One of the mules, he airily explained, had lost a shoe in the afternoon.
He would get it put right at once - at once.
"You might have told me so yesterday evening, instead of keeping me
awake all night waiting for you."
"True," he replied. "I thought of it at the time. But then I went to
bed, and slept. Ah, sir, it is good to sleep!" and he stretched himself
voluptuously.
The beast was shod, and at 5 a.m. we left.
XVIII
AFRICAN INTRUDERS
There is a type of physiognomy here which is undeniably Semitic - with
curly hair, dusky skin and hooked nose. We may take it to be of
Saracenic origin, since a Phoenician descent is out of the question,
while mediaeval Jews never intermarried with Christians. It is the same
class of face which one sees so abundantly at Palermo, the former
metropolis of these Africans. The accompanying likeness is that of a
native of Cosenza, a town that was frequently in their possession.
Eastern traits of character, too, have lingered among the populace. So
the humour of the peddling Semite who will allow himself to be called by
the most offensive epithets rather than lose a chance of gaining a sou;
who, eternally professing poverty, cannot bear to be twitted on his
notorious riches; their ceaseless talk of hidden treasures, their
secretiveness and so many other little Orientalisms that whoever has
lived in the East will be inclined to echo the observation of Edward
Lear's Greek servant:
