The Malagash Quarter is at the far east of the city, leading to two tumble-down bridges which span a lagoon more deadly than that of British Accra. These ruins might easily be converted into dykes, and in process of time the mouth would be sanded or silted up; they are however, fated to make way for iron improvements. In my day the lagoon was connected by fresh water with the sea, and became now a muddy pool at the ebb tides of the Syzygies, then a sheet of festering mud which nearly encircled the settlement, and which converted the site of Zanzibar city into a quasi-island. Every evening a pestilent sepulchral miasma arose from it, covering the skin with a clammy sweat, and exhaling a fetor which caused candles to burn dim, and which changed the sound of the human voice. Lazy skippers anchoring here for facility of watering, thus exposing their men to the breath of the fetid lagoon, have lost in a few days half the crew; and although the water appeared to be of the purest, it became so offensive that often the casks had to be started. We then passed over a sandy flat, thinly powdered with black vegetable humus. To the left was a creek upon whose sandy beach vessels are hauled up, and where ships of 300 to 400 tons can be safely careened: in a few years there will here be a dock. A mile of neat footpath placed us at the late Sayyid’s Summer Palace, Mto-ni, which is distant about three direct miles from the Consulate. After escaping the unpleasant attentions bestowed upon us by the tame ostriches, who are apt to use beak and wing, we dismounted for inspection. The building is of coral rag, pierced with square windows, and the wings are united by a verandah-terrace, supported by wooden pillars, and facing Meccah, for convenience of prayer. A few feet above the centre is the peaked roof of the Kiosk, which makes the place remarkable to crews entering the harbour. In front floats from sunrise to sunset the red flag of the Sayyid: the rear is brought up by a small cemetery, sundry offices, and lowly cajan-thatched hovels tenanted by slaves. The work of man is mean enough, but it is surrounded by the noblest handiwork of Nature, cocoas and mangoes, whilst the borders of the little stream could be beautifully laid out.