Few, if any, domestic animals are aborigines of the Island, and of those imported none thrive save Bozal negroes and asses. Cattle brought to Zanzibar die after the first fortnight, unless protected from sun, rain, and dew, and fed with dry fodder. The fatality resulting from the use of green meat leads here, as in the Concan and at Cape Coast Castle, to the impression that the grass is poisonous. At some places in the mainland, Pangani for instance, cattle will not live—this is certainly the effect of tsetse. At Cape Coast Castle horses always die; at Accra they survive, if not taken away from the sea-board: in 1863, during a short march through the country, I found an abundance of the tsetse, or ‘spear-fly.’ The specimens sent by me to England were lost with other collections in the ill-fated ‘Cleopatra.’ As has lately been shown, the tsaltsal of Bruce is mentioned in Deut, xxviii. 42, in Isa. xviii. 5, and in Job xli. 7. The word is translated fish-spear, harpoon, locust; but it is not proved that tsaltsal and tsetse are the same fly, and the similarity of the two words may be the merest coincidence. The Banyans of Zanzibar, who, having no local deity like their more favoured brethren of Aden and Maskat, keep cattle for religious purposes, never sell their beasts, and energetically oppose their being slaughtered. Bullocks cost from $8 to $16, and are generally to be bought.
Sheep are principally the black-faced Somali, with short round knotted tails, which lose fat from rich grazing: in their own desert country they thrive upon an occasional blade of grass growing between the stones. The excessive purity of the air doubtless favours assimilation and digestion, and as the diet of the desert Arabs proves, life under such circumstances can be supported by a minimum of food. I believe that in early times the Persians introduced this animal into Somali and Galla-land. The Wakwafi, who are rich in black cattle, contemptuously call their Galla neighbours ‘Esikirieshi,’ or short-tailed sheep,’ from the article forming their only wealth. The Somali muttons are the cheapest, averaging from $1 to $3. There is also a ‘Mrima’ race, with rufous ginger-coloured, hairy coats, and lank tails like dogs: others, again, have a long, massive caudal appendage like Syrian or Cape wethers. These cost $2 to $5, and are considered a superior article. The most expensive are from the Island of Angazíjah, or Great Comoro, and they are often worth from $8 to $9. As a rule, Zanzibar mutton, like that of the Brazil, is much inferior to beef, and presents a great contrast with the celebrated gram-feds’ of India.
Caponized goats in these regions are larger, fatter, and cent. per cent, dearer than sheep: I have heard of $15 to $16 being paid for the Comoro animal. The meat is preferred to mutton: my objection to it is the want of distinct flavour. Yet goats are always offered as presents in the interior. Some of the bucks brought from the Continent have a peculiarly ungoatly appearance, with black points and dark crosses upon their tan-coloured backs and shoulders, and with long flowing jetty manes like the breast hair of a Bukhti or Bactrian camel. They must be kept out of the sun, and fed on vetches as well as grass, otherwise they will die during the rains from an incurable nasal running.
A stunted Pariah dog is found upon the Island and the Continent: here, as in Western Africa, it is held, when fattened, to be a dish fit for a (Negro) king. Some missionaries have tasted puppy stew—perhaps puppy pie—and have pronounced the flesh to be sweet, glutinous, and palatable. The horse is now a recognized article of consumption in Europe; the cat has long served its turn, as civet de lapin, without the honours of publicity; and the day may come when ‘dog-meat’ will appear regularly in the market. I have often marvelled at the prejudices and squeamishness of those races who will eat the uncleanest things, such as pigs, ducks, and fowls, to which they are accustomed, and yet who feel disgust at the idea of touching the purest feeders, simply because the food is new. It is indeed time to enlarge the antiquated dietary attributed to the Hebrew lawgiver, and practically to recognize the fact that, in the temperates at least, almost all flesh is wholesome meat for man.
European dogs at Zanzibar require as much attention as white babies, but these die whilst those live. They must be guarded from heat and cold, sun and rain, dew and wind. Their meals must be light and regular, soup taking the place of meat. They must be bathed in warm water, their coats should be carefully dried, they are sent to bed early, and their smallest ailments require the promptest treatment with sulphur, ‘oil,’ and other specifics, otherwise they will never live to enjoy the honourable status of pères et mères de familles. The great object is to breed from them as soon as possible, and the Creoles thrive far better than even the acclimatized strangers. Arabs have been known to pay $50 for a good foreign watch-dog, hoping thus to escape the nightly depredations of the half-starved slaves. They are kind masters, great contrasts to the brutally cruel Negro, whose approximation to the lower animals causes him to tyrannize over them. On the West Coast of Africa the black chiefs often offer considerable sums for English dogs; but none save the lowest ‘palm-oil rough’ would condemn the ‘friend of man’ to this life of vile African slavery. It is really pathetic to meet one of these unfortunate exiles in the interior, where a white face is rarely seen: the frantic display of joy, and the evident horror at being left behind, have more than once made me a dog-stealer.
At Zanzibar, as upon the Continent, fowls may be bought in every village, the rate being 6 to 12 for the dollar, which a few years ago procured 36. They are lean, for want of proper food; ill flavoured, from pecking fish; and miserably small, the result of breeding in—the eggs are like those of pigeons. Yet they might be greatly improved; the central regions of Africa show splendid birds, with huge bodies and the shortest possible legs. This variety is found in the Brazil; and at Zanzibar the mixture of blood has produced a kind of bantam with a large foot. The black-boned variety of poultry, and that with the upright feathers—the ‘frizzly fowl’ of the United States—are also bred here. Capons are manufactured by the blacks of Mayotte and Nosi-béh (Great Island). How is it that the modern English will eat hens, when their great grandfathers knew how to combine the flavour of the male with the tenderness of the female bird?
Peacocks are brought, as in the days of the Ophir trade, from Cutch. Madagascar sends hard, tasteless geese and common ducks, and Mozambique supplies turkeys which are here eaten by Arabs. A local superstition prevents pigeon-breeding in the house: the birds are found wild on the opposite coast, but Moslems will not use them as food. The Muscovy duck, an aborigine of the Platine Valley, has of late years been naturalized—it is a favourite with Africans, who delight in food which gives their teeth and masticatory apparatus the hardest and the longest labour. The only gallinaceous bird which Africa has contributed to civilization, the Guinea-hen, here called the ‘Abyssinian cock,’ is trapped by slaves upon the mainland, and is brought to the Island for sale. As might be expected so near their mother-country, there are seven or eight varieties of this valuable fowl, and until late years some of the rarest and the most curious have been unwittingly used for the table. In every part of the Arab world the Guinea-fowl has a different name: in Syria, for instance, it is called Dik el Rumi (not Dik el Habash) or Roman (Greek) cock, a term generally given to the turkey. It is curious on a coast of estuaries and great river-mouths that the flamingo was not seen by us.
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.