Zanzibar (Volume 2); City, Island, and Coast

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 Excerpt: ...a 'common person' one slave, with the chattel of another man five to six cloths, and so on. The day after our arrival was a forced halt, the copal-diggers had set out in another direction before dawn, and no donkey-saddle was to be found: the next, however, was more propitious. Led by May, the Akida'ao, Mtu-Mkuba, Mukaddain, or headman of the gang, we walked west over an alluvial plain of blue earth, veiled with white sand, a narrow path threading the dwarf plantations of maize and manioc, of cucumber, pulse (Lobiya), and the castor plant growing everywhere wild. Crossing, after some 200 yards, a sandy Nullah, which supplies sweet water, we came to a rank and reeking, a thorny and clothtearing vegetation, and to thick, coarse speargrass, burned down in the dry weather: this is the home of the spur-fowl, the Kudu, and other antelopes. Three miles (by pedometer) of damp trudging, a shower having fallen last night, placed us before the first Msandariisi,1 or copal tree (Hymenoea verrucosa. Boivin). It was growing in a thicket upon a, flat covered with Mimosas, Hyphoenas, and various palms, the cocoa being absent. The specimen, though young, was some 30 feet tall, and measured about a yard in girth: it was not in flower nor in fruit; the latter, according to the people, is a berry like a grain of Muhindi (maize). Climb 1 From the Arab Sandarua, which their pharmacopoeia applies to the transparent resiu Sandaraca or Sandarach. Our copal ia a corruption of the Mexican Kopali--any gum. It is called anime or animi in the London market, and by the workman French varnish. The copals of Mexico, of New Zealand (popularly termed Cowaee copal), and of the West African coast, are inferior kinds. The ' Damar, ' or gum found about Cape Delgado, floats in water, and may be un..