They were a fine, handsome body of men, these Arabs.  They mostly hailed from Oman:  others were Wasawahili; and each of my visitors had quite a retinue with him.  At Tabora they live quite luxuriously.  The plain on which the settlement is situated is exceedingly fertile, though naked of trees; the rich pasturage it furnishes permits them to keep large herds of cattle and goats, from which they have an ample supply of milk, cream, butter, and ghee.  Rice is grown everywhere; sweet potatoes, yams, muhogo, holcus sorghum, maize, or Indian corn, sesame, millet, field-peas, or vetches, called choroko, are cheap, and always procurable.  Around their tembes the Arabs cultivate a little wheat for their own purposes, and have planted orange, lemon, papaw, and mangoes, which thrive here fairly well.  Onions and garlic, chilies, cucumbers, tomatoes, and brinjalls, may be procured by the white visitor from the more important Arabs, who are undoubted epicureans in their way.  Their slaves convey to them from the coast, once a year at least, their stores of tea, coffee sugar, spices, jellies, curries, wine, brandy, biscuits, sardines, salmon, and such fine cloths and articles as they require for their own personal use.  Almost every Arab of any eminence is able to show a wealth of Persian carpets, and most luxurious bedding, complete tea and coffee-services, and magnificently carved dishes of tinned copper and brass lavers.  Several of them sport gold watches and chains, mostly all a watch and chain of some kind.  And, as in Persia, Afghanistan, and Turkey, the harems form an essential feature of every Arab’s household; the sensualism of the Mohammedans is as prominent here as in the Orient.

The Arabs who now stood before the front door of my tembe were the donors of the good things received the day before.  As in duty bound, of course, I greeted Sheikh Sayd first, then Sheikh bin Nasib, his Highness of Zanzibar’s consul at Karagwa, then I greeted the noblest Trojan amongst the Arab population, noblest in bearing, noblest in courage and manly worth—­Sheikh Khamis bin Abdullah; then young Amram bin Mussoud, who is now making war on the king of Urori and his fractious people; then handsome, courageous Soud, the son of Sayd bin Majid; then dandified Thani bin Abdullah; then Mussoud bin Abdullah and his cousin Abdullah bin Mussoud, who own the houses where formerly lived Burton and Speke; then old Suliman Dowa, Sayd bin Sayf, and the old Hetman of Tabora—­Sheikh Sultan bin Ali.

As the visit of these magnates, under whose loving protection white travellers must needs submit themselves, was only a formal one, such as Arab etiquette, ever of the stateliest and truest, impelled them to, it is unnecessary to relate the discourse on my health, and their wealth, my thanks, and their professions of loyalty, and attachment to me.  After having expended our mutual stock of congratulations and nonsense, they departed, having stated their wish that I should visit them at Tabora and partake of a feast which they were about to prepare for me.