All articles but money are expensive at Zanzibar, where the dollar represents our shilling.[[87]] This is the result of the large sums accumulated by trade and of the necessity of importing provisions; we see the same process at work throughout the tropical Brazil. Moreover, in all semi-barbarous lands a stranger living like a native, may live upon ‘half-nothing;’ if he would, however, preserve the comforts of home, and especially if he would see society, he must consent to an immoderate expenditure. Finally, where the extremes of wealth and poverty meet, and where semi-civilization has not discovered that prudence is a virtue and improvidence a blunder, the more man spends the more he is honoured.
The humblest dwelling at Zanzibar lets unfurnished for £80 to £100 per annum. Furniture of all kinds, porcelain, china, plate, and linen, no matter how old, fetch more than prime cost, and $1 will be paid for a patched and rickety chair worth in London a shilling. Clothing must be brought from Europe: broad cloth is soon spoiled by sun and damp, and shoes must not be exposed to the air—it is well to have the latter one or two sizes larger than at home. The luxuries of life are of course enormously dear, when they are to be purchased. During the Sayyid’s absence the women of his harem have, through the eunuchs, sold for a song the valuable presents sent from Europe; and after the return of the royal vessels from Bourbon and the Mauritius, watches and chronometers, sextants and spy-glasses, have been exceedingly cheap. In both cases the stranger-purchaser would have done well to remember that he was buying stolen goods.
Another cause of expense at Zanzibar is the present state of the currency. The rouble of Russia is the franc of France, and here the standard of value is the Maria Theresa or German crown, averaging 4s. 2d. Bearing the die of 1780, and still coined at the mint of Vienna for the Arab and the E. African trade, it is perferred by the people simply because they know it. The popular names are Riyál (i.e. real, royal) or Girsh (groschen, ‘broad’ pieces). Spanish dollars (bú tákeh, ‘father of window,’ whence our ‘patak’), elsewhere 8 per cent. more valuable, are here only equal to Maria Theresas. In 1846 a French Mission failed to fix the agio of the 5 franc piece at 10 per cent. below the Spanish dollar, which still remained 12.50 to 14 per cent. more valuable. The Company’s rupee, better metal than both the above, being still a comparative stranger, loses nearly a quarter of its value. Other silver pieces are the ‘Robo’ (Spanish quarter dollar) of 25 cents, and the pistoline (20 cents); these, however, are subject to heavy agio. Small change is always rare, another sure sign of thriftlessness, and it is strange how scarce is bullion in a land so wealthy: I can only account for the fact by the Oriental practice of burying treasure.[[88]]
Where men reside solely for gain and sorely against the grain, little can be expected from society. Every merchant hopes and expects to leave Zanzibar for ever, as soon as he can realize a certain sum; every agent would persuade his employer to recall him. Of late years, also, foreigners complain of a falling off in ivory, copal, cloves, and other articles which the natives, it might be supposed, could most easily supply; thus profits are curtailed, and a penny saved is a penny gained. Most residents are contented with an Abyssinian or Somali girl, or perhaps an Msawahili; with a Portuguese cook, who consents to serve till he also can get away; and with a few hired slaves or free blacks, the dirtiest, the least honest, and the most disorderly of domestics. The British Consulate is the only establishment which employs Indian Moslems, perhaps the best of Eastern attendants. This luxury costs, however, at least £25 per mens., each man receiving from $10 to $12, about double the wages paid in India, and all are ever anxious to return home, the mal de pays making them discontented and unhappy. The bumboat-men and the beach-combers are Comoro rascals, who sometimes gain considerable sums; there are also some half-a-dozen negroes, speaking a little bad French, and worse English, who offer themselves to every stranger, and who fleece him till turned away for making the quail squeak. Workmen are hired by the day. Carpenters demand $0.50, three times the Indian wage, and the day’s work is at most 5 hours; of these men 4 barely did in 43 what 2 ship-carpenters managed in 5 days. The blacksmith and tin-man receive from $0.50 to $1 per diem; the goldsmith is paid according to the value of what he takes in hand—so much per dollar-weight.
The merchants, par excellence of Zanzibar, are the enterprising Bhattias or Cutch Banyans. The Periplus (chap. xiv.) mentions an extensive import trade for Ariáke and Barugaze, the latter generally identified with Baroch.[[89]] Vasco da Gama found ‘Indians,’ especially Calicut men, at Mozambique, Kilwa, Mombasah, and Melinde, and by their information he reached their native city. From the beginning of the present century the monopoly fell into the hands of the Bhattia caste. At first they were obliged to make Zanzibar, viâ Maskat, in a certain ship which sailed once a year: they were exposed to many hardships and perils: several of them were murdered, and when a Hindu died the Arabs, like the Turks of Masawah, claimed the droit d’aubaine. They rose in mercantile repute by commercial integrity, frugality, and perseverance, whilst the inability of the Moslem Sarráf to manage accounts or banking put great power into their hands. At Maskat and the neighbourhood they number nearly 500, and here about 400.[[90]] They extend southwards to Angosh (Angoxa) and Mozambique, where they make fortunes by the sale of Casimir noir, and where they are now as well treated as they were formerly tyrannized over by the Portuguese. Thus, though never leaving the seaboard, they command the inland trade, sending, where they themselves do not care to travel, Arabs and Wasawahili to conduct their caravans of savages and slaves. For this reason they have ever been hostile to European exploration, and report affirms that they have shown no scruples in compassing their ends. They are equally powerful to forward the discoverer; they can cash drafts upon Zanzibar, Mandavi, and Bombay; provide outfits, supply guards and procure the Págázi, or porters, who are mostly their employés. Ladha Damha farms the customs at Zanzibar, at Pemba Island his nephew Pisú has the same charge: Mombasah is in the hands of Lakhmidas, and some 40 of his co-religionists; Pangani is directed by Trikandas and contains 20 Bhattias, including those of Mbweni; even the pauper Sa’adani has its Banyan; Ramji, an active and intelligent trader, presides at Bagamoyo, and the customs of Kilwa are collected by Kishindas. I need hardly say that almost all of them are connected by blood as well as by trade.
The Bhattia at Zanzibar is a visitor, not a colonist; he begins life before his teens, and, after an expatriation of 9 to 12 years, he goes home to become a householder. The great change of life effected, he curtails the time of residence to half, and furloughs become more frequent as transport waxes easier. Not a Hindu woman is found upon the Island; all the Banyans leave their wives at home, and the consequences are certain peccadilloes, for which they must pay liberally. Arab women prefer them because they have light complexions; they are generous in giving jewels, and they do not indulge in four wives. Most of them, however, especially those settled on the Coast, keep handsome slave-girls, and, as might be expected where illegitimates cannot be acknowledged, they labour under the imputation of habitual infanticide. On the other hand, their widows may not remarry, and they inherit the husband’s property if not embezzled by relatives and caste-fellows.
The Bhattias are forbidden, by their Dharma (‘caste-duty’) to sell animals, yet, with the usual contradiction of their creed, all are inveterate slave-dealers. They may not traffic in cowries, that cause the death of a mollusc; local usage, however, permits them to buy hippopotamus-tusks, rhinoceros-horn, and ivory, their staple of commerce. We cannot wonder if, through their longing to shorten a weary expatriation, they have sinned in the matter of hides. This, together with servile cohabitation, caused a scandal some years ago, when the Maháráj, their high priest, sent from Malwa a Chela, or disciple, to investigate their conduct. Covered with ashes and carrying an English umbrella, the holy man arrived in a severe mood; he rejected all civilities, and he acknowledged every address with a peculiar bellowing grunt, made when ‘Arti’ is offered to the Dewta or deity. The result was a fine of $20,000 imposed upon the rich and wretched Jayaram. The sum was raised amidst the fiercest and most tumultuous of general subscriptions, and since that day the spoils of the cow have been farmed to a Khojah employé. All oppose with might and main the slaughter of cattle, especially in public, and they attempt to quit the town during the Moslem sacrificial days.
The long limp black hair, the smooth yellow skin, and the regular features of the Bhattia, are conspicuous near the woolly mops, the grinning complexions, and the flat faces of the Wasawahili. His large-peaked Cutch turban, white cotton coat or shoulder cloth, and showy Indian dhoti around the loins, contrasts favourably with the Arabs’ unclean garb. The Janeo, or thread of the twice-born, passes over his shoulder, and, in memory of home, he encircles his neck with a string of dry Tulsi stalks (Ocimum canum, a species of herb Basil), which he now grows at Zanzibar. His manners as well as his outer man are rendered pleasant and courteous by comparison with the rest of the population, and he is a kind master to his serviles, who would love him if they possibly could love anything but themselves.
These Hindus lead a simple life, active only in pursuit of gain. On the Coast, where profits are immense—Trikandas of Pangani, for instance, claims $26,000 of debt—they have substantial stone houses, large plantations, and goodly gangs of male and female slaves. Those resident at Zanzibar are less anxious to display their wealth: all, however, are now entitled by treaty to manage their own affairs without the interference of the local Government. These Banyans will buy up the entire cargoes of American and Hamburg ships: the ivory from the interior is consigned to them, and they purchase the copal from the native diggers. They rise at dawn to perform the semi-religious rite ‘Snán’ (bathing), apply to business during the cool of the day, and dine at noon. Avoiding Jowari, the Arabs’ staff of life, they eat boiled rice, vegetables, and ghee, or wheaten bread and Mung, or other pulse, flavoured with assafœtida, turmeric, and ‘warm spices.’ They chew tobacco, though forbidden by caste rule to smoke it, and every meal concludes with betel-nut and pepper-leaf, whose heating qualities alone enable them, they say, to exist at Zanzibar. They work all day, rarely enjoying the siesta unless rich enough to afford such luxury: they bathe in the evening, sup at 9 P.M., chew betel once more, and retire to rest.
As the Island contains no local Dewta, the Bhattias are careful to keep a Vishnu in the house, and to travel about, if possible, with a cow: in places like Pangani, where the horned god cannot live, they supply its place by a Hanuman (a small monkey, like the Presbyter Entellus of India) trapped in the jungle. Pagodas not being permitted, they meet for public devotions at a house in the southern quarter of the city, where most of them live, and lately they have been allowed to build a kind of fane at Mnazi Moyya. As usual with Banyans, the Bhattias have no daily prayers: on such festivals as the Pitri-paksha—the ‘Manes-Fortnight,’ from the 13th to the 18th of the month Bhadrapad—they call in, and fee a Brahman to assist them. Their proper priests are the Pokarna, who, more scrupulous than others, refuse to cross the sea: the Sársat Brahmans, so common in Sind and Cutch, are the only high-caste drones who to collect money will visit Zanzibar and Maskat. With a characteristic tenderness, these Banyans cook grain at the landing-places for the wild slaves, half-starved by the ‘middle-passage,’ and inclination as well as policy everywhere induces them to give alms largely. Apostasy is exceedingly rare: none Islamize, except those who have been perverted by Moslems in their youth, or who form connections with strange women. The Comoro men, here the only energetic proselytizers, have, however, sometimes succeeded: a short time ago two Bhattias became Mohammedans, and their fellow caste-men declared that the Great Destruction was drawing nigh. Yet Vishnu slept, and still sleeps the sleep of the just.