The Arab noble is still, like those of Meccah in Mohammed’s day, a merchant, and here wealth has done much to degenerate the breed, climate more, and slavery most. The ‘Californian fever’—indolence—becomes endemic in the second generation, rendering the race hopeless, whilst industry is supplied by the gross, transparent cunning of the Wasawahili and of the African generally. Honesty is all but unknown; several European merchants will not have an Arab’s name in their hooks. A Nakhodá (Captain, Maskat R.N.) in the Prince’s service, commissioned to bring a watch or other valuables from Bombay, will delay to deliver it until threatened with the bakur, and the terrors of being blown from a gun do not defend the ruler from the most shallow and impudent frauds. Like their kinsmen of Oman, they despise truth, without versatility enough to employ it when required, and few rise to the height of Bacon’s model, ‘who hath openness in fame and opinion, secrecy in habit, dissimulation in reasonable use, and a power to feign, if there he no remedy.’ Haughty in the highest degree, and boasting descent from the kings of Yemen, they hold themselves to be the salt of the earth. Man’s nature everywhere objects to restraint, these people cannot endure it: nothing afflicts them so much as the necessity of regular occupation, as the recurrence of ‘duty,’ as the weight of any subject upon the mind. Constant only in procrastination, as they are hebetous in body so they are mentally torpid and apparently incapable of active exertion, especially of immediate action. Like their congeners of Maskat and Sur, they have distinguished themselves on all occasions when opposed to any but Arabs, by excessive poltroonery. They seldom mix with strangers, for whom they have generally an aversion, and they will refuse a dollar to a wretch who has changed his faith to save his life. They are never worse than in youth, when excessive polygamy and debauchery have enslaved them: as with the Arabs of the Peninsula, a people of violent and unruly passions, and seldom ripe for use till their beards are grey, these Zanzabaris improve by age, and body and mind seem to grow better, to a certain point, as they grow old. To this sweeping evil account there are of course exceptions. I have rarely met with a more honest, trustworthy man than Saíd bin Salim, the half-caste Arab, who was sent with us as Ra’as Kafilah, or guide. Such hitherto has been his character; but man varies in these regions: he may grievously disappoint me in the end.[98]