How I Found Livingstone | Page 7

from this port is estimated at $3,000,000, and
the imports from all countries at $3,500,000.
The Europeans and Americans residing in the town of Zanzibar are
either Government officials, independent merchants, or agents for a few
great mercantile houses in Europe and America.
The climate of Zanzibar is not the most agreeable in the world. I have
heard Americans and Europeans condemn it most heartily. I have also
seen nearly one-half of the white colony laid up in one day from
sickness. A noxious malaria is exhaled from the shallow inlet of
Malagash, and the undrained filth, the garbage, offal, dead mollusks,
dead pariah dogs, dead cats, all species of carrion, remains of men and
beasts unburied, assist to make Zanzibar a most unhealthy city; and
considering that it it ought to be most healthy, nature having pointed
out to man the means, and having assisted him so far, it is most
wonderful that the ruling prince does not obey the dictates of reason.
The bay of Zanzibar is in the form of a crescent, and on the
south-western horn of it is built the city. On the east Zanzibar is
bounded almost entirely by the Malagash Lagoon, an inlet of the sea. It
penetrates to at least two hundred and fifty yards of the sea behind or
south of Shangani Point. Were these two hundred and fifty yards cut
through by a ten foot ditch, and the inlet deepened slightly, Zanzibar
would become an island of itself, and what wonders would it not effect

as to health and salubrity! I have never heard this suggestion made, but
it struck me that the foreign consuls resident at Zanzibar might suggest
this work to the Sultan, and so get the credit of having made it as
healthy a place to live in as any near the equator. But apropos of this, I
remember what Capt. Webb, the American Consul, told me on my first
arrival, when I expressed to him my wonder at the apathy and inertness
of men born with the indomitable energy which characterises
Europeans and Americans, of men imbued with the progressive and
stirring instincts of the white people, who yet allow themselves to
dwindle into pallid phantoms of their kind, into hypochondriacal
invalids, into hopeless believers in the deadliness of the climate, with
hardly a trace of that daring and invincible spirit which rules the world.
"Oh," said Capt. Webb, "it is all very well for you to talk about energy
and all that kind of thing, but I assure you that a residence of four or
five years on this island, among such people as are here, would make
you feel that it was a hopeless task to resist the influence of the
example by which the most energetic spirits are subdued, and to which
they must submit in time, sooner or later. We were all terribly energetic
when we first came here, and struggled bravely to make things go on as
we were accustomed to have them at home, but we have found that we
were knocking our heads against granite walls to no purpose whatever.
These fellows-- the Arabs, the Banyans, and the Hindis--you can't make
them go faster by ever so much scolding and praying, and in a very
short time you see the folly of fighting against the unconquerable. Be
patient, and don't fret, that is my advice, or you won't live long here."
There were three or four intensely busy men, though, at Zanzibar, who
were out at all hours of the day. I know one, an American; I fancy I
hear the quick pit-pat of his feet on the pavement beneath the Consulate,
his cheery voice ringing the salutation, "Yambo!" to every one he met;
and he had lived at Zanzibar twelve years.
I know another, one of the sturdiest of Scotchmen, a most
pleasant-mannered and unaffected man, sincere in whatever he did or
said, who has lived at Zanzibar several years, subject to the
infructuosities of the business he has been engaged in, as well as to the
calor and ennui of the climate, who yet presents as formidable a front
as ever to the apathetic native of Zanzibar. No man can charge Capt. H.
C. Fraser, formerly of the Indian Navy, with being apathetic.

I might with ease give evidence of the industry of others, but they are
all my friends, and they are all good. The American, English, German,
and French residents have ever treated me with a courtesy and kindness
I am not disposed to forget. Taken as a body, it would be hard to find a
more generous or hospitable colony of white men in any part of the
world.

CHAPTER III
. ORGANIZATION OF THE EXPEDITION.
I was totally ignorant of the interior, and it