During This Painful Scene, In Which One Girl Had Been Entirely
Lost, The Mother Of Her Who Was Saved Had
Rushed to meet her
child as she landed from the ford; but instead of clasping her to
her heart, as
We had expected, she gave her a maternal welcome by
beating her most unmercifully with her fists, bestowing such
lusty blows upon her back that we could distinctly hear them at
a distance of fifty yards; this punishment, we were given to
understand, served her perfectly right, for having been foolish
enough to venture near the rapids. The melancholy death-howl was
now raised by all the women in the village, while the men
explored the river in search of the missing body. On the
following morning the sheik appeared at my tent, with a number of
Arabs who had been unsuccessful, and he begged me, if possible,
to suggest some means for the discovery of the girl, as her
remains should be properly interred.
I proposed that they should procure a log of heavy wood, as near
as possible the size of the girl, and that this should be thrown
into the rapids, in the exact spot where she had disappeared;
this, being nearly the same weight, would be equally acted upon
by the stream, and would form a guide which they should follow
until it should lead them to some deep eddy, or whirlpool formed
by a backwater; should the pilot log remain in such a spot, they
would most probably find the body in the same place.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 258 of 556
Words from 69950 to 70209
of 151461
