Now He "Knagged" At The Slave Girls, Who Were Slow To Work, Then
Burst Into A Fury Because Some Visitor Ate Kat Without Offering It To Him,
Or Crossed The Royal Threshold In Sandal Or Slipper.
The other inmates of
the house were Galla slave-girls, a great nuisance, especially one
Berille, an unlovely maid, whose shrill voice and shameless manners were a
sad scandal to pilgrims and pious Moslems.
About 8 A.M. the Somal sent us gifts of citrons, plantains, sugar-cane,
limes, wheaten bread, and stewed fowls. At the same time the house became
full of visitors, Harari and others, most of them pretexting inquiries
after old Sultan's health. Noon was generally followed by a little
solitude, the people retiring to dinner and siesta: we were then again
provided with bread and beef from the Amir's kitchen. In the afternoon the
house again filled, and the visitors dispersed only for supper. Before
sunset we were careful to visit the mules tethered in the court-yard;
being half starved they often attempted to desert. [41]
It was harvest home at Harar, a circumstance which worked us much annoy.
In the mornings the Amir, attended by forty or fifty guards, rode to a
hill north of the city, where he inspected his Galla reapers and
threshers, and these men were feasted every evening at our quarters with
flesh, beer, and mead. [42] The strong drinks caused many a wordy war, and
we made a point of exhorting the pagans, with poor success I own, to purer
lives.
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