You are advised to go to bed in the dark, as a light would attract the mosquitoes, and never, never, under any circumstances, to get into bed until you have assured yourself that there are no mosquitoes inside the curtains, though the proprietor cheerfully adds: “But you can only get fever from the black-and-white-striped ones.” Likewise, you are solemnly warned never to go out of doors during the day without a topée lest you die from sunstroke (I knew one man who took off his helmet long enough to wave good-bye to a departing friend and was dead in an hour in consequence); never to drink other than bottled water (at two rupees the bottle) lest you die from typhoid; never to stay out of doors after nightfall lest you contract malaria; never to put on your boots without first shaking them out lest a snake or scorpion have chosen them to spend the night in; never to return late at night from the club without getting a policeman to escort you, lest a native thug run a knife between your shoulder-blades; and never to put your revolver under your pillow, where it cannot be reached without attracting attention, but to keep it beside you in the bed, so that you can shoot through the bedclothes without warning if you should wake up to find an intruder in your room. The best and most interesting thing about the Afrika Hotel is its bath, a forbidding, stone-floored room, totally devoid of furniture or tub. It is separated from the sleeping-room by the hotel parlour, so that lady callers unaccustomed to Zanzibar ways are sometimes a trifle startled to see a gentleman whose only garment is a bath-towel pass through the parlour with a hop-skip-and-jump on his way to the bath. You clap your hands, which is the East Coast equivalent for pressing a button, and in prompt response appears an ebony-skinned domestic bearing on his head a Standard Oil can filled with water. Running through a staple in the ceiling is a rope, and to the end of this rope he attaches the can, hoisting it until it swings a dozen feet above your head. Hanging from a hole in the side of the can is a cord. When you are ready for your bath you stand underneath the can, jerk the cord sharply, and the can empties itself over you like a cloudburst. Then you clap your hands and wait until the Swahili brings more water, when you do it all over again.