The Arabs were kept on deck to witness the burning of their vessel. For a few minutes the fire raged furiously, the flames rising in one huge pyramid, till on a sudden they disappeared as she sunk beneath the surface, to which so many of her hapless passengers had lately been consigned. "It would have served the villains right if they'd been left on board," observed Needham; "and I say, Hamed, just tell them so, and it is to be hoped they will get their due before long." Meantime, the _Opal_, with her prizes, sighted the southern end of Zanzibar. As she ran along the western shore, the flat-roofed buildings, like palaces with numerous windows, gave the place an appearance of considerable opulence and magnificence. On either side of the city stretched away a low coast-line of glittering sand, above which could be seen cocoanut palms, raising their lofty heads at intervals, while the country, gradually rising towards the centre, appeared covered with bright green plantations of cloves, pineapples, and sweetly blossoming mangoes, the perfume of which Mildmay declared he could inhale even from that distance. "Wait till you visit the town, and then you may talk of inhaling perfumes, though they're not of the sweetest," observed Jos Green. "If the wind comes off-shore we may get a sniff of spicy odours, but I never found them quite strong enough to swear to, whatever the poets may say on the subject." "Your olfactory powers are too coarse to enjoy them, that's the fact," observed Mildmay. Here and there valleys opened up covered with orange-groves, sugar-cane, cassava, and other valuable productions of the soil. The harbour was full of dhows of all sizes, some at anchor full of slaves bound northward, but which, having licences from the Sultan, the English cruisers could not touch; others close to the wharves, landing or trans-shipping ivory, brought across from the African coast, gum, copal, spices, cocoanuts, rice, mats, and other produce of the island, besides several German, American, French, and other foreign vessels. Here also lay the Sultan's fleet, with blood-red ensigns floating from their mastheads, the ships being remarkable, if for nothing else, for their weather-beaten, sunburned appearance. "They put me in mind of scarecrows in a garden, which the birds have learned to look at with contempt; and so, I doubt not, do the Arab slavers or piratical gentry who cruise in these seas laugh at these useless ships," observed Green. In the afternoon, Murray, accompanied by his second lieutenant and the two midshipmen, went on shore. "We shall be after smelling the spicy odours in full vigour," observed Desmond to Mr Mildmay, he having overheard the conversation of the morning. They had not, however, set foot on the shore many seconds, and commenced their walk through the narrow streets, before the lieutenant had his handkerchief to his nose. "Horrible! detestable!" he muttered; "never was in so vile a place in my life."