The Mbono or Palma Christi springs up spontaneously, as in most tropical regions, throughout Zanzibar Island and on the coast. The Hindus say of a man with more vanity than merit, ‘The castor shrub grows where other plants can’t.’ The seed is toasted in iron pots, pounded, and boiled to float the oil. After aloes it is the popular cathartic, and it is rubbed upon the skin to soften the muscles, with an effect which I leave to the nasal imagination. Cinnamon and nutmeg trees were planted by the late Sayyid, and flourished well on some soils. The latter takes nine years, it is said, before bearing fruit, and gives trouble—two fatal objections in Arabs’ eyes. The spice is now imported from India. When at Kazah of Unyamwezi I saw specimens brought, it is said, from the Highlands of Karagwah, but the plentiful supply from the farther East would prevent this trade being here developed. The cacao shrub (chocolate), which thrives so well at Prince’s Island and Fernando Po in the Biafran Bight, has never, I believe, been tried in Zanzibar. The Mpira, or caoutchouc tree, flourishes in the Island, and on the adjacent Continent. The people of Eastern Madagascar tap it in the cold season, and have sent large cargoes to America. Mr Macmillan, U. S. Consul, Zanzibar, offered $1000 for good specimens, but the Wasawahili would not take the trouble to make a few incisions. I heard of two varieties, a ficus and a lliana; there are probably many more: about the Gaboon river the valuable gum is the produce of a vine or climber, with an edible fruit, and the people have learned to extract a coarse article, and to adulterate it till it is hardly tradeable. Here they use the thinner branches, well oiled for suppleness, as ‘bakurs’—the policeman’s truncheon, the cat-o’-nine-tails, the ‘Chob,’ and the ‘Palmatorio’ of E. Africa. I may here remark that our gourd-shaped articles resist the climate of Zanzibar, whilst the squares and the vulcanized preparations become sticky and useless. The London-made blankets of smooth and glazed caoutchouc are so valuable that no traveller should be without them: those that are not polished, however, cannot be called waterproof; becoming wet inside, they are unpleasantly cold. For exposure to the sun white impermeables must be preferred to black, and a first-rate article is required; our cheap boots and cloaks soon opened, and when exposed to great heat they were converted into a viscid mass.