The captains come.

I was old when the clamor o' Babel's end
(All seas were chartless then!)
Drove forth the brood, and Solitude
Was the newest quest of men.
I lay like a gem in a silken sea
Unseen, uncoveted, unguessed
Till scented winds that waft afar
Bore word o' the warm delights there are
Where ground-swells sing by Zanzibar
Long rhapsodies of rest.

Wild, oh wilder than winter blasts my wet skies shriek when
the winds are freed.
Mild, oh milder than virgin mirth is the laugh o' the reefs
where sea-birds feed,
Screaming and skirling and down again. (Though the sea
-birds warn do captains heed?)


There is no public landing wharf at Zanzibar. Passengers have to
submit their persons into the arms of loud-lunged Swahili longshoremen,
who recognize one sole and only point of honor: neither passenger nor
luggage shall be dropped into the surf.

Their invariable habit, the instant the view-halloa is raised, is to
scamper headlong, pounce on the victim and pull him apart (or so it
feels) until fortune, superior strength, or some such element decides
the point; and then more often