hat extremes meet, removes the feeling of surprise that ought
to be aroused by discovering that these odours are in close connexion
with haberdashery and hardware. There are enormous casks, puncheons,
and kegs on the floor; bales on the shelves; indescribable confusion in
the corners; preserved meat tins piled to the ceiling; with dust and
dirt encrusting everything. The walls, beams, and rafters, appear to be
held together by means of innumerable cobwebs. Hosts of flies fatten
on, without diminishing, the stock, and squadrons of cockroaches career
over the earthen floor.

In the little back-room of this shop sat the slave-dealer Yoosoof, in
company with the captain of an English ship which lay in the harbour.

Smoke from the captain's pipe filled the little den to such an extent
that Yoosoof and his friend were not so clearly distinguishable as might
have been desired.

"You're all a set of false-hearted, wrong-headed, low-minded,
scoundrels," said the plain-spoken captain, accompanying each
asseveration with a puff so violent as to suggest the idea that his
remarks were round-shot and his mouth a cannon.

The Briton was evidently not in a complimentary mood. It was equally
evident that Yoosoof was not in a touchy vein, for he smiled the
slightest possible smile and shrugged his shoulders. He had business to
transact with the captain which was likely to result very much to his
advantage, and Yoosoof was not the man to let feelings stand in the way
of business.

"Moreover," pursued the captain, in a gruff voice, "the trade in slaves
is illegally conducted in one sense, namely, that it is largely carried
on by British subjects."

"How you make that out?" asked Yoosoof.

"How? why, easy enough. Aren't the richest men in Zanzibar the Banyans,
and don't these Banyans, who number about 17,000 of your population,
supply you Arabs with money to carry on the accursed slave-trade? And
ain't these Banyans Indian merchants--subjects of Great Britain?"

Yoosoof shrugged his shoulders again and smiled.

"And don't these opulent rascals," continued the Briton, "love their
ease as well as their money, and when they want to increase the latter
without destroying the former, don't they make advances to the like of
you and get 100 per cent out of you for every dollar advanced?"

Yoosoof nodded his head decidedly at this, and smiled again.

"Well, then, ain't the whole lot of you a set of mean scoundrels?" said
the cap