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
The Moslem Wasawahili adapts the modified Arabic form, ‘Shaytani.’
Footnote 20:
I say East African because the western regions, especially Fanti-land
and Dahome, believe in a Hades, or world of shades, which is
apparently derived from Egypt. Of this I have spoken in my Mission to
Dahome. Vitruvius exactly explains what my meaning is in the
celebrated passage, Virgo civis Corinthia, jam matrem nuptiis,
implicito morbo decessit; post sepulturam ejus quibus ea viva poculis
delectabatur, nutrix collecta et composita in calatho pertulit ad
monumentum, et in summo collocavit.
CHAPTER V.
FROM MOMBASAH TO THE PANGANI RIVER.
The sweeping sword of Time
Has sung its death-dirge o’er the ruined fanes.
QUEEN MAB.
Not a head of game, not a hippopotamus, was to be found near Mombasah.
We finished our geographical inquiries; shook hands with divers
acquaintances; re-shipped, after sundry little difficulties, on board
the Riami; and on the 24th of January we left the turbulent island with
gladdened hearts. The accidents of voyage now turned in our favour:
there was a bright fresh breeze and a counter-current running southward
thirty or thirty-five miles a day. After 6 hours of drowsy morning
sailing, Ra’as Tewi, a picturesque headland, hove in sight, and two
hours more brought the Riami to anchor at Sandy Point, in Gasi (جاسى)
Bay. It lies half-way \[Arabic] between Mombasah and Wasin Island, and
the position is correctly laid down in the ‘Mission Map.’[21] It is a
mere roadstead, without other protection against the long sweep and
swell of the Indian Ocean than a few scattered ‘washes,’ and a coralline
islet. The settlement lies at some distance from the shore, deep-bosomed
in trees, behind a tall screen of verdant mangrove; only the nodding
cocoa, sure indicator of man’s presence in East Africa, towering high
over the plebeian underwood, betrays its position to the mariner. The
large village of wattle and dab huts is inhabited, like Mtuapa and
Takaungu, by remnants of the proud Mazrui irreconcileables, still
self-exiled from Mombasah. They live under the Shaykh Abdullah bin
Khamis, and a sister of Shaykh Mubarak of Mombasah, who is said to
display peculiar energy. They have given refuge to fugitive slaves from
Marka, and behind the coast-line they have founded a new settlement,
Mwasagnombe. It is not improbable that, in common with their brethren
established in other villages, they look forward to recovering Mombasah,
their old appanage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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