which he has surrounded with a high wall.
Here a grinning skull and there a bleached thighbone
or sunken grave exposing its ghastly
contents attract one’s attention. From time immemorial
this old beach has been the deposito
r y o f the dead, and unless the Prince prosecutes
his g o od w o rk for the reclamation o f this
golgotha (and the European officials urge it on
him), the custom may be continued for a long
period yet.
Beyond this cemetery is to be seen the mudd
y head o f Malagash inlet, between which and
the sea south o f Shangani there lies only this
antique sand bar, about two hundred yards in
breadth. On the crest o f the sand bar stands
the One Cocoa-nut Palm which has given its
name to this locality. Sometimes this spot is
also known as the “ fiddler’s ” grave. It is
the breathing-place o f the hard-worked and jad-.
ed European, and here, seated on one o f the
plastered tombs near the base o f the One Cocoa-
nut Palm, with only a furtive lo o k now and then
at the “ sleep and a forgetting” which those
humble white structures represent, he may take
his fill o f ocean and watch the sun go down to
his •daily rest.
Beyond Mnazi-Moya is Mbwenni, the Universities
Mission, and close behind are some
peculiar red cliffs, which are worth seeing.
From the ro o f o f the house, i f we take the
last resource already mentioned, we have a
I view o f the roadstead and b a y o f Zanzibar. Gene-
jr a lly there ride at anchor two or three British
I ships o f war just in from a hunt after contu-
jmacious Arabs, who persist, against the orders
lo f their prince, in transporting slaves on the
high seas. There is a vessel moored closer to
fFrenchman’s Island, its “ broken back ” a memento
o f the Prince’s fleet shattered b y the
¡hurricane o f 1872, Nearer in-shore float a number
o f Arab dhows, boats, lighters, steam launch-
|es, and two steamers, one o f which- is the
¡famous D eerhound. One day I counted, as a
gmere matter o f curiosity, the great and small
yessels in roadstead and harbour, and found that
¡there were 135.
I From our easy-chairs on the ro o f we can see
p ie massive building occupied formerly b y the
llniversities Mission, and now the residence o f
[Captain Prideaux, A ctin g British Consul and
p o litic a l Resident, whose acquaintance I first
Inade soon after his release from Magdala in
«868. This building stands upon the extremity
p f Shangani Ppint, and the first line o f houses
p h ich fronts the beach extends northerly in a
gentle sweep, almost up to Livingstone’s old
¡residence on the other side o f Malagash inlet.
^ During the d ay the beach throughout its length
is alive with the moving figures ofhamals, bearing
clove and cinnamon b ags, ivo ry , copal and