The Mti wa Muytu (wild wood), or white mangrove, is found growing not in brackish water, and upon the mud, like the red variety, but chiefly upon the higher sandy levels. The wood is small, it shrinks when dried, it splits easily, and snaps; it is worm-eaten at once, and its porous nature causes it easily to absorb water. In Zanzibar it is used for fuel in lime-burning, and it makes a hot and lasting fire; the people also turn it into caulking mallets, which do not crack or spread out. The usual price (1857) is half a German crown per Korjah. Vegetables are little prized at Zanzibar: the list is rather of what might be than of what exists. A local difficulty is the half-starved slave who plunders every garden; nothing less than a guard of Baloch would preserve edible property from his necessities and from his truly African wantonness of destruction. Almost all European vegetables will grow in the Island; they require, however, shade, and they should be planted, as at Bourbon and the Mauritius, between rows of cool bananas. The best soil is the dark vegetable mould near the streams. Here lettuces, beet-root, carrots, potatoes, and yams would flourish—cabbages and cauliflowers have never, I believe, been tried. The ‘Jezár,’ an excellent sweet potato from Comoro and Madagascar, has been neglected almost to extinction. Thirty barrels of many sorted beans were sent from the Cape and grew well: they are good and abundant in the African interior, but the Island has allowed them to die out. The ‘egg-plant’ is remarkably fine, and the wild species thrives everywhere on the sea-board between Somali land and Zanzibar. The Continent sends sundry kinds of pumpkins and gourds. Cucumbers of many varieties grow almost without sowing,—the people declare that they become bitter if touched by the hand whilst being peeled. The Arabs make from the seed an oil of most delicate flavour, far superior for salads than the best Lucchese olive. In London I have vainly asked for ‘cucumber-oil:’ the vegetable is probably too expensive, and the seeds are too small to be thus used at home. About Lagos on the Slave Coast, however, there is a cucumber nearly a foot long, with large pips, which might be sent northwards, and I commend the experiment to the civilized lover of oil. All kinds of ‘Chilis,’ from the small wild ‘bird-pepper’ to the large variety of which the Spaniards are so fond, thrive in Zanzibar, which appears to be their home. There are extensive plantations of betel-pepper on the Eastern coast of the Island.