And, in spite of his fervent and eloquent protestations, she refuses to go with him.
Such are the themes and characteristics of the last age of Celtic poetry in Ireland. If we have failed to show that the minstrels who sang in such poverty and oppression had natural genius of a high order, we have not accomplished our purpose. We think that true poetry is visible in almost all that remains of their productions. Like all sectional and class poets, they resembled each other very much. The same species of imagery, the same terms of thought and peculiar epithets, were common to them as to the Troubadours, the Scandinavian minstrels, and to all other classes of poets singing to a confined audience and having little or no acquaintance with other forms of poetry. It is through them alone that the voice of the Irish people of their day can be heard. All other forms of the expression of the oppressed race have perished. In the music and poetry of Ireland is made manifest, so that the dullest ear cannot mistake it, the sorrow of a nation in bondage, tinging all mirth, all hope, and all love with an indefinable cadence of melancholy as plainly as in the real outbursts of lamentation and despairing cries of woe.
RELIGION ON THE EAST COAST OF AFRICA.
The marvellous success of the indomitable Stanley has attracted the attention of all to Africa, that region of mystery, marvel, and malaria. The Catholic would naturally learn something of the work of the church in that continent, and of the religious condition of its population. But the subject is too vast for anything less than a large volume, and it will be more profitable to confine our attention to the dominions of the Sultan of Zanzibar. This region has a double interest. Zanzibar is the starting-point of almost every Central African expedition. Thence Livingstone, Speke and Grant, Cameron, and Stanley on two occasions, have struck into the interior and made valuable discoveries. It is also the old centre of the East African slave-trade, which, though it has received a severe check, is not yet abolished. Moreover, Zanzibar is a microcosm—a little world in itself. There one meets with the Arab, the Hindoo, the Persian, the Malagashi, the Banian, the Goa Portuguese, the negro, and the European.
The most important portion of the Sultan of Zanzibar’s territory is the islands of which Zanzibar is the chief. The name was once applied to the whole coast, and it is probable that that must have been the meaning of Marco Polo when he says (on hearsay evidence) that the island of Zanzibar is two thousand miles round. The term is supposed to signify the “Land of the Blacks.” The island is in about 6° south latitude, 48 miles long by 18 broad. It is separated from the mainland by a strait only 20 miles in breadth. As one approaches Zanzibar from the north the coast appears bare, rocky, and surrounded by low cliffs. Here dwell some wild people, almost completely cut off from the more civilized portion of the inhabitants, and following debasing and degrading superstitions. But as we sail southwards, between the island and the main, the shore becomes low and flat, the beach covered with sand of silvery whiteness, and the whole backed by rising ground not more than 300 feet high, on which grow in rich abundance cocoanut and other feathery-leaved palms. Soft breezes, laden with sweet odors from the groves of spice-trees, blow from the shore. The island is rich in fruits; mangos, oranges, limes, pummalos or shaddock, pineapples, jack-fruit, guavas, bananas, and cashew abound. But about four years ago a hurricane visited Zanzibar for the first time; almost all the dhows in the harbor were wrecked, many lives were lost, and the greater part of the trees were destroyed. On one estate known to the writer only four per cent. of the trees remained standing, and the ground, strewn with palms, was a lamentable sight.
At the entrance of Zanzibar harbor are several beautiful islands of emerald green. One of these, called French Island, is used as a burial-place for Europeans, and many wooden crosses and boards mark the last resting-place of seamen of the British navy, cut down by the fever which is so fatal on this coast. The heat is not excessive, seldom rising to 90°, but there is a feeling of depression in the atmosphere, and a short residence in this climate serves to take the energy out of most people.
Now we arrive at the city of Zanzibar, the most important place in East Africa. Its name, in the native language, is Unguja. For miles before reaching the city we have seen large white, square buildings close to the shore—the country residences of wealthy Arabs. The appearance is very pleasing, and so is that of the city from the sea, as similar houses stand near it. These are the English, French, American, and German consulates, over which wave the flags of their respective nations; also the sultan’s palace, the custom-house, and residences of rich Arabs and Hindoos. They are built of coral covered with the whitest plaster, only relieved by regular rows of windows, the brightness reflected from these houses being almost blinding. But on entering the town you cease to wonder at the bad name it has earned. With scarcely an exception Zanzibar is a heap of rubbish; the narrow lanes, or paths which do duty for streets, are surrounded by low hovels formed of earth plastered over wooden frames, roofed with palm-leaves, and possessing no means of ventilation but the doorway, the interior being consequently dark, stifling, and filthy. Many buildings have been allowed to go to utter ruin, and the very mosques are hardly presentable. But the bazaars form the sight of the city. They are, perhaps, a little wider than the other thoroughfares, and the fronts of the houses are occupied by small stalls, on which are piled articles the most incongruous—soap, fish, plantains, cotton goods, medicine, oil, etc. In the midst is seated, cross-legged, a fat old Banian, stripped to the waist, with his naked foot in a basket of grain, or a pretty dark-eyed girl with a ring in her nose. The market produce of all kinds is heaped on the ground without any attempt at order, and, as every one present is screaming at the top of his voice in his own language, the Babel of tongues is complete.
The government is in the hands of the Arabs. This people have from time immemorial had trading-stations on the coast, but Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope in 1499, and the Portuguese soon superseded the Arabs and held the coast for a couple of hundred years, when the Arabs succeeded in dislodging them, and they are now confined to Mozambique and Quilimane, at the mouth of the Zambesi.
Remains of Portuguese forts are scattered up and down the shores of the mainland, and the writer assisted once in whitewashing Vasco da Gama’s column at Melinda, which makes an excellent harbor mark. Near the fort at Zanzibar numerous Portuguese cannon, cast in a European arsenal in the present century, lie on the ground, a proud trophy for the Arabs and a humiliating spectacle for Europeans. Fifty years ago Sayid Said, the Imaum of Muscat, visited Zanzibar and fixed his residence there. At his death one of his sons succeeded to his African and another to his Arabian possessions, the former paying an annual tax of forty thousand dollars to the Imaum. Sayid Barghash, the present sultan, succeeded his brother Sayid Majid seven years ago. He had previously been exiled to Bombay at the instance of the English, whose protégé Majid was. His policy has been one of economy and retrenchment. Though the government may be called an absolute monarchy, yet it answers rather to the old feudal constitutions of Europe in the middle ages, the sultan being checked by members of his own and other powerful families.