The universal medium of communication in Zanzibar and along the East Coast is Swahili, this _lingua franca_ being generally used not only between Arabs and natives, and between natives and Europeans, but between Europeans themselves, the English, French, and Portuguese traders who do business in German East Africa depending entirely upon this mutually understood tongue for conversing with the Germans. I remember once, in Dar-es-Salam, listening to an Englishman who knew no French and a Frenchman who knew no English hold an animated political argument, and later on bargain with the German hotel-keeper for accommodations in the same outlandish tongue. I have always found that the farther people dwell from civilisation, the more punctilious they are about observing its usages. That is why English officials at remote and lonely stations in India invariably put on evening clothes before they sit down to their solitary dinners, and why the question of precedence is not taken nearly as seriously in London or Paris or New York as it is in Entebbe or Sierra Leone. One would quite naturally suppose that the Europeans dwelling in those sun-scorched, fever-ridden, God-forsaken countries along the East Coast would adopt the careless attitude of Kipling's homesick soldier, who longed for a land “where there ain't no Ten Commandments and a man can raise a thirst”; but, strangely enough, the exact opposite is the case. There is plenty of drinking throughout Africa, it is true, for the white men dwelling there will assure you that to exist in such a climate a man must “keep his liver afloat,” but, though heavy drinking is the rule, the man who so far loses control of himself as to step beyond the bounds of decency is ostracised with a promptness and completeness unheard of in more civilised places. This respect for the social conventions was graphically illustrated by an unpleasant little episode which occurred during my stay in Zanzibar. A young Englishman, who had been rubber-prospecting in the wilds of the back country for nearly a year, celebrated his return to civilisation, or what stands out there for civilisation, by giving a stag dinner at the club. It was rather a hilarious affair, as such things go, and when it broke up at dawn every one had had quite as much to drink as was good for him, while the youthful host had had entirely too much. In fact, he insisted on winding up the jollification by smashing all the crockery and glassware in sight, and, when the native steward remonstrated, he tripped him up very neatly and sat on him. Some hours later, being sober and very much ashamed of himself, he sent a check for the damage he had done, together with a manly letter of apology, to the board of governors, which promptly responded by demanding his resignation. Now, to drop a man from a club in East Africa is equivalent to marooning him on a desert island, for out there the club is invariably the