Page:Some account of the town of Zanzibar.djvu/20

 and refreshing thing you could easily think of. It is a fundamental rule of good breeding not to do what will make yourself or anybody else hot, you must walk slowly and keep as cool as you can. Again, amongst the Mohammedans, it is held profane not to introduce the Name of into everything you say, and, if there is a pause in the conversation, some one will put in an ejaculation, such as Allah akbár,  is great, and then the conversation goes on as before. Sometimes your friend, being at a loss what to say, says, Jambo or Jambo sana, as much as to say. Are you well? or Are you very well? and so the rudeness of sitting looking at one another is avoided. So, once more, it is very contrary to our notions that women go out freely after dark, while it is reckoned very improper for them to be seen at all in the daytime: and, again, the women wear trousers and the men do not.

It is to be confessed that idle as the men's lives are, those of the women are still emptier; a little cooking and sweetmeat-making is their only recognized employment; needlework is man's work and only a few women know how to do it. To lie on a bed and be fanned by a couple of slave girls, is the most usual occupation of the richer women; the class below them plait the various coloured mats which serve for bedding; the lowest of all carry stones, and lime, and, chief of all their employments, water. For, in the town of Zanzibar, there is none but brackish water to be had, and so one of the first steps in house-keeping is to hire women (we hired eight) to go out two, three, or even more miles, to fetch in water on their heads. The ways that lead out of the