Of course we had no adventures. We saw neither pirate nor slaver. The tract seemed desert of human life; in fact, nothing met our eyes but flying-fish at sea, gulls and gannets near shore. The stiff N. East trade never quite failed us, even when crossing the Line, and the Doldrums hardly visited us with a tornado or two—mere off-shore squalls. The good old heart of teak, then aged 33 years, made an average of 150, and an exceptional run of 200 knots, in 24 hours. This was indeed ‘gay sailing on the bosom of the Indian Sea.’ After 16 days (Dec. 18), before the solar lamp had been removed, our landfall, a long, low strip at first sky-blue and distance-blurred, had turned purple, and had robed itself in green and gold, with a pomp and a glory of vegetation then new to us. This was Pemba, one of the three continental islands composing the Zanzibarian archipelago: the Arabs call it Jazirat el Khazrá (Green Island), and no wonder! Verdant and fresh enough must this huge conservatory, this little and even richer Zanzibar, appear to their half-closed ‘peepers,’ dazed and seared by the steely skies and brazen grounds of Mángá[8] (Arabia generally) and Maskat (Muscat), and by the dreadful glare and ‘damnable blue’ of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. We are soon to visit this emerald isle, therefore no more of it at present. All had hoped to run in that night, but Fate or our evil deeds in the last life otherwise determined. The wind fell with the sun, and during the five minutes of crepuscule we anchored in the sandy bay-strand under Tumbatu Island, S.W. of Point Nunguwi (Owen’s Nangowy), the north cape of its big insular brother, Zanzibar. Like the items of this archipelago generally, it is a long cairn-shaped reef of coralline, with its greater length disposed N.S. This well-known norm of great peninsulas has been explained by a sudden change in the earth’s centre of gravity, which caused the waters to rush furiously from the northern hemisphere towards the south pole. As usual, the burning suns, the tepid winds, the sopping dews, and the copious rains clothe the thin soil with an impervious coat of verdure, overhanging the salt-waters, and boasting a cultivation that would make spring in green Erin look by its side autumn—rusty and yellow-brown.