CHAPTER II.

BAGAMOYO TO MPWAPWA.

ON July 22nd, all preparations on the island of Zanzibar being finished, I bid adieu to my various friends and took my place on board a dhow which was bound for Bagamoyo and now lay anchored off.

the custom house. The hold of the dhow was nearly filled with my goods, boxes of clothes, books and other personal property; bundles of iron rods and steam piping ; sacks of nails, screws and bolts, packages of tools, anvils, grindstones, portions of lathes, cases of ammunition and miscellaneous goods, and last, but not least, a good riding donkey.

The dhow was a clumsy craft of some thirty tons measurement, with a " shetri," or small poop, at the stern, on which a motley group of passengers, Arabs, Hindus, Banyans, Negroes, half-breeds, and a solitary European (myself) were huddled ; the hold was covered with a sloping thatched roof, and a small platform, or deck, in the bows accommodated the two or three sailors who worked the huge calico sail. The timbers of this singular-looking craft were sewn together and caulked with a chunani of lime