EAST AND WEST WHEN SULTAN GIVES DANCE IN ZANZIBAR

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6868, 25 March 1929, Page 4

EAST AND WEST WHEN SULTAN GIVES DANCE IN ZANZIBAR

Zanzibar, the strangest, richest island of its size in the world, has not changed much since the slave clays; and when the Sultan gives a dance people far away on the mainland of East Africa answer the call gladly, says L. G., writing in the Daily Express. The formal printed invitation to the palace is really a passport from the twentieth century to the Arabian Nights’ entertainment. Bored white officials and their wives in the sweltering seaports of Dar-cs-Salaani and Mombasa fin'd a new interest in life when a dance is to be hold in Zanzibar. The Sultan’s own little steamer Cupid, flying the red flag of the island, collects the guests. Lunch is served under the double awnings in the stern; and from tho hold comes the fragrance of many cargoes of cloves. Eight hours after leaving the lagoon of Dar-cs-Sa-laam the Cupid is steering through the fleet of dhows, in the roadstead of Zanzibar. Multi- Coloured Sails. For a thousand years those graceful craft, with their multi-coloured sails and high poops, have been carrying rich treasures of tho Orient to the great trading metropolis of Zanzibar. The white-painted Cupid, with the smoke pouring from iicr yellow funnel, seems an anachronism. Tho anchor splashes clown through water so pure that in daylight you can see the flukes of tho anchor gripping the coral seafloor, Lights gleam along the water-front, where the palace stands at the edge of that teeming rabbit-warren known as Malindi bazaar. Out of the Cupid comes the Sultan’s barge. No chained slaves strain at the cars, for this is a Ticlily-canopied motor-launch. The guests ‘ disembark—men in white mess packets of the tropics, women in gay wraps. In'chattering groups they stroll from the beach toward the huge marble verandah and crumbling coral facade of the ipalace. This palace, named in 'Arabic the Betel-Ajaib, or House of Wonders, has been shelled by British gunboats. It has seen international intrigues, and, until recently," it. was the home of an enormous harem. The barred windows and high walls remain, but the present Sultan, Sayed bin Harib, has only one' wife. In front of the palaco is the Place of Execution, where many a mutinous head has fallen under the axe. j . Decorated Kickshaws, To-night the macabre scenes of otherdays ar o forgotten in the brilliant hospitality of the peace-loving Sultan. Just insido the carved doorway of the palace the guests are being received by the Sultan’s, aide-de-camp, who is a British official.

Wealthy Arab merchants arrive in rickshaws decorated with gold and silver. A few white people drive up in their tiny motor cars —they must be tiny, for tho widest street in Zanzibar is a narrow alley-way*" The hall is perfumed with attar of roses. At nine-o’clock a mclow gong is heard, and the cosmopolitan throng goes in to dinner. ■ There are tables set in European fashion for tho white guests; and rugs worth a fortuno on which tho Orientals gravely rest. While tho conventional English food is served at the tables, great silver dishes of curry and rice, with marvellous flavourings, and cutglass bowls of mangoes and tropical fruits, .are .set down before the wise old men on the rugs'. Finally the Sultanas famous coffee is handed round, and soon afterwards the dancing begins. Tho daneo hall, under its domed ceiling, shinc3 with ancient golden candelabras, the walls are mysterious doors, studded with patterned brass. Tbc A.skari orchestra breaks into an old-fashioned waltz. Twenty men, wearing red fezzes and red sashes, light shorts and blue puttecs, are playing brass instruments. Tho Sultan, a magnificent figure in his turban, robes of gold, and pointed slippers, does not dance. With his young son Ali, who wears a modern dinner jacket, ho is an interested watcher. The Sultana, forbidden by the Mohammedan faith to appear in tho sight of -men, gazes down on. the dancers from a screened balcony. Most of tho whito people of Zanzibar are -present—the British ’ Kcsidcnt and other officials in uniform; naval officers .in blue and gold from the cruiser in the bay; cable men and heads of trading firms. And a solemn, decorous gathering of Moslems, Sikhs, Farsoos and Goanese. After tho dance long after midnight, little parties sock tho quiet beaches where blue-gold .fireflies hover among tho palms. In the warm shallows they bathe and forget that Africa was ever cruel.