Travels Of Richard And John Lander Into The Interior Of Africa For The Discovery Of The Course And Termination Of The Niger By Robert Huish
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The Vanity Of This
Old Negro Almost Exceeded Belief; During The Ceremony Of The
Reception Of Captain Clapperton And Mr. Houston, He Changed His Dress
Three Different Times, Each Time, As He Thought, Increasing The
Splendour Of His Appearance.
The whole court in which they were received, although very large, was
filled, crowded, and crammed with people, except
A place in front,
where the august strangers sat, into which his highness led Captain
Clapperton and Mr. Houston, in each hand, followed by Lander, who,
ever and anon, first to the right, and then to the left, felt a
twitch at the tail of his coat, and on looking to ascertain the
cause, found it to have proceeded from the fair hands of a
bewitching negress, who, casting upon him a look of irresistible
fascination, accompanied by a smile from a pair of huge pouting lips,
between which appeared a row of teeth, for which one of the toothless
grannies at Almack's would have given half her dowry, seemed to be
anxious of trying the experiment of how far the heart of an
Englishman was susceptible of the tender passion, especially when
excited by objects of such superlative beauty. It may be supposed
that neither Clapperton nor Houston had as yet taken any lessons in
the art and mystery of African dancing, and as to waltzing, neither
of them felt any great inclination to be encircled in the arms of a
negress, who, although she might be young and graceful in her
attitudes, had a scent about her of stinking rancid oil, which was
not very agreeable to the olfactory nerves of the delicate Europeans.
However, it was the etiquette of the court, - and every court, from
the Cape of Good Hope to the country of Boothia, that is, if a court
were ever held in the latter place, - is cursed with the ridiculous
forms of ceremony and etiquette; it must be repeated, that at the
court which his highness the caboceer of Jannah, in the plenitude of
his official importance, held at that place, it was a rule of
etiquette, that every stranger, of whatever rank or nation, should
choose for himself a partner, wherewith to dance an African fandango
or bolero; and it may be easily supposed that, when the Europeans
looked around them, and saw the African beauties squatting on their
haunches, or reclining, in graceful negligence, on banks of mud, a
great difficulty existed as to whom they should select to be their
partners in the African quadrille. We have ourselves been in a
ball-room where the beating of the female heart was almost audible,
when the object of its secret attachment approached to lead out the
youthful beauty to the dancing circle; and although it cannot be
supposed, that, on so short an acquaintance, the heart of any
beautiful negress palpitated at the approach of Captain Clapperton,
Mr. Houston, or the more timid and bashful Lander, yet it was evident
that the negresses, who were selected as their partners, testified
their unqualified delight at the honour conferred upon them by a
grin, which in a civilized country would be called a smile, but which
happened to be of that extent, as if nature had furnished them with a
mouth extending from ear to ear, similar to the opening of the jaws
of a dogger codfish.
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