Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/406

 England, and spent much of his time, and all of his revenues, in Paris. One day an English gunboat sailed into the harbor, and the captain told the gay Sultan that he had been ousted. The Sultan resented the high-handed proceeding, and sent word to the defenders of his dignity to sink the English gunboat and put the insolent captain in the dungeon. There was an old fort near the palace, on the walls of which were mounted a few rusty iron cannon. The defenders of the Sultan tried to fire these at the English gunboat, but they burst, one by one, and almost wiped out the Sultan's defensive force. The captain of the English gunboat then began dropping shells into the palace, and, with one solid shot, sank the Sultan's navy: a small vessel which carried four guns. The last remnants of this wreck were being removed from the harbor the day I was at Zanzibar Near the middle of the town is a place called "The Gardens." It was formerly the bathing resort of the wives of the Sultan. The place is now used as a town hall, and I went there with Sammy Marks, the theatrical manager, who wished to engage it for an attraction. He paid twelve shillings for the use of the hall. Dances are also held in the hall; the bathing-pool is covered with planks when the hall is rented. On other days, the bathing-pool, formerly the resort of the Sultan's wives, is used by the school-boys, and scattered around the hall I saw a good many pieces of gymnastic apparatus Our summer weather is never as hot as the hot weather of Africa. Whenever we go ashore we carry a sunshade, and, with that protection, suffer more from heat than we ever suffer at home After