The Government of Zanzibar is a royal magistracy, the only form of rule to which the primitive and undisciplinable Eastern Arab will submit. Whenever a new measure is brought forward by the Sayyid it is invariably opposed by the chiefs of clans, who assemble and address him more like an equal than a superior. One of the princes of Maskat corrected this turbulent feudality after the fashion of Mohammed Ali Pasha and his Mamlúk Beys; even now a few summary examples might be made to good purpose. In the days of the late Sayyid’s highest fortunes the most tattered of Súris would address him, ‘O Saíd!’ and proceed to sit unbidden in his presence. Similarly, Ibn Batutah, when describing the Sultan of Oman, Abu Mohammed bin Nebhan, tells us, ‘he has the habit of sitting, when he would give audience, in a place outside his palace; he has neither chamberlain nor wazir, and every man, stranger or subject, is free to approach him.’ Sometimes a noble, when ordered into arrest at Zanzibar, has collected his friends, armed his slaves, and fortified his house. One Salim bin Abdallah, who had a gang of 2000 musketeer negroes, used to wage a petty war with the Sayyid’s servile hosts. It is, perhaps, the result of climate that these disturbances have never developed into revolutions. The ‘ministers’ spoken of by strangers are the Nakhodás of the fleet: by virtue of a few French or English sentences, they are summoned when business is to be transacted with Europeans who are not linguists. The late Sayyid’s only secretary and chief interpreter was Ahmad bin Aman of Basrah (Bussorah), a half-cast Arab, popularly called by the lieges ‘Wajhayn’ or ‘two faces.’ According to some he was a Sabi or Sabæan, commonly known as a Christian of Saint John; and men declare that he began life as a cabin-boy and rose by his unusual astuteness. When any question of unusual gravity occurs the Sayyid summons the Ulema, the Shaykhs, and especially the two Kazis, Shaykh Muhiyy el Din, a Lamu doctor of the Sunni school, and Shaykh Mohammed, an Abázi. Causes tried by ecclesiastics generally depend upon the extent of bribery; but there is always an appeal to the Prince, or in his absence to the Governor. The Kazis punish by imprisonment more or less severe. The stocks are set up in every plantation; the fetters are heavy, and there is, if wanted, a ponderous iron ring with long spikes, significantly termed in Persian the ‘Tauk i Ta’at,’ collar of obedience. Instant justice is the order of the day, and the crooked stick (bákúr) plays a goodly and necessary part; how necessary we see in the present state of Syria, whence the ‘Tanzimat’ constitution has banished the only penalty that ruffians fear. From ten to fifty blows are usually inflicted: in the Gulf, when the bastinado is to be administered with the Niháyet el Azáb (extreme rigour), half-a-dozen men work upon the culprit’s back, belly, and sides, and a hundred strokes suffice to kill him. Severe examples are