o f the pioneer. Cattle die, tormented out of
life b y the flies or poisoned b y the rank grasses ;
natives perish from want o f proper nourishment, i
and, while suffering from fatigue and debility,
are subject to many fatal diseases.
A tramway is the one thing that is needed
for Africa. A ll other benefits that can be conferred
b y contact with civilization will follow in
the wake o f the tramway* which will be an iron
bond, never to be again broken, between Africa
and the more favoured continents.
However energetic the small merchant may
b e , he can effect nothing permanent for the
g o od o f a country that has neither roads nor
navigable rivers, whose climate is alike fatal to
the starved hamal as it is to the beast o f burthen.
T h e maritime belt must first be crossed b y an
iron road, and another must tap the v e ry centre
o f the rice-fields o f the Rufiji valley, in order
to insure cheap, nutritious food in abundance.
T o a company, however, which can raise the
sum required to construct a tramway, East Africa!
holds out special advantages. T he Sultan himself
offers a handsome sum, five lakhs o f dollars or,
roughly, £ 100,000, and there are rich Hindis at
Zanzibar who, no doubt, would invest large sums,
and thus the company would become the principal
merchants along the line. The Sultan has also
p o o r subjects enough who would be only too
g lad o f the opportunities thus afforded to work for
reasonable pay, so that ve ry little fear need be
{entertained o f lack o f labour. Besides, there are
¡the natives o f the interior who, after two or
three bold examples, would soon be induced to
¡apply for employment along the line.
I Those whom we call the Arabs o f Zanzibar
are either natives o f Muscat who have immigrât-
fed thither to seek their fortunes, or descendants
¡of the conquerors o f the Portuguese. A s the
present Sultan calls himself Barghash the son
of S a y id , the son o f Sultan, the son ofHamed,
so all Arabs, from the highest to the lowest o f
,his subjects, are known b y their proper names
I— Ahmed, or Khamis, or Abdullah, as being the
pons o f Mussoud, o f Mustapha, or o f Mohammed.
¡Some o f them boast o f unusually long pedigrees,
¡and one or two I am acquainted with proclaimed
themselves o f purer and.more aristocratic descent
[than even the Sultan.
The Arab conquerors who accompanied S e y y id
pultan, the grandfather o f the present S e y y id
parghash, took unto themselves, after the custom
of polygamists, wives o f their own race according
fto their means, and almost all o f them purchased
pegro concubines, the result o f which we trace
¡to-day in the various complexions o f those who
pall themselves Arabs. B y this process o f
piiscegenation the Arabs o f the latest migration
pre already rapidly losing their rich colour and
pne complexions, while the descendants o f the