e interior as a slave.

"The funniest thing, too, about these bazaars is to see the different
trades or handicraftsmen at work, the goldsmiths making rings by
hammering and beating the metal, the jewellers stringing pearls together
for necklaces and bracelets, the toy-makers rigging up the queerest
curios you ever saw, and the sandal-makers cutting out shoes of leather;
but the biggest treat of all is to watch a Parsee school and see how the
master instructs the little shavers. The children, to the number of
fifty or more, all squat on the floor of the school-room, which is a
large open shed on a raised platform, each holding in one hand the
blade-bone taken from the shoulder of a camel to serve as a slate, on
which they make marks with a pencil-like brush. They are pretty little
trots, the children; and are mostly all smartly dressed in little
jackets and trousers of various coloured silks, green, yellow, and red,
with turbans on top of their heads, just like their fathers, to complete
the picture."

"The end of the rainy season, you say, is the best time for catching the
dhows?" I asked now, to bring my friend back to the main point of all
my interrogatories.

"Yes, there's the greatest demand then for the slaves; besides which the
south-west monsoon sets in at that time, and is favourable for their
crossing from the mainland."

"Do they ever show fight?" I inquired.

"Bather!" ejaculated my informant; "they're about as treacherous a lot
as you could ever come across, them Arabs; for, I tell you what, they'll
sometimes let a boat's crew overhaul 'em, and come up alongside as if
everything was ship-shape and clear sailing--that is to say, sir, that
they have nothing contraband aboard and could show a clean bill o'
lading; when, drat 'em, they'll turn round on you like a parcel o'
tigers with their sharp knives and spears. It was in this way my poor
skipper, Capt'in Brownrigg, was killed in December '81--just at
Christmas time, when I were out there."

"That was a sad thing," said I sympathisingly.

"Yes," replied the pensioner; "but, saddest of all, it was to know his
poor wife had just come out from England to join him, and was aboard the
_London_ at the very time his body was brought alongside the ship in the
steam-pinnace in which he had met his death. Ah! he was a fine officer
was Capt'in Brownrigg, and liked by everybody--not only by his brother
officers and equals, but by the men under him. Bless y