Zanzibar; city, island, and coast. Vol. 2 (of 2)Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
Zanzibar; city, island, and coast. Vol. 2 (of 2)
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Africa, East -- Description and travel; Ethnology -- Tanzania -- Zanzibar; Zanzibar -- Description and travel
Kokoto-ni ‘(at or in) the pebbles,’ is an anchorage 18.30 direct
geographical miles from, and north with 3 miles east of, Zanzibar City.
Formed by a bight with a streamlet, and the Island of Tumbatu, with its
little outliers, Manawamána and Popo (in Owen Moina and Benoth), this
roadstead is rendered dangerous during the Azyab, or N. East monsoon, by
a heavy rolling sea and a coral-bound lee-shore. The coast has the usual
edging of sand, clear as crystal, and of bright green mangrove, whilst
an inner belt of darker jungle defends a country, here, as everywhere
around, prodigiously fertile, green, and monotonous. The interior is a
mass of cultivation, manioc and sweet potato (Jezar) from Madagascar,
superb mangoes and cocoas waving in the clear sea-breeze, and limes and
oranges, the latter disposed, as by the Paraguayans, in long rows,
which, at a distance, imitate the tea-field. Clove plantations adorn the
uplands, and the giant Calabash (Adansonia digitata) stretches its
stumpy, crooked arms over the clustering huts. The tree is at once
majestic and grotesque; the tall conical column of spongy and porous
wood, covered with a soft, glossy rind, which supplies half Africa with
bast, will have a girth of forty to fifty feet, far exceeding the cedars
of Lebanon, whilst the general aspect is that of a giant asparagus. Like
the arbutus, some trees will be bare, others in leaf, and others in
flower, all at the same season. When thickly clothed with foliage
growing almost stalkless from the wood; topped with snowy blossoms, like
the fairest and lightest of water-lilies, and hung about with four or
five hundred gourds; ovals somewhat larger than a cocoa-nut, dressed in
green velvet with the nap on, and attached by a long thin cord, like
tassels which wave with every breath of the zephyr, its appearance is
striking as it is novel. Nothing, in fact, after the negro can be more
typically and distinctly African.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account