20 UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDAN.

the coins being supposed to resemble a cannon. The multiplicity of coins is very puzzling at first to a traveller, and it is often no easy matter for him to ascertain the relative value of each.

There is, considering the size of the island, a tolerably large trade, and one which is ever increasing, carried on between Zanzibar and Europe and America. Cotton goods, prints, handkerchiefs, beads, brass and copper wire, arms, ammunition, and Birmingham goods are imported by the English and American houses there. The trade in the firstmentioned article (cotton goods) is almost entirely in the hands of the Americans, very little of the unbleached calico (" domestics " is, I believe, the proper term for it) which constitutes the principal article of barter in the interior of Africa being imported from England ; indeed, the name by which it is universally known is merikani, from the country where it is manufactured. The beads, which, next to merikani, form the most important article of barter, are for the most part of Venetian manufacture, and are imported direct from Venice. Switzerland, India, Persia, and Muscat supply various kinds of cloth used in the trade carried on with the interior ; while the trade in gunpowder, which is a monopoly of the Sultans, is carried on almost entirely with Germany. The exports consist of cloves, which are largely cultivated in the island, cocoanuts, cinnamon, pepper, cocoanut oil, ivory, gum copal, orchilla weed,