Edward Steere

“ The lives of the people of Zanzibar are, for the most part, as monotonous as their climate. I was asking one man why he did nothing, and he said "Oh, I have no money to buy a slave." The very first idea is that if anything is to be done you must buy a slave to do it. Thus if a man comes into a little money in any way, he either spends it at once in drunkenness and dissipation, or, if he be prudent, buys a piece of land in the country, and then he buys a few slaves and settles them upon the land ”

“ The merchants and traders, even to the smallest shopkeepers, are Indians from Cutch and Bombay, either Mohammedan Indians who settle in Zanzibar, or heathen Indians, known as Banyans, who never bring their wives with them, and only come for a time to trade and make such fortunes as they may be able. The lowest class are the African negroes from the interior, slaves or free men. It is hard to tell who is a slave and who is not, as it is very common for slaves to pay their masters two dollars a month, and then shift for themselves as they best may. ”

“ We found it full of coal-dust and many of the windows broken away and shutters gone, and have been repairing and improving ever since, but we found a difficulty in getting men even to come and work in the house, such was their fear of the spirit, and I have often kicked away from that corner of the house pots of incense set there by the work people as a propitiation. People used to come and ask us to let them into our grounds to pray there, and when a solemn procession is made round the town, as it is sometimes, to deprecate plague or famine, they always pause there. ”

“ This work would be the more important because the truest affection which exists in Zanzibar is that between a man and his mother. Children of the same mother are really brothers and sisters, and a man's home is generally with his mother, the tie of marriage counts for far less than that of kinship. A bride's father is bound to provide her a house, and her husband is bound to spend a certain portion of his time with her, and if he has several wives to give them each an equal share of attention. ”

“ There is said to be a fear that if a man completes his house the next event to be anticipated is his own death, and therefore some part is often left to fall into ruin. But the common cause of abandoning a house is that it is supposed to be unlucky. There are a good many traces in that part of Africa of the notion that there is no such thing as natural death. If, therefore, several deaths occur in a house, the presumption is that there is some evil spirit which will not allow any one to live in it. ”

“ When we land, however, the scene changes: there is no street practicable for wheeled vehicles, very few are more than ten or twelve feet wide, and in many places there is no proper street; but as it is the law that every one who builds a house should set up his scaffold on his own land, there is generally about a yard left outside the walls, and the six feet that thus intervene between the houses make the street. ”

“ In such a climate one can understand how people come to lose count of time and forget how old they are.
As to the people, the basis of the whole are the mixed race, between Arab and Negro, whom we call Swahili. The history of the coast is merely that of a succession of Arab conquests. One tribe came down, conquered the negroes and then sunk into an effete state by mixing with the natives and adopting their customs. Then followed another tribe, conquered, intermarried, lost its energy, and made way for a fresh tribe of conquerors. ”

“ The people from Madagascar have a quarter of their own. Among the women slaves are Georgians, Circassians and Greeks. There are Negroes from every tribe and country, and, not least in importance, what are called by the natives, Wazungu, that is, strange, startling unaccountable folk, and they are our own European selves, from the half-caste Portuguese of Goa to the last American improvements. ”

“ Between three and four the man dresses himself with his best care and scents himself, if he be at all a dandy, and, taking his stick or his rosary in his hand, goes out to make the grand round of his friends' houses, looking very picturesque in his turban and long flowing garments. ”

“ The wife always feels that she belongs to her father and brothers much more than to her husband, and, to secure a certain community of feeling, it is quite a rule to marry a first cousin if one is procurable. ”

“ The usual course of a day, from native accounts I had of it, is something of this kind: soon after daylight a man will wake, and, if he is at all devout, go through his morning devotions; he then lies or sits on his bed (which is a light wooden frame laced with thin cocoanut cord, and covered with a mat) until about ten or eleven o'clock, when he dresses and goes out. Every house is furnished with a seat called a baraza, outside the door, made of stone if it be a stone house, or of earth if it be a mud house, here the master spreads a mat and sits awaiting callers. ”

“ And in the interior the Portuguese traders are so hampered by excessive customs duties, and vexatious government interference, that traders from Zanzibar actually pass round their settlements and supply the tribes which lie behind them. Traders from Zanzibar have even penetrated to the Atlantic coast, after traversing the whole interior. It is not unusual for men to go out with goods, and travel for many years, buying and selling in different places, until they have accumulated enough to enable them to return as comparatively rich men. ”

“ It is customary for the visitor to ask leave to go, and the reply asks if you have any unsatisfied desire, the most proper answer to which is to say that you only desire your host's prosperity. It is very common to tell you that the house is yours, and that if there is anything in it you desire, a hint will suffice. ”

“ There are some chief thoroughfares and some streets of shops, which are merely small stone houses with the front of the bottom story taken out, and are therefore quite open to the street, these are frequently protected by a narrow awning of cocoanut leaves, which is very annoying in wet weather, as you have no room to walk except either under the drip of these eaves, or exactly in the middle of the path where the rain-water is running in a stream. ”

“ So, once more, it is very contrary to our notions that women go out freely after dark, while it is reckoned very improper for them to be seen at all in the daytime: and, again, the women wear trousers and the men do not. ”

“ One may almost say that it is more than the chief town, it is the only really large town and great centre of trade for all that immense coast, and the vast countries which lie behind it. Mozambique and the other Portuguese towns are so decayed, that they have barely one ship a year from their own country, and rely for their trade mainly upon an American house established in Zanzibar. ”

“ Besides these great races, there are specimens of nearly every nation. There are Arabs of other tribes than the Muscat people, particularly the people of Sheher, who do all that requires strength and energy, they are the soldiers, butchers, makers of coarse mats and baskets, and many of them carry loads as porters. There are the people of the Comoro Islands, another mixed race of Arabs and Negroes, who are the head-servants and overlookers, and the tailors of the place. ”

“ Those who do not go out sit on their own barazas, and generally have a supply of coffee ready for all comers of sufficient standing, this is drunk, without milk or sugar, in a very small cup without a handle, set into another cup, or, among very great people, in a small filagree stand, to avoid burning one's fingers. ”

“ The standing population of the town may very probably be a hundred thousand, which is largely increased, when the northerly wind blows, by the traders and sailors from all parts of India and Arabia, many of whom come down, according to the immemorial course of trade, when the northerly wind blows, and wait till the southerly wind comes, in a few months, to blow them back again. ”

“ It is to be confessed that idle as the men's lives are, those of the women are still emptier; a little cooking and sweetmeat-making is their only recognized employment; needlework is man's work and only a few women know how to do it. To lie on a bed and be fanned by a couple of slave girls, is the most usual occupation of the richer women ”

“ About sunset the man goes home again, performs his sunset prayers, and has another meal of the same kind as before, he and those that are with him dipping with their hands out of the common dish. During the course of the day he has bathed once or twice, by having water poured over him. When it is well dark it is his wife's turn to go out, and so the day is ended. ”

“ Such then is the town of Zanzibar, in a climate where winter and summer are hardly marked by any difference of heat or of the length of the day, the thermometer seldom standing far from eighty degrees in the house, and the sun always rising and setting within twenty minutes of six o'clock. There are never storms nor ever a really high wind for more than half an hour or so at a time. ”

“ Skilled workmen get about a quarter of a dollar, or about a shilling a day, which is very good wages. But those who dress and behave like gentlemen get what would seem to us very little. I was thinking what I could reasonably charge for Bibles and Testaments in Arabic, and made enquiries to find out how much people were likely to have to spend ”

“ In formal visits sherbet is also served, which is, for the most part, nothing but French syrup diluted with water. If any one receives you with great affection, a long-necked silver bottle is brought and you are sprinkled or even deluged with rose water or some other cheap scent. ”

“ The lowest pay, for work which does not require much thought, is eight pice, or threepence, a day; this is about the two dollars a month; it will just feed and clothe a man, but then he must eat muhogo or casava root, which, when dried and pounded, makes a common sort of arrow root, and for a relish to it, he will get about a cubic inch of salt shark, while, as for his clothes, two yards of unbleached calico will supply him for half a year handsomely. ”

“ These cattle are excessively tame, I only heard of one, which having taken an antipathy to Europeans was shut up by its owner, not lest it should hurt the Europeans, but lest they should hurt it, which, in the eyes of its owner, a heathen Indian, would have been the greatest of calamities. ”