During the ’Id Saghir or Kuchuk Bayram, here called Siku-khu za Ídí, ‘One Cocoa-nut Tree’ is a lively place. Whilst the boys sing and dance about the streets, and the garrison blacks, armed with sabres, engage near the fort in a Zumo or Pyrrhic, wildly waving their tremulous blades, and the Wahiao or Bozals from about Kilwa execute their saltations near the bridge, and the other slaves carouse and junket in their own quarter of the town, each clan from the mainland keeping itself distinct, the grandees, fingering their rosaries and supported by long staves, proceed to Mnazi Moyya, where gallops, called races, form the attraction. About half-a-dozen garrons, rushing wildly about, represent the performers, and the performance is nothing new to the Anglo-Indian. The groups are motley if not picturesque. Here and there, surrounded by rings of sable admirers, are women boisterously singing and clapping hands, dancing and acting lionnes with all their might. Tremendous are the Vijelejele, the Kil, Zaghárit, or trilling of the spectatresses. Men also stamp and wriggle in a rude ‘improper’ style to the succedaneum for a drum, a hollow wooden cylinder one foot in diameter, with the open end applied to the breast, and the dried and stretched snake-skin patted upon with finger and palm. Most of these people, regardless of fever or cholera, are primed with fermented cocoa juice. The heavily-clad Shaykhs, bestriding their asses, are preceded by outrunners, who mercilessly push aside and ‘bakur’ the crowd; and the latter turn viciously as bull-terriers. There is not much striking, but jostling and thrusting away are the rules. At Lamu and the wilder places swords and daggers are often bared on these occasions, and the Shaykhs have no little trouble to preserve the peace. Contrasting with the full- dressed crowd are the naked children, who seem all afflicted with umbilical hernia. This is the result of careless cutting, but the unsightly protuberance will wear away in after life, and a pot-belly is here, as elsewhere in Africa, looked upon as a good sign. The negro faces and bodies are marked with the tattoo in almost every possible fashion; some wear straight black lines, others curved; these have perpendicular, those horizontal marks, and not a few wear painted squares with central spots, like the wafers upon the garment of the old country clown. At length the princes make their appearance, and are received with a file-firing of guns and pistols, whilst shouts and drums disturb the air; the races are formally run, and the crowd disperses through the unclean streets of the city. There is still some exploration to be done on the west or landward front of Zanzibar Island. Colonel Hamerton, however, strongly advises us not to risk fever, and to reserve every atom of strength and energy for the Continent. ----- Footnote 95: Tchakazi, espèce de gomme-résine, dont j’ignore l’origine (M. Guillain, Part II. p. 87). Footnote 96: