In The Enlightened And Civilized Country Of Europe, Or At Least In That Part Of It Called England, It Is

By no means an obsolete custom, for an individual, who wishes to ingratiate himself with the object of his affections,

To bestow a valuable present on the waiting woman or abigail, who is a great deal about her person, and the eulogiums which she then passes upon the absent lover, are great and exuberant in proportion to the extent of the bribe. A female, whoever she may be, whether a Middlesex virgin, or a Wawa widow, delights not only to have some one to whom she can speak of the object of her attachment, but who will be continually speaking to her of him, and as it appears that the female character is very nearly the same in the interior of Africa, as in the latitude of London, it is by no means a matter of surprise, that the amorous widow enlisted Pascoe, the black servant of Clapperton, in her cause, by offering him in the way of a bribe, a handsome female slave as a wife, if he would manage to bring about an interview at her own house, between either Clapperton or Lander, expressing herself at the same time not to be very particular as to which of the two this interview was obtained with. Clapperton it appears had greater confidence in himself than Lander could boast of, and the former considering himself proof against all the arts and fascinations of the widow, and wishing at the same time to see the interior arrangement of her house, he determined to pay her a visit. He found her house large, and full of male and female slaves, the males lying about the outer huts, the females more in the interior. In the centre of the huts was a square one, of large dimensions, surrounded by a verandah, with screens of matting all round, except in one place, where there was hung a tanned bullock's hide; to this spot he was led up, and on its being drawn on one side, he saw the lady sitting cross-legged on a small Turkey carpet, like one of our hearth-rugs, a large leathern cushion under her left knee; her goora pot, which was an old-fashioned pewter mug, by her side, and a calabash of water to wash her mouth out, as she alternately kept eating goora and chewing tobacco snuff, the custom with all ranks, male and female, who can procure them; on her right side lay a whip. At a little distance, squatted on the ground, sat a dwarfish, humpbacked female slave, with a wide mouth, but good eyes. She had no clothing on, with the exception of a profusion of strings of beads and coral round her neck and waist. This dwarfish personage served the purpose of a bell in our country, and what, it may be supposed, would in old times have been called a page. The lady herself was dressed in a white coarse muslin turban, her neck profusely decorated with necklaces of coral and gold chains, amongst which was one of rubies and gold beads; her eyebrows and eyelashes were blackened, her hair dyed with indigo, and her hands and feet with henna; around her body she had a fine striped silk and cotton country cloth, which came as high as her tremendous bosom, and reached as low as her ankles; in her right hand she held a fan made of stained grass, and of a square form. She desired Clapperton to sit down on the carpet beside her, an invitation which he accepted, and in an alluring manner she began to fan him, at the same time sending humpback to bring out her finery for him to look at, which consisted of four gold bracelets, two large paper dressing-cases with looking-glasses, and several strings of coral, silver rings, and bracelets, with a number of other trifling articles. After a number of compliments, and giving her favoured visitor an account of all her wealth, he was led through one apartment into another, cool, clean, and ornamented with pewter dishes and bright brass pans. She now entered into the history of her private life, commencing with bewailing the death of her husband, who had now been dead ten years, during all of which time she had mourned after him excessively. She had one son, the issue of her marriage, but he was much darker than herself. With a frankness perfectly commendable in an African widow, and wholly at variance with the hypocritical and counterfeit bashfulness of the English one, the widow Zuma at once exposed the situation of her heart, by declaring that she sincerely loved white men, and as her visitor belonged to that species, he saw himself at once the object of her affections, and the envy of all the aspiring young bachelors of the town, who had been for some time directing a vigorous attack against the widow's heart. The denouement of an English court-ship is frequently distinguished by an elopement; but although it was the last of Clapperton's thoughts to run away with such an unwieldy mass of human flesh, yet she very delicately proposed to him, that she would send for a malem, or man of learning, who should read the fetah to them, or, in other words, that no time whatever should be lost in endowing the widow Zuma with all claim, right, title, and privilege to be introduced at the court of Wawa, or any other court in Africa, or even at that time at the virtuous and formal court of queen Charlotte of England, as the spouse of Captain Clapperton, of the royal navy of Great Britain.

Clapperton was now convinced that the widow was beginning to carry the joke a little too far, for she assured him, that she should commence immediately to pack up all her property, and accompany him to his native country, assuring him, at the same time, that she felt within herself every requisite qualification to make him a good, active, and affectionate wife.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 152 of 302
Words from 154684 to 155707 of 309561