built
round an open court, and the windows, or air-holes as they might more
properly be called, open on to that. Instead of being light and built
of some flimsy stuff, as you might expect, the houses are all put up `on
the heat-resisting principle,' as I heard an engineer describe them--
just like the Irishman that wore his Connemara frieze coat in summer to
keep out the sun, as he said, in the same way as he put it on in winter
to keep out the cold!"

"Indeed!" I said.

"Yes, sir," continued my friend; "the walls of all the large houses at
Zanzibar are many feet thick of solid stone masonry; and even the floors
and partitions dividing the rooms are of several thicknesses too, all
made of wood and stone and lime, the wood being covered over with
mortar. The roof is the best part of them, however. It is made quite
flat, and it is the principal spot for the family to go of an evening
when the sun has gone down and the night-breeze begins to blow. The
Arabs and Parsees go on top in the mornings too, at sunrise, to say
their prayers, spreading out a bit of sacred carpet over the stone
flagging that forms the floor of the roof."

"Are there many shops?" I next inquired.

"Bless you, the town's crammed full of them! but they're only open
sheds, in the centre of which some Hindoo or Banian merchant is to be
seen squatting all day long, chewing hashish or smoking his hubble-
bubble, as if he hadn't a stroke of business to do, and didn't care
about doing it either if he got the chance!"

"I suppose they have goods to sell, though, eh!" I said.

"Oh, yes, shawls and sandals and silks and such like; while in the
eatable line you can get coffee and sherbet, and arrack too, or what
they call English rum, besides pine-apples and mangoes, oranges,
citrons, guavas, green cocoa-nuts, and every fruit you could think of,
as well as cakes and sweetmeats. The streets in the town are very
narrow and are crowded with these sorts of shops or rather stalls, for
they're just like the places you see old apple-women rig up at the
corners in London; but the bazaars are the best spots to look at--
they're just like those in India, and some that I've seen too in
Constantinople. Lor' sakes! why, they're crowded with Arabs and
Hindoos, Persians, Africans, Somali Arabs, and every sort of coloured
native you can imagine, sir, from the lightest coffee-tinted mulatto
down to the jettiest black of the pure nigger brought originally from
th