The Island, which does a little cultivation, belongs to Zanzibar, and the only settlement, about the centre of its length, is on the northern shore, fronting Wanga Bandar on the Continent. Wasin contains three Mosques, long flat-roofed rooms of coral rag and lime ranged obliquely to face Meccah, and scattered amongst little huts and large houses of ‘bordi’ or mangrove timber: the latter are tied with coir rope and plastered over with clay, which in rare cases is whitewashed. The sloping thatch-roof already approaches in size and in sharpness of pitch the disproportions of the Madagascar cottage. Huge calabashes extend their fleshy arms over the hovels, affording the favourite luxury of a cool lounge, and giving from afar a something of pleasant village aspect to the squalid settlement. Water must be brought from the mainland; the people own it to be brackish, but declare that it is not unwholesome. The climate is infamous for breeding fever and helcoma, the air being poisoned by cowries festering under a tropical sun, and by two large graveyards—here also, as at Zanzibar, the abodes of the dead are built amongst the habitations of the living. The population is a bigoted and low-minded race, Hassádin (envious fellows) of evil eye, say the Zanzibarians; a mixture of lymphatic Arabs, hideous Wasawahili, ignoble half-castes, and thievish slaves. The Sayyid maintains no garrison here; the Banyans have been forbidden to deal in cowries, and the native merchants have all the profits such as they are. I could hear nothing of Mr Cooley’s ‘tribe named Masimba, on the coast at Wassína (Wasin Island), near Mombasa,’ a term which he translates ‘lions,’ and identifies with the Zimba invaders of Do Couto. There is, however, a district of that name between Wasin and Gasi; and it may be connected with the range crossed by M. Rebmann, in 1847, and usually written Shimba. In the interior the word Masimba is used when addressing man or woman, and the root appears to be identical with that of the Vazimba or aborigines of Ankova. The people of Wasin send caravans of 100 men to the interior, viâ Wanga Bandar. They set out about the end of February, make some 20 marches, and return with ivory and slaves after about four months.