. The plantain, in India termed ‘horse-plantain,’ is a coarse kind, sometimes a foot long, and full of hard black seeds: Europeans fry it in butter, and the people hold it to be a fine ‘strong’ fruit. The musa bears during all the year in Zanzibar, but it is not common in May and June.

The pine-apple of the New World grows almost wild in every hedgerow and bush: cultivation and planting near running water would greatly improve it. At present the crown is stuck in the earth, and is left to its fate wherever the place may be. Strangers are advised to remove the thick outer rind, including all the ‘eyes,’ which, adhering to the coats of the stomach, have caused inflammation, dysentery, and death. The ananas ripens in the cold season: when it is found throughout the twelve months the people predict that next year it will fail. It is, in fact, a biennial, like the olive in Palestine.

The especial fruits of the poor are the Fanas or ‘Jack’ of India, and an even more fetid variety, the ‘Doriyan,’ which certain writers call the ‘Aphrodisiac dorion.’ Some Europeans have learned to relish the evil savour, and all declare the Jack to be very wholesome. Hindus refuse to touch it, because it is ‘heating food:’ they say the same, however, of all fruits with saccharine juices. The nuts are roasted, and eaten with salt, as in India, and the villagers fatten their poultry with ‘the rind and the rotten.’

The bread-fruit, and the curious growth (Ravenala) known as the ‘Travellers’ Tree,’ were introduced from the Seychelles Islands: the young plants, however, were soon uprooted and strewed about the fields. Grapes, both white and red, look well, but, as in the Tropical Brazil, the bunches never ripen thoroughly; in fact, the same cluster will contain berries of every age, from the smallest green to the oldest purple. This is a great disadvantage when making wine, and requires to be corrected by syrup. The grape can hardly be expected to thrive where the hot season, as in parts of the New World, is also the rainy season. Like the produce of the Gold Coast, the stones are large and bitter, and the skin is tart, thick, and leathery. Bacchus, though he conquered India and founded Nysa, seems to disdain the equinoctial regions. According to the French another variety should be introduced, and perhaps the ground-grape of the Cape might succeed better. There are many varieties of the vine in the Central Continent, but the people have hardly learned to eat the fruit: at Zanzibar certain Arabs tried it with sugar and rose-water, and suffered in consequence from violent colics. We read in ‘El Bakui’ (A.D. 1403) that some vines bear three crops per annum.

The water-melon, most wholesome of fruits in warm climates, is found in Zanzibar and in the Lake Regions of the interior: the best are said to grow about Lamu and Brava. It is a poor flavourless article, white- yellow (not white and pink) inside, dry, and wanting the refreshing juice; it is fit only for boiling, and its edible seed is the best part. The growth of the papaw is truly tropical; a single year suffices to hang the tree with golden fruit, which is eaten raw and boiled. Hindus, as usual, object to its ‘heat;’ the Arabs make from the pips, which taste like celery, a sherbet, which is said to have peculiar effects.[59]

The ‘Khwemwé’ tree bears a nut with a hard reticulated skin: this is roasted like the chestnut, and it affords a small quantity of oil. The Sita-phal (Annona squamosa) and its congener, the Jam-phal, or sour-sop (A. reticulata), grow wild over the Island and the Coast; as in the Brazil, little attention is paid to them; this ‘custard-apple’ is here considered to be a wholesome fruit. The guava is popularly called Zaytun, which means ‘olive,’ a quasi-sacred fruit, possibly on the principle that in England many growths become palms about Easter-time. It runs wild around Mombasah, and spreads over much ground by a peculiar provision of nature:[60] the guavas are said not to ripen well; yet on the West coast they are excellent. The Jamli, a well-known Indian tree (Eugenia Jambu), whose somewhat austere, subacid fruit resembles the damson or bullace, is everywhere common. In A.D. 1331 the traveller Ibn Batutah found El Jammún (الجمّون) at Mombasah.

The interior of the Island produces the ‘Fursád,’ a small stunted variety of the Persian red mulberry; the ‘Tút,’ or white species, grows in every jungle from the shore of the Mainland to Fuga, in Usumbara, and suggests the possibility of rearing silk-worms. The pomegranate here, as on the Coast, gives a fruit which is hardly eatable: during the season Omani ships bring a supply of the very best description from the Jebel el Akhzar (the Green Mountain), near Maskat, and apples from the Persian Gulf. The Badam, locally called Bídam (the Persian almond), is here barren; the broad polished leaves are used as platters by the vegetarian Hindus. The Chinese Rambotang or Leechee is neglected, and the fruit is poor. The Ber (jujube) is unusually well-flavoured; according to Moslem custom, the Arab dead are washed with an infusion of the leaves. That South American growth the Mbibo or Cashew (Caju) tree abounds here and on the continental sea-board: the nuts are roasted, the pulp is eaten, though its astringent quince-like flavour is by no means pleasant, and the juice is distilled, as at Goa. After pressure, the yield, exposed two or three days for fermentation, produces the celebrated ‘Cauim’ (Caju-ig) of the Brazilian Tupy-Guarani race, a wine here unknown. The still yields at first a watery spirit, which by cohobation becomes as fiery and dangerous as new rum. The lower orders like it; the effects, they say, last out the week.

The principal wild trees are the following. The fan palm, a native of the Island and the Continent, supplies the chief African industry—mat- making. The ‘Toddy palm’ is found everywhere; the fruit is eaten, but no one cares to draw off the beverage. The Dom, or Theban palm (Hyphene Thebaica), is a rare variety, and the wood is used chiefly for ladder rungs. Gigantic Raphias, called by the Arabs Nakhl el Shaytan, ‘the Devil’s palm,’ throw over the streams fronds 30 and 40 feet long: these, cut, stripped, and bound into rafts, are floated down and exported from the Mainland to the Island; the material is soft and good for hut- making. The graceful Areca palm flourishes everywhere, especially upon the banks of the Pangani river: at the mouth of this stream a saw-mill might be set up for a few dollars, and I have no doubt that it would yield large profits, and extend its business as far as the Red Sea.

The Bombax, or silk-cotton tree (Eriodendrum anfractuosum), the Arab Díbáj and the Kisawahili Msufi, common in East as in West Africa, affords a fibre usually considered too short and brittle for weaving, but I have seen Surat cotton very nearly as bad. The contents of the pericarp have been used for pillow stuffings: the only result (_dicunt_) was a remarkable plague of pediculi. The Kewra, or frankincense tree of India, abounds. The red beans of the Abrus Precatorius are used by the poor and by the wild people as ornaments; even the mixed Luso-African race of Annobom will wear huge strings of this fruit, our original ‘carat.’ The soft-wooded Baobab, Mbuyu or calabash tree (Adansonia digitata), grows rapidly to a large size upon the Island as upon the Eastern and Western coasts. It is a tree of many uses. The trunk, often girthing 40 feet, forms the water-tank, the trough, the fisherman’s Monoxyle; the fibrous bark is converted into cloth, whose tough network is valued by the natives; the fruit pulp is eaten, and the dried shells serve as Buyu, or gourds. I have repeatedly alluded to this tree in the Lake Regions of Central Africa, and I shall offer other notices of it in the following pages. Of late the Mbuyu or Baobab has brought itself into notice as affording a material more valuable for paper than straw, esparto or wood pulp, and its superiority to other African basts, has been acknowledged in England.[61] The Mpingo (Dalbergia Melanoxylum) gives a purple timber, not a little like rosewood. The ‘African oak,’ a species of teak, is reported to exist; but this tree does not extend far north of Mozambique. The ‘P’hun’ is a stately growth, whose noble shaft, often 80 feet high, springs without knot or branch, till its head expands into a mighty parachute. It is more ornamental than useful,—the wood is soft, full of sap, like our summer timber, and subject to white ants. In these hot, wet, and windy tropical regions some trees, especially those without gum or resinous sap, grow too fast, and are liable to rot, whilst others take many years to mature, and are almost unmanageably hard and heavy. Hence we have had timber-cutting establishments set up by our Government at a large expense in the Brazil and in West Africa, but the produce never paid the voyage to England.

The woods known to commerce are the ‘Líwá,’ a white-veined, faintly- perfumed, bastard sandal from Madagascar: it is used for the sacred fire by the poorer Parsees. Granadille wood is exported from the Mainland to Europe, where it is worked for the bearings of mills and for the mouth- pieces and flanges of instruments. The Arabs call it ‘Abnús,’ and the Sawahili ‘Mpingo,’ both signifying ebony, which it resembles in appearance, though not in qualities. Less brittle than ebony, and harder than lignum vitæ, it spoils the saw; and being very heavy, it refuses to absorb grease or water. It makes good ram-rods, and the Usumbara people have cut it into pipe-bowls long before our briar-root was dreamed of.

The sweet-smelling ‘Kalambak’ (Vulg. Columbo), once common upon the Island, is now brought from Madagascar. There are two kinds,—one poor and yellow, like our box, the other hard, heavy, and dark red. Its fine grain takes the high polish of mahogany, and it would make good desks and work-boxes. Comoro men and Indian carpenters turn out rude furniture of this wood, which is wilfully wasted: in felling and shaping it the plantation-slaves, who ignore the saw, chip away at least half. The smoke is said, to keep off mosquitos. The mango, the jack, the copal tree, and many others, give fine hard woods for cabinet work.

Planks and scantling, cross-beams and door-panels, are made of two fine trees, the ‘Mtimbati’ and the ‘Mvúle.’[62] The negro carpenters always sacrifice, I have said, a tree to make a plank, and the latter is so heavy that for all light erections, such as upper rooms, boards must be imported from Europe. The Mtimbati is the more venous; rungs of ladders, well kept and painted, will last 15 years. The enduring Mvúle, a close- grained yellow wood, is rare upon the Island, but common in the Coast jungles. As is the case with the Kalambak, there is no tariff for these trees: what to-day is sold at a bazar auction for $1 may in a week fetch $8. A good practical account of the medicinal plants and timbers of Madagascar and Mozambique, Zanzibar and the Seychelles, will be found in appendices A. B. vol. ii. of Mr Lyons McLeod’s ‘Travels in Eastern Africa, with a Narrative of a Residence in Mozambique.’ Captain Guillain may also be consulted, vol. i. p. 23-25.

The Bordi or Zanzibar rafters are felled by slaves on the Mainland, and are brought over by Arabs and other vessels. The material is the useful mangrove, of which we here find the normal two species; the Arabs call both ‘Gurum,’ and prefer the Makanda, or red kind. At Zanzibar the posts which become worm-eaten, and are reduced to powder by white ants, must be changed every five years. In arid Maskat they will last out the century, and they find their way to Aden, to Jeddah, and even to Meccah. The usual price in the Island is $2 to $3 per ‘Korjah,’ or score.

The Mti wa Muytu (wild wood), or white mangrove, is found growing not in brackish water, and upon the mud, like the red variety, but chiefly upon the higher sandy levels. The wood is small, it shrinks when dried, it splits easily, and snaps; it is worm-eaten at once, and its porous nature causes it easily to absorb water. In Zanzibar it is used for fuel in lime-burning, and it makes a hot and lasting fire; the people also turn it into caulking mallets, which do not crack or spread out. The usual price (1857) is half a German crown per Korjah.

Vegetables are little prized at Zanzibar: the list is rather of what might be than of what exists. A local difficulty is the half-starved slave who plunders every garden; nothing less than a guard of Baloch would preserve edible property from his necessities and from his truly African wantonness of destruction.

Almost all European vegetables will grow in the Island; they require, however, shade, and they should be planted, as at Bourbon and the Mauritius, between rows of cool bananas. The best soil is the dark vegetable mould near the streams. Here lettuces, beet-root, carrots, potatoes, and yams would flourish—cabbages and cauliflowers have never, I believe, been tried. The ‘Jezár,’ an excellent sweet potato from Comoro and Madagascar, has been neglected almost to extinction. Thirty barrels of many sorted beans were sent from the Cape and grew well: they are good and abundant in the African interior, but the Island has allowed them to die out. The ‘egg-plant’ is remarkably fine, and the wild species thrives everywhere on the sea-board between Somali land and Zanzibar. The Continent sends sundry kinds of pumpkins and gourds. Cucumbers of many varieties grow almost without sowing,—the people declare that they become bitter if touched by the hand whilst being peeled. The Arabs make from the seed an oil of most delicate flavour, far superior for salads than the best Lucchese olive. In London I have vainly asked for ‘cucumber-oil:’ the vegetable is probably too expensive, and the seeds are too small to be thus used at home. About Lagos on the Slave Coast, however, there is a cucumber nearly a foot long, with large pips, which might be sent northwards, and I commend the experiment to the civilized lover of oil. All kinds of ‘Chilis,’ from the small wild ‘bird-pepper’ to the large variety of which the Spaniards are so fond, thrive in Zanzibar, which appears to be their home. There are extensive plantations of betel-pepper on the Eastern coast of the Island.

Wheat, barley, and oats here run to straw. Rice is the favourite cereal. The humid low-lands are cleared of weeds by burning, and the seed is sown when the first showers fall. To judge from the bazar-price, the home-grown article is of a superior quality; but nowhere in East Africa did I find the grain so nutritious as that of the Western Coast. The hardest working of all African tribes, the Kru-men, live almost entirely upon red rice and palm-oil. The clove mania has caused the cereal to be neglected; formerly an export, it is now imported, and in 1860 it cost the Island £38,000. Jowari (Holcus Sorghum), here called by the Arabs Ta’am (food), and by the Wasawahili Mtama,—an evident corruption,—is sown in January and February, and ripens 6 months afterwards. The wheat of the poorer Arabs, and the oats of horses, it grows 18 feet high, but the islanders have little leisure, except in the poorest parts, to cultivate. Banyans, Arabs, and Wasawahili buy it in the Brava country, the granary of Southern Arabia, on the sea-board from Tanga to Mangao, and in some districts of the near interior; they retail it in Zanzibar at large profits. Sesamum (the Hindustani Til or Gingil, the Arabic Simsim), the commonest of the oleaginous grains, of late demanded by the French market, where the oil becomes huile d’olives, is also brought from the Mainland, especially from the northern ports, Lamu and its neighbours, the Banádir or Haven-land. In 1859 the Island of Zanzibar exported 8,388,360 lbs, = £20,000. Besides this, the coast ports shipped several cargos direct: formerly, East Africa used to supply the Red Sea with this article.

Maize (Muhindi) is a favourite article of consumption, and a little is grown on the Island. Bájrí (Máwélé, Panicum spicatum, Roxb.), the small millet, a thin grain, inferior to that of Cutch and Western India, is little cultivated. The gram[63] of Hindustan (in Arabic, Hummus; in Persian, Nukhud; and in Kisawahili, Dengu, Cicer Arietinum) is of several varieties, white and red. The Lúbiyá pulse is also of many sizes and colours; the black flourishes everywhere, the red is common, and the white, which the Portuguese of Goa import from the Mozambique regions, is rare. The best and largest comes from Pemba Island; it is also grown on the Continent. The leguminous T’hur (the Arabic Turiyan, and the Kisawahili Barádí, Cajanus Indicus) is almost wild: the Banyans mix it with rice, and make with it the well-known ‘Dáll’ and ‘Kichri.’ The small green pea, known in India as Mung (the Persian Másh, and the Kisawahili Chíroko, or Toka, Phaseolus Mungo, Roxb.), is boiled and eaten with clarified butter (Ghi) like T’hur. The people also use the little black grain resembling poppy-seed, known in India as Urat; in Cutch, Páprí; and here, P’híwí (Phaseolus radiatus). The Muhogo, in the plural ‘Mihogo,’ or White Cassava (Manihot Aypim), resembles in appearance the sweet Manioc of the Brazil (Aypim or Macaxeira). The knotted stem, about six feet long, is crowned with broad digitated leaves; the conical root, however, has a distinct longitudinal fibre the size of small whipcord, which is not found in the ‘black, or poisonous, Manioc’ (Jatropha Manihot, or Manihot utilissima). The people have not attempted to masticate it into a means of intoxication, the Caysúma of the Brazilian Tupy.[64] The Muhogo grows everywhere in Zanzibar Island: it is planted in cuttings during the rains, and it ripens six or eight months afterwards. In the Consular reports for 1860 we are told that ‘the Manioc or Cassava, which forms the chief food of the slaves and poorer classes, yields _four_ crops a year.’ This is not probable: the longer all Jatropha is kept in the ground, within certain limits, the larger and better is the root. Manioc is carried as an acceptable present by travellers going into the interior.

At Zanzibar the traveller should train his stomach to this food, and take care not to call it ‘Manioc.’ When raw it resembles a poor chestnut, but in this state none save a servile stomach can eat it without injury. Europeans compare it with parsnips and wet potatoes: the Hindus declare it to be heavy as lead, and so ‘cold’ that it always generates rheumatism. The Wasawahili have some fifty different ways of preparing it. Boiled, and served up with a sauce of ground-nut cream, it is palatable: in every bazar sun-dried lengths, split by the women, and looking like pipe-clay and flour, are to be bought: a paste, kneaded with cold water, is cooked to scones over the fire: others wrap the raw root in a plantain-leaf and bake it, like greeshen, in the hot ashes. The poorer classes pound, boil, stir, and swallow the thick gruel till their stomachs stand out in bold relief. Full of gluten, this food is by no means nutritious; and after a short time it produces that inordinate craving for meat, even the meat of white ants, which has a name in most African languages.

The Bhang (Cannabis Sativa), which grows plentifully, though not wild, in the interior of the Continent, is mostly brought to Zanzibar from India. In Mozambique the Portuguese call it Bange or Canhamo de Portugal (Portugal hemp), and in the Brazil it is also known as Bange, evidently the Hindustani ‘Bhang.’ The negroes smoke it for intoxication, but ignore the other luxurious preparations familiar to Hindustan, Egypt, and Turkey.

Wanga or arrow-root, globular like a variety found in the Concan, is much less nutritious than the long kind. Here the best is brought from Mombasah, and after the rains the southern coast could supply large quantities. The people levigate the root, wash, and sun-dry it: the white powder is then kneaded with Tembú (palm-wine) into small balls, which are boiled in the same liquid. It is ‘cold’ and astringent: the Arabs use it as a remedy for dysentery, and the Hindus declare that it produces nothing but costiveness. Ginger thrives in the similar formation of Pemba, and yet it will not, I am assured, grow at Zanzibar, where it is imported from Western India, the tea being in this climate a good stomachic. The Calumba or Colombo root is largely exported to adulterate beers and bitters. Curious to say, the ground-nut, which extends from Unyamwezi to the Gambia, is rare at Zanzibar.

The corallines of the coast are of course destitute of metals. A story is told of an ingenious Frenchman who, wishing to become Director of Mines in the service of H. H. the Sayyid, melted down a few dollars, and ran a. vein of silver, most unfortunately, into a mass of madrepore: the curious ‘gangue’ was shown to Lieutenant-Colonel Hamerton, and thus the ’cute experiment failed. The African interior beyond the mountains is rich in copper and iron. I have described the copper of the Taganyika Lake Region: it is said to be collected in small nuggets from torrent- beds, and the bars have evidently been cast in sand. The iron of the Umasai country makes the finest steel.

Gold has undoubtedly been brought from the mountains of Chaga; and the eastern plateau promises to rival in auriferous wealth the Gold Coast. The great fields north of and near the Zambeze, and N. West of Natal, beyond the Transvaal Republic, discovered in 1866-7 by the German explorer, M. Mauch, a country consisting of metamorphic rocks and auriferous quartz, will probably be found extending high up in East Africa throughout the rocks lying inland of the maritime and sub- maritime corallines. It is also likely that the vast coal-beds, explored by the Portuguese, and visited by Dr Livingstone, in the vicinity of Tete on the Zambeze, and afterwards prolonged by him to the Rufuma river, a formation quite unknown to our popular works, will be extended to the Zanzibar coast. The valleys of rivers falling into the Indian Ocean should be carefully examined. The similarity of climate and geographical position which the province of São Paulo, and indeed the maritime regions of the Brazil generally, present with Eastern Africa, first drew my attention to its vast and various carboniferous deposits, and they are found to correspond with those of the Dark Continent. Messrs Rebmann and Pollock visited a spot near the ‘Water of Doruma,’ in the Rabai Range, near Mombasah, where antimony[65] is dug. They found no excavations, but the people told them to return after the rains, when the ground would be soft. The holes, they say, were rarely deeper than a foot and a half. Captain Guillain (iii. 277) was told that near the village ‘M’tchiokara’ ‘il existe, presque à fleur de terre, des amas d’une substance métallifère, qui semblerait être un antimoniure d’argent, autant qu’il a été permis d’en juger par les échantillons donnés à nos voyageurs.’

The valuable corals are not found at Zanzibar, but the people sell a thin and white-stemmed madrepore, with brocoli-shaped heads of the liveliest red (Tubipora Musica?). Gypsum abounds at Pemba and other places. Ships bring from Maskat a fine hydraulic mortar called Sáraj, the result of burning shells in small kilns (Tandúr for Tannúr). The material is then stored in bags, pounded, and made into paste when required: it sets to stony consistency like the Pozzolana used by the Romans for under-water buildings. I presume that they mix with this calcaire a certain proportion of sand. The natives do not use shell-lime when chewing betel-nut and leaf: they spoil their teeth with the common stuff.

The disadvantage of coralline as building material is that it retains for a long time its ‘quarry-water.’ The Arabs dry it involuntarily, and humour their indolence by expending a dozen years in constructing a house—the home, as at Damascus, being rarely finished during the owner’s life. The remedy is to expel the salts of lime and the animal gelatine by baking the stone, as is practised in the South Sea Islands. Kilns would make good lime at Zanzibar: on the island and coast the people now burn the gypsum and polypidoms in heaps piled upon a circle of billets, and the smoke, which fills half the town, is considered wholesome. Instead of being kept unslaked in sacks, it is wetted with sea-water, which prevents it drying, and it is then heaped up in the moist open air. Moreover, it is mixed with sea-sand, which is washed in fresh water, but its salt ‘sweats out’ for many a long year. Thus the best houses are liable to cuticular eruptions during the wet season: the mortar cracks, and is patched with a leprosy of blue, yellow, and green mould. The flat roofs are protected from the rain with thick coatings of this material, pounded to the desired consistency by rows of slave-women and boys, armed with long flat tamps and rude mallets. During the last 15 years the price of lime at Zanzibar has increased five-fold, $11 being now (1857) paid for a small heap; and, as usual, when Europeans are the purchasers, it rises 50 per cent.