its horticultural development, its projected sanitary reform, and possibly also the scarcely less precious introductions of lawntennis and afternoon tea. [Illustration: Fig. 4. Small Mtépé and Outrigger Canoe. ] The British Agency and Consulate-General in the town of Zanzibar is a handsome Arab house standing towards the southern end of the city, and just overhanging the sea, which at high tide lashes its protecting wall. The style of exterior and interior is purely Arab, or, to use a more accepted term in architecture, Saracenic. Entering from the narrow streets an iron gateway, you come into the grateful shade of a small garden, planted with spreading mimosas, cocoanut palms, and mangoes, and through the interstices of the foliage you look up at the high grey-white walls of the house, which are scarcely relieved in their monotony by the small and shuttered windows. The doorway is regularly Eastern, quite a “Sublime Porte” in miniature. Broad, shallow steps lead up to it, forming an admirably-arranged _mise-en-scène_ for the grouping of white-clothed “Sikari” (consular guards) and Indian suppliants in gaudy costumes. The frame of the door, which is itself garnished with immense copper nails, is delicately and intricately carved in black wood, with arabesque designs and letter scrolls. Entering here, you come upon a small recess, with ogival niches round the walls—a sort of anteroom—and from this a winding staircase ascends to the first-floor, when you find yourself in the interior gallery surrounding the four sides of the _patio_, or hollow square, which is the ground-plan of most Saracenic buildings. From the centre of the _patio_ rises a graceful areca-palm, which contrasts pleasingly with the formal arches of the gallery. The house ascends to several storeys, and is surmounted by flat terraces of varying height; but round the _patio_, on the first-floor, the principal dwelling-rooms are ranged. These are all Arab in character—narrow, high-pitched, lighted with little windows with deep embrasures. The walls are dead white, cut into by false arches of slightly horse-shoe shape, forming alternate recesses wherein shelves of pottery, bookcases, or cabinets may be placed. Within the arches, too, are further niches, cut deeper into the wall, with a carved stone tracery at the back to let in air. These give an effect of lightness to the somewhat massive walls, and the little points of light gleaming through the windows of cut stone act as a _point de mire_ in each recess. There are no pictures on the walls; nothing but coruscations of Oriental pottery, all of it got from Zanzibar and the neighbouring coast. The amount of beautiful Persian, Moorish, and even Chinese pottery and porcelain to be found in Zanzibar is really surprising. Much of it is hoarded up by old Arab families, who have kept it for generations in their households, and it only sees the light in occasional bankruptcies and auction sales. On many parts of this Zangian