V.
A month later, Arthur Coningsby dined with Colonel Mowbray in the European Club at Zanzibar. Outside through the narrow, filthy lanes which served as streets, throngs of people were hastening to and fro. Here all the world seemed to have come to rub shoulders against each other. Englishman cursed Arab, and Arab raved at Hindi. In some of the dimly lighted, odorous alleys steaming black and yellow bodies and kinky heads were struggling excitedly with one another, jabbering and shrieking in a dozen different tongues. From the tops of tall, flat-roofed houses floated strains of weird, dreamy music, which rose ever and anon above the laughing, chattering voices of the hidden merrymakers. The entire disjointed, unsystematic mass united to form a wondrous weird and wavering picture of color. White, dust-tinted houses, cobbled streets fallen into ruin, alcoves dark and mysterious with flickering yellow lights gleaming in the distance; frightfully miserable hovels; gorgeous palaces—how can one describe the strangely wild, fantastic, fascinating sight? Porters sitting cross-legged before the entrances to forbidden gardens; merchants reclining amongst their wares at the truly beautiful bazaars. And what wares are here for sale! Ivory, gum-copal, hides, lumber, silk rugs and
