Of The Men Few
Perform Any Ablutions, But All Use The Tooth Stick Before Sitting Down To
Eat.
After the meal some squat in the sun, others transact business, and
drive their cattle to the bush till 11 A.M., the dinner hour.
There is no
variety in the repasts, which are always flesh and holcus: these people
despise fowls, and consider vegetables food for cattle. During the day
there is no privacy; men, women, and children enter in crowds, and will
not be driven away by the Geradah, who inquires screamingly if they come
to stare at a baboon. My kettle especially excites their surprise; some
opine that it is an ostrich, others, a serpent: Sudiyah, however, soon
discovered its use, and begged irresistibly for the unique article.
Throughout the day her slave girls are busied in grinding, cooking, and
quarrelling with dissonant voices: the men have little occupation beyond
chewing tobacco, chatting, and having their wigs frizzled by a
professional coiffeur. In the evening the horses and cattle return home to
be milked and stabled: this operation concluded, all apply themselves to
supper with a will. They sleep but little, and sit deep into the night
trimming the fire, and conversing merrily over their cups of Farshu or
millet beer. [21] I tried this mixture several times, and found it
detestable: the taste is sour, and it flies directly to the head, in
consequence of being mixed with some poisonous bark. It is served up in
gourd bottles upon a basket of holcus heads, and strained through a
pledget of cotton, fixed across the narrow mouth, into cups of the same
primitive material:
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