ABSTRACT
Karama was instilling a little Arabic into me, mostly in a kind of BerlitzMontessori technique which he had developed. But there was not much vim about the lesson: Karama was twelve and the instruction was rather spasmodic. I did not keep him at it for I wanted to know about the home which he had left a few short tuonths before. Besides it was hot, and, still more tiresome, it was Raluadhan. So there was more conversation than Arabic. In the short time he had been in Pemba, Karama had acquired an astonishing amount of Swahili:. I hoped that Arabic would come as easily to me, but alas! So we talked mostly in Swahili. He had only been with me a couple of days, but there was sonlething about a small boy who had travelled from the interior of Arabia and sailed on a dhow with the north-east monsoon all the way to Zanzibar which COIUmanded interest. A compatriot of his t Ahmed Sa'id Baziad, the butcher, had brought him to me in the office.
