Page:Some account of the town of Zanzibar.djvu/13

 country, especially where that strange tree called a Baobab or Calabash tree grows; there is one near the town full of great nails which have been driven into it, I suppose, to fix the spirit, and we used generally in passing to see a few bananas, an egg or two, a little pot for burning incense, or some written charm deposited at its foot. However, the Mzimu I was speaking of was marked not by a tree but by some piece of stonework, possibly a tomb, which fell just within the site marked out for the house. Salim Bushir told his slaves to break it up, but not a man would stir, so he took up an iron bar and broke it up himself. From that time men watched him. But he went on prospering, he built his house, as houses are built in Zanzibar, carrying the walls up as high as a man could reach, then having a feast and leaving the work to dry and settle, then building on again and leaving that to dry, till all was finished. And it was thoroughly well finished, the front door alone cost more than a hundred pounds. The house was opened with a feast to which all the town was invited, but within a year after, Salim Bushir was dead; he was succeeded by a brother, who died within eighteen months, and then no one could be persuaded to live in the house any more. The family became involved in a struggle against the Sultan; and he compelled them to sell him the house for about a third of its value, that he might lend it to the British navy as a store place. Several portions of it were getting ruinous, and when we came to Zanzibar the Navy had just given it up after putting it roughly into repair. Colonel Playfair (then the British consul and political agent and an excellent friend to us) advised