Memoirs of an Arabian Princess | Page 3

CHAPTER XVI.
SLAVERY. A Ruinous Release of Slaves - Idleness of the Negro - A
Defence of Flogging - Slaves and Concubines Kept by Europeans in
the East - To Abolish a Time-Honoured Custom, Go Slow - Moslem
"Fanaticism."

CHAPTER XVII.
HISTORY OF A DYNASTIC PLOT. The Authoress Loses her Mother
- Family Dissensions - Princess Salamah's Equivocal Position - She
Casts in her Lot with Bargash - Who Aspires to the Crown and Forms a
Conspiracy to Dethrone Majid - Bargash's House Surrounded - His
Abduction in Woman's Garb - Defeat of his Partisans - His Return -
And Rejection of Majid's Peaceful Overtures - The Pretender's House
Fired On by British Marines - Submission and Banishment of Bargash.

CHAPTER XVIII.
TERM OF RURAL RESIDENCE. Complicated Relations with an
Invisible Steward - Life on the Plantation of Kisimbani - And of
Bububu - Sale of Bububu - In Town Again - Reconciliation with Majid
- Quarrel with Chole - Oriental Hatred of Dissemblance - Great Fidelity
in Friendship.

CHAPTER XIX.
ELOPEMENT FROM ZANZIBAR. Acquaintance with Herr Ruete -
The Escape - Marriage at Aden - Brief Happiness in Hamburg -
Subsequent German Days.

CHAPTER XX.
ENGLISH DIPLOMACY. Journey to London - Interview with Sir
Bartle Frere - The Choice Offered - Avoidance of Meeting Bargash -
Return to Germany - Disappointment - Duplicity of the British
Government - Its Motive.

CHAPTER XXI.
VISIT TO THE OLD HOME. Embarkation - Alexandria - Egyptian
Dislike of the English - Travel in the Suez Canal - The Red Hot Sea -
Arrival - Welcome by the Populace - Causing Displeasure to Seyyid
Bargash - His Official Factotum an Ex-Lampcleaner - Dilapidation and
Decay - Bargash's Frightful Cruelty - The Authoress's Claims Unsettled
- British Influence Over the Sultan - Conclusion.
Memoirs of an Arabian Princess

CHAPTER I
FAMILY HISTORY
THE PALACE OF BET IL MTONI - THE BATHHOUSES -
EQUESTRIAN AND OTHER AMUSEMENTS - PRINCESS
SALAMAH'S FATHER - PURCHASE OF HER MOTHER - SEYYID
SAìD'S PRINCIPAL AND SECONDARY WIVES - HIS CHILDREN

- THE BENJILE - A QUESTION OF DISCIPLINE - BROTHER
MAJID REACHES HIS MAJORITY - THE AUTHORESS'S FIRST
CHANGE OF RESIDENCE
IT WAS at Bet il Mtoni, our oldest palace in the island of Zanzibar,
that I first saw the light of day, and I remained there until I reached my
seventh year. Bet il Mtoni is charmingly situated on the seashore, at a
distance of about five miles from the town of Zanzibar, in a grove of
magnificent cocoanut palms, mango trees, and other tropical giants. My
birthplace takes its name from the little stream Mtoni, which, running
down a short way from the interior, forks out into several branches as it
flows through the palace grounds, in whose immediate rear it empties
into the beautiful sparkling sheet of water dividing Zanzibar from the
continent of Africa.
A single, spacious courtyard is allotted to the whole body of buildings
that compose the palace, and in consequence of the variety of these
structures, probably put up by degrees as necessity demanded, the
general effect was repellent rather than attractive. Most perplexing to
the uninitiated were the innumerable passages and corridors. Countless,
too, were the apartments of the palace; their exact disposition has
escaped my memory, though I have a very distinct recollection of the
bathing arrangements at Bet il Mtoni. A dozen basins lay all in a row at
the extreme end of the courtyard, so that when it rained you could visit
this favourite place of recuperation only with the help of an umbrella.
The so-called "Persian" bath stood apart from the rest; it was really a
Turkish bath, and there was no other in Zanzibar. Each bath-house
contained two basins of about four yards by three, the water reaching to
the breast of a grownup person. This resort was highly popular with the
residents of the palace, most of whom were in the habit of spending
several hours a day there, saying their prayers, doing their work,
reading, sleeping, or even eating and drinking. From four o'clock in the
morning until twelve at night there was constant movement; the stream
of people coming and leaving never ceased.
Entering one of the bath-houses - they were all built on the same plan -
you beheld two raised platforms, one at the right and one at the left,

laid with finely woven matting, for praying or simply resting on.
Anything in the way of luxury, such as a carpet, was forbidden here.
Whenever the Mahometan says his prayers he is supposed to put on a
special garment, perfectly clean - white if possible - and used for no
other purpose. Of course this rather exacting rule is obeyed only by the
extremely pious. Narrow colonnades ran between