He Shaves My Head On Fridays, And On Other Days Tells Me Wild Stories About His Service In The Holy Land; How Kurdi Usman Slew His Son-In-Law, Ibn Rumi, And How Turkcheh Bilmez Would Have Murdered Mohammed Ali In His Bed.

[12] Sometimes the room is filled with Arabs, Sayyids, merchants, and others settled in the place:

I saw nothing amongst them to justify the oft-quoted saw, "Koraysh pride and Zayla's boastfulness." More generally the assembly is one of the Somal, who talk in their own tongue, laugh, yell, stretch their legs, and lie like cattle upon the floor, smoking the common Hukkah, which stands in the centre, industriously cleaning their teeth with sticks, and eating snuff like Swedes. Meanwhile, I occupy the Kursi or couch, sometimes muttering from a book to excite respect, or reading aloud for general information, or telling fortunes by palmistry, or drawing out a horoscope.

It argues "peculiarity," I own, to enjoy such a life. In the first place, there is no woman's society: El Islam seems purposely to have loosened the ties between the sexes in order to strengthen the bonds which connect man and man. [13] Secondly, your house is by no means your castle. You must open your doors to your friend at all hours; if when inside it suit him to sing, sing he will; and until you learn solitude in a crowd, or the art of concentration, you are apt to become _ennuye_ and irritable. You must abandon your prejudices, and for a time cast off all European prepossessions in favour of Indian politeness, Persian polish, Arab courtesy, or Turkish dignity.

"They are as free as Nature e'er made man;"

and he who objects to having his head shaved in public, to seeing his friends combing their locks in his sitting-room, to having his property unceremoniously handled, or to being addressed familiarly by a perfect stranger, had better avoid Somaliland.

You will doubtless, dear L., convict me, by my own sentiments, of being an "amateur barbarian." You must, however, remember that I visited Africa fresh from Aden, with its dull routine of meaningless parades and tiresome courts martial, where society is broken by ridiculous distinctions of staff-men and regimental-men, Madras-men and Bombay-men, "European" officers, and "black" officers; where literature is confined to acquiring the art of explaining yourself in the jargons of half-naked savages; where the business of life is comprised in ignoble official squabbles, dislikes, disapprobations, and "references to superior authority;" where social intercourse is crushed by "gup," gossip, and the scandal of small colonial circles; where--pleasant predicament for those who really love women's society!--it is scarcely possible to address fair dame, preserving at the same time her reputation and your own, and if seen with her twice, all "camp" will swear it is an "affair;" where, briefly, the march of mind is at a dead halt, and the march of matter is in double quick time to the hospital or sick-quarters.

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