other gums, and hides, to be shipped in the
lighters waiting along the water’s edg e , with
sailors from the shipping, and black boatmen
discharging the various imports on the sand. In
the evening the beach is crowded with the naked
forms o f workmen and b o y s from the go-
downs,” preparing to bathe and wash the dust
o f copal and hides off their bodies in the surf.
Some o f the A rab merchants have ordered chairs
on the piers, or bunders, to chat sociably until
the sun sets, and prayer-time has come. Boats
hurry b y with their masters and sailors returning
to their respective vessels. Dhows move sluggishly
past, hoisting as th ey go the creaking
yards o f their lateen sails, bound for the mainland
ports. Zanzibar canoes and “ matepes are
arriving with w ood and produce, and others o f
the same native form and make are squaring
their mat sails, outward bound. Sunset approaches,
and after sunset silence follows soon.
F o r as there are no wheeled carriages with the
eternal rumble o f their traffic in Zanzibar, with
the early evening, comes early peace and rest.
The intending explorer, however, bound for
that dark edge o f the continent which he can
just see ly in g low along the west as he looks
from Zanzibar, has thoughts at this hour which
the resident cannot share. A s little as his eyes
can pierce and define the details in that gloomy
streak on the horizon, so little can he tel
[whether weal or woe lies before him. T he whole
is buried in mystery, over which he ponders,
certain o f nothing but the uncertainty o f life.
(Yet will he learn to sketch out a comparison
Jjetween what he sees at sunset and his own
future. Dark, indeed, is the gloom o f the fast-
coming night over the continent, but does he
not see that there are still bright flushes o f
colour, and rosy bars, and crimson tints, amidst
jwhat otherwise would be universal blackness?
|A.nd may he not therefore say— “ A s those
colours now brighten the darkening west, so
my hopes brighten my dark future” ?
THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT. VOL. I.