ZANZIBAR. 13

settling down at Unyanyembe, Ujiji, or other trade

centres of the interior, send out their principal

slaves to buy ivory and slaves, which they gradually

collect at their headquarters, returning after a lapse

of several years to Zanzibar to dispose of their mer-

chandise and to lay in a fresh stock of goods with

which to renew their trading. It not unfrequently

happens that the head slaves who are sent in this

way to trade by the Arab merchants, squander or

lose the goods entrusted to them, and being afraid, under such circumstances, to return to their master's

house or to Zanzibar, they settle down in the

country where they happen to be, and form small

colonies, keeping to a great extent aloof from the

natives of the country. Such colonies may be found

in Karagwe, Uganda, and all the more distant coun-

tries to which the Arab traders have penetrated, and have been useful in preparing the way for the

explorer and the missionary by disseminating the

knowledge of the Swahili language. The most

wealthy class in Zanzibar is that of the Banyans:

they are the bankers and money-lenders of the

place, and advance money to the Arab merchants at

enormous rates of interest to purchase the goods with which they trade. The Hindus are a consider-

able body as far as numbers go, and may gene-

rally be found in the coast towns of the mainland, where they .are usually engaged in buying bees'-

wax, orchilla weed, indiarubber, copal, etc., from