the native markets with their vociferating sellers seated cross-legged
on tables behind piles of fruit or vegetables, while an equally
vociferating crowd surged up and down the aisles. Gray parrots and
little monkeys perched everywhere about. Billy gave one of the monkeys a
banana. He peeled it exactly as a man would have done, smelt it
critically, and threw it back at her in the most insulting fashion. We
saw also the rows of Hindu shops open to the street, with their gaudily
dressed children of blackened eyelids, their stolid dirty proprietors,
and their women marvellous in bright silks and massive bangles. In the
thatched native quarter were more of the fine Swahili women sitting
cross-legged on the earth under low verandas, engaged in different
handicrafts; and chickens; and many amusing naked children. We made
friends with many of them, communicating by laughter and by signs, while
our guide stood unobtrusively in the middle distance waiting for us to
come on. Just at sunset he led us out to a great open space, with a tall
palm in the centre of it and the gathering of a multitude of people. A
mollah was clambering into a high scaffold built of poles, whence
shortly he began to intone a long-drawn-out "Allah! Allah! il Allah!"
The cocoanut palms cut the sunset, and the boabab trees--the fat, lazy
boababs--looked more monstrous than ever. We called our guide and
conferred on him the munificent sum of sixteen and a half cents; with
which, apparently much pleased, he departed. Then slowly we wandered
back to the hotel.




PART II.

THE SHIMBA HILLS.