The week at Mojangà passed away rapidly, for we had plenty to do in rearranging and labelling luggage, disposing of our palanquins, bedding, and other no longer needful property, and preparing for our voyage. At this town we found ourselves in quite a different place and surroundings from what we had seen everywhere else in Madagascar. We were in the midst of an Indian and Mohammedan population, the traders here being mostly Banians and a large proportion of them British subjects. Hindoo speech, dress, ornament, and customs met us at every turn, and also those of the Arabs. The houses are chiefly built of coral rock, plastered with lime, and roofed with fan-palm leaves. The door and window openings are made with flat-pointed and zigzagged arches; and when the rooms are wide, a line of piers and arches runs down its length, giving a cool depth of shade quite Eastern in its effect. The doorways have elaborately carved lintels and posts; these are all done at Bombay and brought here ready for fitting. There is a little stone carving also here and there, and Arabic sentences are carved over the doors in some cases. The men are in Indian dress, and the women with nose-jewels, silver armlets and anklets, and the long muslin robe thrown over the head and wound round the body. [Sidenote: ARABIC DRESS AND CUSTOMS] Arabic dress and customs were not less prominent in Mojangà. Close to our lodging was a small mosque, and from the flat roof we could hear the _muezzin_ calling the faithful to prayers five times a day in a long sonorous musical cry—before sunrise, in the forenoon, at noon, at three o’clock, and at sunset, and could see his form silhouetted against the sky, making a number of prostrations when the call was finished. Our stay here was in the month Ramazan, the great fasting-time of the Mohammedans, when they eat and drink nothing all day, at least the strictly orthodox do not. They make up for it, however, at night; and feasting and jollity seemed to be the general employment. Our house adjoining the main street, it was extremely noisy until long after midnight. There is no doubt that the Arabs, and also the Indians, have been settled at Mojangà, as well as at other places on the north-west coast, for centuries. As we have seen in Chapter XII., there was an Arab colony at some remote period on the south-east coast, but this was gradually absorbed and lost in the native population and no longer maintains a separate existence. The north-western colony, however, being in constant communication with Suahili land and the Arab element there, has maintained its individuality, and kept its dress, customs, language, and religion quite distinct from the Malagasy around it.