Of the free blacks who visit and who sometimes reside in Zanzibar, I have mentioned the Malagash: these Madagascar Islanders occupy the easternmost suburb of the town. In early ages the Arab and Wasawahili settlers on the western coast of the Great Island traded with the Mozambique, the Sawahil, and even Arabia, and since 1829 the persecutions of the Queen Ranavola-Manjaka, and the heavy yoke of the Hova conquerors, caused many to leave their homes. The rare Somal need hardly be noticed. During the season a few run down from Makdishu and Brava, to trade and barter hides and cattle. There are almost 2000 men from Angazijeh (Great Comoro), Mayotta, Hinzuwan or Anjuan (Johanna), and Muhayli. The word Comoro is evidently corrupted Arabic, meaning Moon-Island. The natives of the Archipelago here preserve their own language, which seems to be a superstruction of Javanese and Bali, Arabic, and Sanskrit erected upon a primitive insular dialect, meagre and un-Aryan. Others have detected in it a resemblance to that of the Philippine Islands,[[93]] and hold the people to be of Malay origin. The blood was Persianized and Arabized in the 12th century, and the Sultan and chiefs have ever since retained the Semitic physiognomy; but the extensive negro innervation has so tainted the blood that no difference can be perceived in the characteristic effluvium between them and the Wasawahili. It is curious to hear them, withal, boast of their Koraysh descent, and pride themselves upon the glories of the ancient race that produced the ‘Rasúl Ullah.’ In A.D. 1774 they hospitably entertained the crew of an East Indiaman wrecked whilst en route to Bombay. The Sultan of Johanna received in return a magnificent present from the H. E. I. Company, and the Comoro Islanders gained for themselves a permanent good name. A considerable emigration was caused in the early part of the present century by intestine divisions and by piratical attacks from Madagascar, whilst the slave emancipation by the French in 1847 set a large class free to travel. Of late they have displayed a savage and mutinous spirit, and two men were put to death for attempting with peculiar audacity the life of the young chief, Abdullah.
Amongst Eastern impostors the Comoro, especially the Johanna men, are facilè principes: the singular scoundrels have completely mastered the knack of cajoling Europeans—no Syrian Dragoman can do it better. Once or twice a year they tell-off begging-parties, who visit Mauritius and Aden, Bombay and Calcutta, and who invariably represent themselves as being on ‘Church-bijness,’ i.e. pilgrimage. Linguists, after the fashion of Egyptian donkey-boys, they also have the habit, like the petty Shaykhs and Emirs in the Libanus, of calling themselves ‘princes.’ More than one scion of Comoro loyalty, after obtaining a passage on board our cruisers, insisting upon the guard being turned out, and claiming from our gullible countrymen all the honours of kinghood, has proved to be a cook or a bumboat-man. Unscrupulous as bigoted, they have induced half-starved Europeans to apostatize by promises of making them chiefs and of marrying them to princesses; after circumcision, the wretches were left to starve. The Comoro men settled at Zanzibar are mostly servants in European houses, where they recommend themselves by exceeding impudence and by being handy at any fraud. Others are rude artisans, and the rest are Mercuries, beach-combers, and bumboat-men, who supply sailors with Venus and Bacchus, both execrably bad. When expecting invasion, Sayyid Majid equipped about 130 of these fellows as a garde de corps: they had flint muskets, two spears apiece, and lozenge-shaped hats, whereas the common troops wore woollen night-caps. Finally, they are cowardly as they are dishonest: it was not without astonishment that I heard of Dr Livingstone engaging a party of them for exploration in the African interior, and the trick which they played him is now a matter of history.
The Diwans or chiefs of the mainland ports and towns occasionally visit the Island on public and private business. Twice a year, in our midsummer and midwinter, a crowd of the Wanyam-wezi and other races of the inner intertropical regions flock, viâ the Coast, into Zanzibar, where they engage themselves as porters, and undertake carrying packs for the native traders to the Lake Regions and other meeting-places of commerce. They are so wild, that they cannot be induced to enter a house; and the terror of one who was brought to the consular residence was described as grotesquely comical: even the more civilized look upon a stone abode as a cavern or a dungeon. These half-naked miserables may be seen devouring, like birds of prey, carrion and putrid fish in the outskirts of the city; they have also a ‘Devil’s tree,’ whose trunk bristles with nails, and whose branches are robed in foul rags.
Some years ago one of the chiefs of the interior, I was told, was brought to Zanzibar a prisoner of war. He is described as a man of kingly presence, 6 feet 2 inches tall, handsome in face, and well-formed in head; his skin was covered with scar and tattoo in patterns, amongst which the crescent shape predominated.[[94]] When struck by his Arab owner he spat upon him, and declared that if burnt alive he would not cry out. Being carried before the late Sayyid, he boldly told him that ‘God exalts men and brings them low, that both were kings, and that the same misfortune which had made one a captive might also happen to the other.’ As he walked through the streets all the slaves, wild and domestic, prostrated themselves, to be touched by the point of his staff; they served him with food upon their knees; they remained in that position while he ate, and all wailed when he was placed in the Fort. The same story is told of an old ‘Congo king,’ who is still remembered at Rio de Janeiro. The prisoner of Zanzibar invariably placed his foot upon presents, and when the Sayyid restored him to liberty he departed empty-handed. M. Broquin, the French Consul, and other Europeans made inquiries about this black Jugurtha: all they could discover was that his country lay somewhere about the great Central Lakes.
A few Wazegura, Wasegejo, and Wadigo, heathen from the mainland, visit Zanzibar to buy and sell, or to fly from foes and famine. The greater portion settle permanently upon the Island, the savage for the most part unwillingly exchanges the comforts and pleasures of semi-civilization for the wildness and freedom of ‘Nature,’ so dear to the man of refinement. These Africans live by fishing and work in the plantations: they easily obtain from the large landed proprietors bits of ground, paying as a yearly quit-rent half a dollar and upwards according to crop, manioc, bananas, and sweet potatoes.
CHAPTER IX.
HORSEFLESH AT ZANZIBAR.—THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE CITY, AND THE CLOVE PLANTATIONS.
‘Peregrination charms our senses with such unspeakable and sweet variety, that some count him unhappy that never travelled, and pity his case, that from his cradle to his old age beholds the same still; still, still the same, the same.’—‘Anatomy of Melancholy,’ Part II. sect. ii. mem. 3.
Most Europeans at Zanzibar keep horses which they seldom ride. The Sayyid, however, had, after hospitable Arab custom, placed a large stud at the disposal of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton and his guests. I had heard much of the Oman blood, so before excursioning to the outskirts of Zanzibar City we proceeded to the Prince’s stables.
The late ruler had rarely less than 200 mares, whose value ranged between $1500 and $2000: at present, however, the number is greatly reduced. They require as much nursing as European dogs: in the morning they must be picketed in the courtyard to ‘smell the air’; during the day they must take shelter from the sun under a long cajan-roofed shed; they must at all times he defended from rain and dew; and they must be fed with dry fodder—here, as in Paraguay, the belief is that the indigenous green meat becomes fatal to imported beasts. We found the treatment very rough. The animals were ungroomed, and mostly they had puffed legs, the result of being kept standing night and day upon a slope of hard boarding. Amongst them I was shown a curious Nejdi, which reminded me of Lady Hester Stanhope’s pampered beasts; the coat was silver-white, the shoulders were pinkish, and the saddle-back amounted almost to a deformity. The favourite charger of the late Sayyid is a little bay with black points, standing about 14 hands 2 inches: its straight fetlocks are well fitted for stony ground, it wears the mane almost upon the withers, and the shoulder is well thrown back, barely leaving room for the saddle. The hind-quarter, that weak point in the Arab, is firmly and strongly made, and the tail is thin, switchlike, carried nearly straight, as usual with the best blood, and remarkably high. The beau-ideal of a Nejdi is an animal all shoulder and quarter, connected by a bit of barrel; and to this pitch of excellence we are gradually breeding up our English horses. The charger in question is of the ancient Oman race, once celebrated for endurance: the late Sayyid, however, injured his stud by crossing foal and dam, brother and sister, till the animals fined down and dwindled to mere dwarfs. I remarked that, here as elsewhere, the Arabs have learned from Europeans to trace the genealogy of their horses through the sire, a practice unknown to the sons of the desert.
All the best horses in Zanzibar come from Oman: an inferior strain is exported by Brava (Barawa), and the Somali country. The latter sends good little beasts somewhat like those of the Pernambucan Province; but worn out by long marches and scant feeding, they usually die during the first rains. Upon the mainland they will live for years. Here, however, the new importations at first fatten; then they get foul; the sweat becomes fetid; they lose breath and become unfit for work, till fatal disease manifests itself by foam from the mouth. As in Malabar and Mauritius, where the field-officers have often been dismounted, it is next to impossible to keep horses in health and condition: they are also costly, $150 to $200, German crowns, being asked for Kadishs or garrons.