Page:Two kings of Uganda.djvu/29

of all kinds and descriptions, kept by all manner of people. Fair-faced languid-looking Indian women sit and display their wares, waiting patiently for customers, as also men of the same nation, who, to judge by their appearance, have evidently grown fat upon their gains ; their commodities include cotton-stuffs, spices, gold and silver thread, lamps, attar of roses, onions, and other miscellaneous articles of frequent barter. Fruit-shops too abound, kept by vivacious negroes ; there are also not a few almost European establishments owned by Goanese, where anything in reason may be purchased, from a dress-suit to a packet of pins. Arabs are stalking along with an air of superb contempt — the Arab has certainly mastered the art of looking as if the place belongs to him. Here comes one of them riding a gaily-caparisoned donkey, his slaves running in front calling out, " Simila, simila," " by your leave." Now we meet a big black man carrying two enormous bunches of bananas slung over his shoulder at each end of a stick, he also cries out "simila" At another place a bevy of women and girls, every one of them slaves, are at work carrying mortar and stones for the masons who are building a neighbouring house, all the while chanting some monotonous but not unmusical African melody. Further on a number of men chained together are at work. They are the Sultan's chain-gang undergoing penal servitude for offences against his Highness, or at the instance of some one of the European consuls. One day I encountered the Sultan's soldiers in a narrow