How I Found Livingstone Travels, Adventures And Discoveries In Central Africa Including Four Months Residence With Dr. Livingstone By Sir Henry M. Stanley
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The Fortifications
Are On An Arabic Persic Model - Combining Arab Neatness With Persian
Plan.
Through a ride of 950 miles in Persia I never met a town
outside of the great cities better
Fortified than Simbamwenni.
In Persia the fortifications were of mud, even those of Kasvin,
Teheran, Ispahan, and Shiraz; those of Simbamwenni are of stone,
pierced with two rows of loopholes for musketry. The area of
the town is about half a square mile, its plan being quadrangular.
Well-built towers of stone guard each corner; four gates, one facing
each cardinal point, and set half way between the several towers,
permit ingress and egress for its inhabitants. The gates are
closed with solid square doors made of African teak, and carved
with the infinitesimally fine and complicated devices of the Arabs,
from which I suspect that the doors were made either at Zanzibar
or on the coast, and conveyed to Simbamwenni plank by plank;
yet as there is much communication between Bagamoyo and Simbamwenni,
it is just possible that native artisans are the authors of this
ornate workmanship, as several doors chiselled and carved in the
same manner, though not quite so elaborately, were visible in the
largest houses. The palace of the Sultan is after the style of
those on the coast, with long sloping roof, wide eaves, and
veranda in front.
The Sultana is the eldest daughter of the famous Kisabengo, a name
infamous throughout the neighbouring countries of Udoe, Ukami,
Ukwere, Kingaru, Ukwenni, and Kiranga-Wanna, for his kidnapping
propensities.
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