To practise pure
mesmerism; otherwise, that I should infallibly become a "Companion of
Devils." "You must call this an Indian secret," said my friend, "for it
is clear that you are no Mashaikh,[FN#17] and people will ask, where
are your drugs, and what business have you with charms?" It is useless
to say that I followed his counsel; yet patients would consider
themselves my
[p.59]Murids (disciples), and delighted in kissing the hand of the
Sahib Nafas[FN#18] or minor saint.
The Haji repaid me for my docility by vaunting me everywhere as the
very phoenix of physicians. My first successes were in the Wakalah;
opposite to me there lived an Arab slave dealer, whose Abyssinians
constantly fell sick. A tender race, they suffer when first transported
to Egypt from many complaints, especially consumption, dysentery and
varicose veins. I succeeded in curing one girl. As she was worth at
least fifteen pounds, the gratitude of her owner was great, and I had
to dose half a dozen others in order to cure them of the pernicious and
price-lowering habit of snoring. Living in rooms opposite these slave
girls, and seeing them at all hours of the day and night, I had
frequent opportunities of studying them. They were average specimens of
the steato-pygous Abyssinian breed, broad-shouldered, thin-flanked,
fine-limbed, and with haunches of a prodigious size. None of them had
handsome features, but the short curly hair that stands on end being
concealed under a kerchief, there was something pretty in the brow,
eyes, and upper part of the nose, coarse and sensual in the pendent
lips, large jowl and projecting mouth, whilst the whole had a
combination of piquancy with sweetness. Their style of flirtation was
peculiar.
"How beautiful thou art, O Maryam!-what eyes!-what-"
[p.60]"Then why,"-would respond the lady-"don't you buy me?"
"We are of one faith-of one creed-formed to form each other's
happiness."
"Then why don't you buy me?"
"Conceive, O Maryam, the blessing of two hearts-"
"Then why don't you buy me?"
and so on. Most effectual gag to Cupid's eloquence! Yet was not the
plain-spoken Maryam's reply without its moral. How often is it our
fate, in the West as in the East, to see in bright eyes and to hear
from rosy lips an implied, if not an expressed, "Why don't you buy me?"
or, worse still, "Why can't you buy me?"
All I required in return for my services from the slave-dealer, whose
brutal countenance and manners were truly repugnant, was to take me
about the town, and explain to me certain mysteries in his craft, which
knowledge might be useful in time to come. Little did he suspect who
his interrogator was, and freely in his unsuspiciousness he entered
upon the subject of slave hunting in the Somali country, and Zanzibar,
of all things the most interesting to me.
