The Men
Immediately Procured A Log, And Set Off With The Sheik Himself To
Carry Out The Experiment.
In the afternoon, we heard a terrible
howling and crying, and a crowd of men and women returned to
The
village, some of whom paid us a visit; they had found the body.
The log had guided them about two miles distant, and had remained
stationary in a backwater near where I had shot the bull
hippopotamus; in this still pool, close to the bank, they almost
immediately discovered the girl floating slightly beneath the
surface. No crocodile had injured the body, but the fish had
destroyed a portion of the face; it was already so far advanced
in decomposition, that it was necessary to bury it upon the
margin of the river, at the spot where it was discovered. The
people came to thank me for having originated the idea, and the
very agreeable sheik spent the evening with us with a number of
his people; this was his greatest delight, and we had become
thoroughly accustomed to his daily visits. At such times we sat
upon an angarep, while he sat upon a mat stretched upon the
ground, with a number of his men, who formed a half-circle around
him; he then invariably requested that we would tell him stories
about England. Of these he never tired, and with the assistance
of Mahomet we established a regular entertainment; the great
amusement of the Arabs being the mistakes that they readily
perceived were made by Mahomet as interpreter. We knew sufficient
Arabic to check and to explain his errors.
The death of the girl gave rise to a conversation upon drowning:
this turned upon the subject of the girl herself and ended in a
discussion upon the value of women; the question originating in
a lament on the part of the sheik that a nice young girl had been
drowned instead of a useless old woman. The sheik laid down the
law with great force, "that a woman was of no use when she ceased
to be young, unless she was a good strong person who could grind
corn, and carry water from the river;" in this assertion he was
seconded, and supported unanimously by the crowd of Arabs
present.
Now it was always a common practice among the Arab women, when
they called upon my wife, to request her to show her hands; they
would then feel the soft palms and exclaim in astonishment, "Ah!
she has never ground corn!" that being the duty of a wife unless
she is rich enough to possess slaves. Sheik Achmet requested me
to give him some account of our domestic arrangements in England;
I did this as briefly as possible, explaining how ladies received
our devoted attentions, extolling their beauty and virtue, and in
fact giving him an idea that England was paradise, and that the
ladies were angels. I described the variety of colours; that
instead of all being dark, some were exceedingly fair; that
others had red hair; that we had many bright black eyes, and some
irresistible dark blue; and at the close of my descriptions I
believe the sheik and his party felt disposed to emigrate
immediately to the chilly shores of Great Britain; they asked,
"How far off is your country?" "Well," said the sheik, with a
sigh, "that must be a very charming country; how could you
possibly come away from all your beautiful wives?
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