Page:Some account of the town of Zanzibar.djvu/12

 in a sort of basket called a chimney (dobaan) five or six feet high and not a foot and a half across, dressed out with green leaves and flowers. The chief remaining open space is the slave market.

One peculiar feature in the town of Zanzibar is that there are tombs, covered with white plaster, all over the town, sometimes many together, sometimes two or three or only one in some unexpected corner, another is the number of ruins. Our lamented coadjutor Mr. Drayton, who took great pains in exploring and mapping out the town, said there were as many stone houses in ruins as there were sound ones. This strange fact is chiefly the result of superstition. There is said to be a fear that if a man completes his house the next event to be anticipated is his own death, and therefore some part is often left to fall into ruin. But the common cause of abandoning a house is that it is supposed to be unlucky. There are a good many traces in that part of Africa of the notion that there is no such thing as natural death. If, therefore, several deaths occur in a house, the presumption is that there is some evil spirit which will not allow any one to live in it. Our own house was an instance of this; it was built by a very rich and powerful Arab named Salim Bushir, he was so great that rumour said possibly he might some day become the Sultan, and he resolved to build a house that should befit his greatness. So he laid it out on a very grand scale, but it so happened that at one corner there was what is called in Zanzibar an Mzimu, that is a place supposed to be haunted by some powerful spirit to which people make offerings and vows, there are many such in the