Hearing that strangers are admitted to the Fort—Mrs Rebmann has often visited it—I proceeded to the head-quarters of the Jemadar. Arrived at the land gate leading to the inner Barzeh or vestibule, my attention was directed to the Portuguese inscription before alluded to. It is half defaced by the Arabs, but this is of the less consequence as copies have been published by Captains Owen and Guillain.[10] At the angles of the western and southern bastions are also scutcheons in stone bearing the names Baluarte São Felippe and Baluarte Alberto. That to the north was called Baluarte São Matthias (from Matthias de Albuquerque), but here, as on the south side, the inscriptions have disappeared, probably by the fire of the enemy. A sentinel at the gate waved his hand and cried, Sir! Sir! (go! go!); but I persisted in sending for the Jemadar Tangai, who took my hand and led me towards a shed of leafy branches, some 15 paces outside the Fort. Here, he assured me, the Sayyid himself used to faire anti-chambre; but I could see only hucksters and negroes. We parted in high dudgeon, nor did we ever become friendly. Saíd bin Salim, who during this scene had remained below and afar off, showed us the chief mosque—there were eight when Lieut. Emery visited the town[11]—and a formless mass of masonry, which marks the last resting-place of some almost forgotten heroes.[12] The climate of the Island is hotter, healthier, and drier than that of Zanzibar. The rains begin with storms in early April, or before the setting in of the S. West monsoon. They are violent in May, and from that time they gradually decrease. Between December and March there are a few showers, for which the cultivator longs; and, as may be imagined in an island ever subject to the sea-breeze, the dews are exceptionally heavy. The people suffer little from dysentery and fever: Europeans, however, complain that they are never free from the latter. The endemic complaint is a sphagadenic ulcer upon the legs and parts most distant from the seat of circulation. Here, as in Abyssinia, in Yemen, in the Hejaz, and at Jerusalem, the least scratch becomes an ugly wound, which will, if neglected, destroy life. The cause may be found in the cachectic and scorbutic habit induced by the want of vegetables and by brackish water; the pure element is, indeed, to be found in the old wells beyond the town and on the mainland; but the people save trouble by preferring the nearer pits, where water percolates through briny coralline. The town has suffered severely from epidemics, small-pox, and what strangers call the plague. The citizens still remember the excessive mortality of 1818, 1832, and 1835. At Mombasah I heard nothing about the curious influence which the climate is said to exercise upon cats, causing a sandy-coloured fur to be exchanged for ‘a coat of beautiful short white hair’; and producing, according to others, complete baldness, like the Remedio dogs of the Brazil and the Argentine Republic.