My own position on the ship was somewhat unusual. I was still cabin boy, but I was one of Mr. Brown’s crew too, and had been for some months. I had grown nearly a foot in the past year, was a great, overgrown sixteen-year-old boy, with more muscle than I knew how to manage. I must have been a raw, red, awkward chap, but fortunately for me I did not know it. In virtue of my place in the boat I had acknowledged right in the forecastle, and I availed myself of it as often as I could. I loved to be there, sitting on the deck, perhaps, under the flaring tin lamp, or on a sea-chest which stood in a dark corner, and listening to the talk of the men. That talk, I suppose, was not edifying, but I did not join in it, and I heard there many yarns of whales and whaling, to which {227} I listened with open ears and open mouth—and open nose. The smells of that forecastle! I found out where we were probably bound by the simple expedient of looking on the chart. I had been rather neglecting my privileges in that respect. The course which was being pricked there led straight to Zanzibar or very near it, although there was no certainty that the course might not be changed. There was no other port of any consequence but Zanzibar. There was elation among most of the old sailors when I told them of it, but Peter shook his head doubtfully. “Zanzibar,” he said thoughtfully. “I know it well enough. It ’s full of wickedness, and that of no white man’s sort. Sodom and Gomorrah were nothing to it.” Three days later we dropped our anchor in the harbor of Zanzibar. {228} CHAPTER XXIV I stood at the rail, gazing at the harbor and the town. My eyes were half closed, my chin rested on my hands, which clasped the rail, and I was lost in a dream of the East. Small boats plied the near waters, the boatmen crying out shrilly now and then, but my ears were deaf to their cries. The spacious harbor lay before me, with many vessels of all kinds and nationalities lying at anchor, from large steamers flying the British flag to Arab dhows. Life was there. I did not see the filth washing to and fro along the shore, I saw only the boats lying thickly there enveloped in golden light, their sails of all colors swinging lazily. I did not see the narrow, dirty streets, swarming with the life of all Asia and Africa; I saw only the mass of light and shadow, the white walls of houses showing pink in the light of the setting sun, the mosques, the forts, the palace of the Sultan; and, to the left of it as I stood, what appeared to be a ship, standing out clearly. Peter’s voice broke in upon my dream. He had come up silently, and was at my shoulder. “It ’s a pretty town, lad,” he said, “from this distance. It looks nice—but it ain’t.” I said nothing for a little while. “What do they do here, Peter?” I asked then. “Do? In Zanzibar? Most everything that they do in such a port. They ’ll stick you in the back if you don’t keep your eyes open. But they run to cloves, mostly.” “Cloves!”