Little Abbai Had
Always Been A Great Pet Of Mrs. Baker's, And The Unfortunate Child Being
Now Motherless, He Was
Naturally adopted, and led a most happy life.
Although much under two years old, he was quite equal in precocity
To a
European child of three; in form and strength he was a young Hercules,
and, although so young, he would frequently follow me out shooting for
two or three miles, and return home with a guinea-fowl hanging over his
shoulder, or his hands full of pigeons. Abbai became very civilized; he
was taught to make a Turkish "salaam" upon receiving a present, and to
wash his hands both before and after his meals. He had the greatest
objection to eat alone, and he generally invited three or four friends
of about his own age to dine with him; on such occasions, a large wooden
bowl, about twenty inches in diameter, was filled with soup and
porridge, around which steaming dish the young party sat, happier in
their slavery than kings in power. There were two lovely girls of three
and eight years of age that belonged to Ibrahim; these were not black,
but of the same dark brown tint as Kamrasi and many of the Unyoro
people. Their mother was also there, and their history being most
pitiable, they were always allowed free access to our hut and the dinner
bowl. These two girls were the daughters of Owine, one of the great
chiefs who were allied with Fowooka against Kamrasi. After the defeat of
Fowooka, Owine and many of his people with their families quitted the
country, and forming an alliance with Mahommed Wat-el-Mek, they settled
in the neighbourhood of his camp at Faloro, and built a village. For
some time they were on the best terms, but some cattle of the Turks
being missed, suspicion fell upon the new settlers. The men of
Mahommed's party desired that they might be expelled, and Mahommed, in a
fit of drunken fury, at once ordered them to be MASSACRED. His men,
eager for murder and plunder, immediately started upon their bloody
errand, and surrounding the unsuspecting colony, they fired the huts and
killed EVERY MAN, including the chief, Owine; capturing the women and
children as slaves. Ibrahim had received the mother and two girls as
presents from Mahommed Wat-el-Mek. As the two rival companies had been
forced to fraternize, owing to the now generally hostile attitude of the
surrounding tribes, the leaders had become wonderfully polite,
exchanging presents, getting drunk together upon raw spirits, and
behaving in a brotherly manner - according to their ideas of
fraternity. There was a peculiar charm in the association with children
in this land of hardened hearts and savage natures: there is a time in
the life of the most savage animal when infancy is free from the fierce
instincts of race; even the lion's whelp will fondle the hand that it
would tear in riper years: thus, separated in this land of horrors from
all civilization, and forced by hard necessity into the vicinity of all
that was brutal and disgusting, it was an indescribable relief to be
surrounded by those who were yet innocent, and who clung in their
forsaken state to those who looked upon them with pity.
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