Dhow Chasing in Zanzibar Waters - The Search For Mecca

136 DHOW-OHASING.
Ascension is of tliewest; but unlike this barren
burnt-up pile of cinders in
appearance, with its
solitary little
green tuft on the mountain crest,
wliere Ascensionians resort to cool tlieir tempers
and to
try and forget tlie petty quarrels, social
broils, and scandals at its sandy base, tbat
used formerly to exist there, it is one of the
prettiest islands in the Indian Seas, covered as
it is almost with varying shades of green from
its summit to its base, from north to south,
here and there relieved by a bit of its brown
cliff peeping through.
Port Victoria is well protected by coral
banks, and the prevailing winds are on the
opposite side of the island. One of our old
wooden hulks moored here as a store-ship and
hospital, would be a great boon to the station
another as a coal depot, would produce such a
saving in the cost of coals as would almost
^
pay for both vessels; while some of the captured
dhows would make capital coal-lighters, and
^
Coals in 1868 were about 41. a ton here, purchased from
the shore; what the price is now I do not know, but probably
double.