We are among a handful of visitors who pack into Mitu's van and bump out of town, bound for the ruins of old Zanzibar. Persian baths, mosques and the remains of a sultan's harem sink slowly into the soft soil of coconut groves. Plantations of clove and peppercorn roll off to the sea. A century later, Sultan Seyyid Said moved his sultanate from Muscat to Zanzibar, where he and his descendants ruled for more than 130 years. It was Sultan Barghash who built himself a pleasure dome at the fringe of the clove fields, though today you could drive right past the ruins and never know it.
Trash stands thick on the brambled overgrowth of an old garden.
Within the gate, graying columns rise. There is a tree with leaves that shine gold in the sunlight. Natives whisper that a tea brewed from its leaves can cure malaria. This was the home of the sultan's 100 concubines - their bedrooms stretch on, one cool stone compartment after the next, cramped and interchangeable. The women swam here, in the garden's raised stone pool.