BAGAMOYO TO MPWAPWA. 29

and clearer till the belt of feathery cocoamit palms which fringes the shore could be plainly distin-

guished, broken here and there with the sombre

foliage of the mango, and relieved by the white walls

and straggling streets of Bagamoyo.

The sun was low in the west when the dhow

grounded on the coral shore of Africa, the run of

over thirty miles having been accomplished in a

little less than four hours.

The town of Bagamoyo consists of two or three

irregular streets of low white stone houses running

parallel to the beach, interpersed with cocoanut

palms and mango trees, and here and there on the

outskirts a large baobab (Adansonia digitata) with

its gouty-looking limbs, now bare of leaves, but

hung with large green bottle-shaped fruit. There

is a dirty little bazaar with a few shops kept by

Hindus, a few good stone houses belonging to Arab

merchants, and some wretched little huts, hardly as

large as an English pigstye, where whole families of

negroes live, or rather exist.

In a tolerably good stone house in the centre of

the town I found Lieutenant Smith busily engaged

in hiring wapagazi or porters, assisted by an Arab

interpreter and a dirty little Hindu, who, perpetu-

ally chewing betel nut and tobacco, was measur-

ing out calico and other materials for the hire

of Wanyamwezi porters, a crowd of whom were

squatted at the lower end of the room watching