IT could only have happened in Zanzibar. For in that spice island of the African seas there still survives-largely undisturbed by the advancing crudities of the civilised West some of the glamour and tradition of the ancient East; and when, on rare occasions, this Old World spirit manifests itself, the display incident thereto seems perfectly attuned to that pervading atmosphere of romance which still broods over Zanzibar. In more sophisticated countries the episode now related would appear incongruous and theatrical.

It was during the Great War. The times were out of joint, and Zanzibar felt the repercussion of the world unrest in many ways. Even the seasons were adverse, and the native crops were threatened with drought. In normal times rice, and other food products, can easily be imported from India and Rangoon ; but during those years of stress and turmoil these sources of supply were closed, and the question of food for the native population became an anxious one.

What added considerably to the difficulties of the matter was the constantly increasing stream of immigrants from Arabia and the Persian Gulf,

who sought asylum in Zanzibar.

There has existed for centuries a strange political and social affinity between Zanzibar and those remote countries which fringe the Persian Gulf. Prior to the Christian era the people of Sâba and Omân traded for ivory, slaves, and gold down the eastern coasts of Africa; and at a later period the Arab and Persian seaman and merchant of medieval times came, and have left us, as evidence of their sojourn in Azania, the ruins of their stonebuilt cities and citadels, which to-day lie hidden and almost forgotten in the forests of Zanzibar and Pemba. This old-time tradition of intercourse and traffic seems confirmed, as it were, by the fact that a prince of Omân occupies the throne of Zanzibar to-day.

So it was not altogether surprising, when famine and hardship smote the people of the Arabian and Persian coasts, that whole families, blissfully unmindful of a similar stress of life in Zanzibar, set sail in dhows on the long ocean trail to Azania, in order to find, as they thought, asylum and plenty in that placid region of Eastern Africa which lies beneath the Equator, even as

their ancestors had done from time immemorial before them.

Here was a dilemma for the harassed Administrator of Zanzibar! What was the right thing to do? To permit these indigent strangers from Asia to descend upon the Sultanate and make the scarce food scarcer, or to turn back the unwanted immigrants and bid them seek some other haven in the wide seas?

To reject and send back a few dhows with their human cargoes to their old homes in the Persian Gulf might, it was considered, effectively deter others from attempting a futile voyage to Zanzibar.

The problem, however, was not quite so simple as it appeared, for it was complicated by other factors-economic and humane. While rigid expediency in wartime might justify the turning away of strangers from Zanzibar, the poverty and harmlessness of the poor folk who clamoured for entrance sometimes made it hard to refuse them asylum. There

were

women and children in the dhows, often piteously wearied out by the hardships of the seapassage, made under primitive conditions, across the Indian Ocean; and the Indian Ocean is not always the placid lagoon the poets would lead us to suppose.

Expediency, or the claims of poor humanity?

What a dreadful choice to be called upon to make on one's own initiative!

In countries with a complex civilisation, the question might have been temporarily shelved, or, at least, the responsibility of decision shared and divided by the methods of circumlocution beloved of democracies; but such shirking tactics were not possible in Zanzibar, so, rightly or wrongly, the decree went forth that dhows arriving from foreign ports, or with papers lacking the visa of some recognised British official, were to be sent back-after being reprovisioned at Government expense-with all their passengers and crew to their original port of departure.

One evening shortly after the above-mentioned decree had been issued, a weatherbeaten dhow, hailing from Makrân, sailed into Zanzibar Harbour.

She had left the Persian Gulf six weeks before, and had made rough weather. In addition to a little shark - flesh caught on the voyage off the

Somali coast, her cargo consisted of several bags of coffee, a few Persian rugs, some antique copper-ware for sale at the curiosity shops in Zanzibar, and four families of destitute men, women, and children, who had determined to emigrate and make new homes in Zanzibar.

The remainder of her cargo, which had included two small

antelopes, a few bags of walnuts (intended probably as propitiatory gifts to the Sultan), and every vestige of food had either been washed overboard, or had been eaten during the voyage by the half-famished crew and passengers.

The first thing the port authorities did was to feed the women and children; and after a week or two, when they had recuperated, orders were issued that the whole party were to re-embark on a certain date, and start back on their return voyage.

But Orientals are not quite so easily disposed of. Their methods of offence, while seemingly so feeble, are similar in effect to that of water, the allconqueror. To gain their ends they seldom use the thunderbolt, but are content to employ more subtle and inconspicuous tactics.

So it was not entirely surprising to those who knew something of Asiatic mentality, to learn that one of the women passengers was about to become a mother. If she could not sail, her husband must also be exempted, and if both father and mother remained behind in Zanzibar, how could the little son and daughter, of five and three respectively, be sent back across the Indian Ocean to a homeless Asia ?

Moreover, these unwanted visitors were not without some friends in Zanzibar, for in the northern quarter of the town was settled a small community of Makrânis, whose ancestors

during the last century or two had found their way to Eastern Africa, and had made their homes in the Sultanate. Today this community has been absorbed in the strange mixture of races which go to make up the population of modern Zanzibar.

These Makrânis are quiet hard working folk, retaining their own customs, and worshipping in their own little mosque just outside the city. Their numbers are few, and their influence in local affairs slight, so the task of assisting their newly arrived kinsfolk, by obtaining the cancellation of the hated sailing order, must have seemed almost insuperable.

But they possessed in their councils the subtlety of the East, and so they determined, after much discussion in secret, to ignore the official but mazy channels of seeking redress, and instead, to make their appeal, on behalf of their countrymen, direct to Cæsar.

It was the manner and style of their appeal which was so unique and so unconventional.

Keeping their intention a profound secret, so as to prevent any interference from the native police, the whole community-men, women, and children-arrayed themselves in their very best, and awaited a favourable opportunity to waylay, in a public place, His Britannic Majesty's Representative in Zanzibar!

So it came to pass that when that high official, totally unconscious of the ambush which

awaited him, made his way one fine morning across the sunstreaked marble courtyard of the old palace in which his office was situated, he suddenly found himself surrounded-not by a turbulent mob-but by a fairy-like assemblage of pretty sloe-eyed children, garbed in silken skirts and sarais of every bright and delicate hue-pink, blue, green, orange, and petunia. A veritable dream of coloura phantasmagoria of beneficent jinns, materialised from some old tale of the Arabian Nights!

Beyond the circle of the children were the women, clad, like their little ones, in diaphanous full-skirted garments of multi-coloured silks; while clustering in the background were the patriarchs of the Makrâni community, clothed in more sober robes of spotless white.

In the midst of this magic circle which so unexpectedly had enveloped him stood the white man-a bewildered Cæsar.

Not a word was spoken! Slowly recovering from his surprise, and feeling as out of place in his work-a-day solatopee and tropical suit of cottondrill as if he had unwittingly obtruded on to the stage of His Majesty's Theatre during a performance of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' the ambushed one proceeded, with embarrassed haste, to seek the sanctuary of his office. But as he went his way, the children and women with widespread noiseless skirts made obeisance before him, curtseying low to the very ground.

Ere the moon rose that night over the clove and orange gardens which top the rolling hills behind the city, there were some happy people in Zanzibar, for the children's appeal had not been in vain, and it had been ordained (after due deliberation between the Government and the elders of the Makrâni community) that, in this instance at least, the wanderings of the storm-tossed families were at an end, and they were free to make new homes in Zanzibar-the spice island of their choice.

"Baas, this trip no good." Get out, the trip is all right even if we have been a long time coming across buck. Perhaps the other fellows have had better luck."

The words came glibly enough; but at the bottom of my heart I had much the feeling of my old hunter, Kali. Ours was no pleasure party. We were out on business. The absence of game meant no hides, and that meant no money when we got back to Durban. I was not a raw hand, but things had not panned out well for us. The whole country was dry as a bone, and the game had evidently gone either farther north or west looking for better grazing. I had never seen the flats north of Hluhluwe so deserted by buck. I knew my Zululand well, and had looked forward to a speedy filling of my waggon, and instead had found that it was only the presence of a few of the smaller game which saved us from going hungry. The rest of the party-there were four of us white men-had gone towards the Makowe, while I had kept crossing the ridges, keeping that hill on my left. Kali made no reply other than a click of disgust. The click is very much the sound made by a driver when he urges his horse on.

The surroundings began to affect me, and although my

The gun

eyes swept the country ahead for any sign of game, I got wondering what I should do if we did not strike better luck. A low whistle from Kali brought me back to the business in hand, and a glance to the point which his closed fist held rigidly in front of him marked, showed me through the long grass the horns of a buffalo. I was quick enough then. went up, and I drew a bead on where the shoulder should be. Close on the smack of the shot going off came the phut " of the bullet striking. As I ran forward that same phut made me uneasy. It did not sound as a bullet should when it strikes living flesh. The buffalo did not even turn his head. "Mayi Babo," said Kali, and his rush dropped to a walk just as I slowed down at the thought that all was not well.

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With gun at the ready I pushed my way through the long grass, for a wounded buffalo is the very worst foe to meet. The nearer we got the more concerned I became. Why did the brute not make some show of recognition of his danger or of his anger? A few more yards and we had the explanation. The buffalo was dead, but not from my bullet, although I had sent it straight to the mark. He was standing there bogged in a mudhole, and had been dead for days. It finished Kali.