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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Outside
The City They May Be Seen Carrying Huge Loads On Their Heads, As
Happy As Possible, Not Because They
Are kindly treated or that
their work is light, but because it is their nature to be gay and
light-
Hearted, because they, have conceived neither joys nor hopes
which may not be gratified at will, nor cherished any ambition
beyond their reach, and therefore have not been baffled in their
hopes nor known disappointment.
Within the city, negro carriers may be heard at all hours, in
couples, engaged in the transportation of clove-bags, boxes of
merchandise, &c., from store to "godown" and from "go-down" to
the beach, singing a kind of monotone chant for the encouragement
of each other, and for the guiding of their pace as they shuffle
through the streets with bare feet. You may recognise these men
readily, before long, as old acquaintances, by the consistency
with which they sing the tunes they have adopted. Several times
during a day have I heard the same couple pass beneath the windows
of the Consulate, delivering themselves of the same invariable tune
and words. Some might possibly deem the songs foolish and silly,
but they had a certain attraction for me, and I considered that
they were as useful as anything else for the purposes they were
intended.
The town of Zanzibar, situate on the south-western shore of the
island, contains a population of nearly one hundred thousand
inhabitants; that of the island altogether I would estimate at not
more than two hundred thousand inhabitants, including all races.
The greatest number of foreign vessels trading with this port are
American, principally from New York and Salem. After the American
come the German, then come the French and English. They arrive
loaded with American sheeting, brandy, gunpowder, muskets, beads,
English cottons, brass-wire, china-ware, and other notions, and
depart with ivory, gum-copal, cloves, hides, cowries, sesamum,
pepper, and cocoa-nut oil.
The value of the exports from this port is estimated at $3,000,000,
and the imports from all countries at $3,500,000.
The Europeans and Americans residing in the town of Zanzibar are
either Government officials, independent merchants, or agents for a
few great mercantile houses in Europe and America.
The climate of Zanzibar is not the most agreeable in the world. I
have heard Americans and Europeans condemn it most heartily. I
have also seen nearly one-half of the white colony laid up in one
day from sickness. A noxious malaria is exhaled from the shallow
inlet of Malagash, and the undrained filth, the garbage, offal,
dead mollusks, dead pariah dogs, dead cats, all species of carrion,
remains of men and beasts unburied, assist to make Zanzibar a most
unhealthy city; and considering that it it ought to be most healthy,
nature having pointed out to man the means, and having assisted him
so far, it is most wonderful that the ruling prince does not obey
the dictates of reason.
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