He Was The Last Man To Appear,
And He Only Ventured From His Hiding-Place In The High Dhurra When
Assured Of The Elephants' Retreat.
I was obliged to admonish the whole
party by a little physical treatment, and the gallant Bacheet returned
with us to the village, crestfallen and completely subdued.
On the
following day not a vestige remained of the elephant, except the offal;
the Arabs had not only cut off the flesh, but they had hacked the skull
and the bones in pieces, and carried them off to boil down for soup.
CHAPTER VI.
Preparations for advance - Mek Nimmur makes a foray - The Hamran
elephant-hunters - In the haunts of the elephant - A desperate charge.
The time was approaching when the grass throughout the country would be
sufficiently dry to be fired. We accordingly prepared for our
expedition; but it was first necessary for me to go to Katariff, sixty
miles distant, to engage men, and to procure a slave in place of old
Masara, whose owner would not trust her in the wild region we were about
to visit.
I engaged six strong Tokrooris for five months, and purchased a slave
woman for thirty-five dollars. The name of the woman was Barrake. She
was about twenty-two years of age, brown in complexion, fat and strong,
rather tall, and altogether she was a fine, powerful-looking woman, but
decidedly not pretty. Her hair was elaborately dressed in hundreds of
long narrow curls, so thickly smeared with castor oil that the grease
had covered her naked shoulders. In addition to this, as she had been
recently under the hands of the hairdresser, there was an amount of fat
and other nastiness upon her head that gave her the appearance of being
nearly gray.
Through the medium of Mahomet I explained to her that she was no longer
a slave, as I had purchased her freedom; that she would not even be
compelled to remain with us, but she could do as she thought proper;
that both her mistress and I should be exceedingly kind to her, and we
would subsequently find her a good situation in Cairo; in the mean time
she would receive good clothes and wages. This, Mahomet, much against
his will, was obliged to translate literally. The effect was magical;
the woman, who had looked frightened and unhappy, suddenly beamed with
smiles, and without any warning she ran toward me, and in an instant I
found myself embraced in her loving arms. She pressed me to her bosom,
and smothered me with castor-oily kisses, while her greasy ringlets hung
upon my face and neck. How long this entertainment would have lasted I
cannot tell, but I was obliged to cry "Caffa! Caffa!" (enough! enough!)
as it looked improper, and the perfumery was too rich. Fortunately my
wife was present, but she did not appear to enjoy it more than I did. My
snow-white blouse was soiled and greasy, and for the rest of the day I
was a disagreeable compound of smells - castor oil, tallow, musk,
sandal-wood, burnt shells, and Barrake.
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