None but the travelled know
chess, and the Damal (draughts) and Tavola (backgammon) of the Turks.
[15] The same objection against "villanous saltpetre" was made by
ourselves in times of old: the French knights called gunpowder the Grave
of Honor. This is natural enough, the bravest weapon being generally the
shortest--that which places a man hand to hand with his opponent. Some of
the Kafir tribes have discontinued throwing the Assegai, and enter battle
wielding it as a pike. Usually, also, the shorter the weapon is, the more
fatal are the conflicts in which it is employed. The old French "Briquet,"
the Afghan "Charay," and the Goorka "Kukkri," exemplify this fact in the
history of arms.
[16] In the latter point it differs from the Assegai, which is worked by
the Kafirs to the finest temper.
[17] It is called by the Arabs Kubabah, by the Somal Goasa. Johnston
(Travels in Southern Abyssinia, chap. 8.) has described the game; he errs,
however, in supposing it peculiar to the Dankali tribes.
[18] This is in fact the pilgrim dress of El Islam; its wide diffusion to
the eastward, as well as west of the Red Sea, proves its antiquity as a
popular dress.
[19] I often regretted having neglected the precaution of a bottle of
walnut juice,--a white colour is decidedly too conspicuous in this part of
the East.
