I was only speaking in jest to this dog."
"My lord shreef," said Clapperton, "I was aware of it from the first;
it is of no importance, but, if the escort does not arrive to-morrow,
I may merely mention to you, I shall certainly proceed, without
further delay, to Kashna."
This Clapperton said by way of alarming the shreef, who liked his
present quarters too well, from the number of pious females, who
sought edification from the lips of so true a descendant of the
prophet; besides the chance such visits afforded of transmitting to
their offspring the honour of so holy a descent.
The small-pox was at this time raging in the country to an alarming
degree. The treatment of the disease is as follows: - When the disease
makes its appearance, they anoint the whole body with honey, and the
patient lies down on the floor, previously strewed with warm sand,
some of which is also sprinkled upon him. If the patient be very ill,
he is bathed in cold water early every morning, and is afterwards
anointed with honey, and replaced in the warm sand. This is their
only mode of treatment; but numbers died every day of this loathsome
disease, which had now been raging for six months.
Clapperton had now his baggage packed up for his journey to Kashna,
to the great terror of El Wordee, the shreef, and all his servants,
who earnestly begged him to remain only a day longer. A party of
horse and foot arrived from Zirmee the same night. It was the retinue
of a Fellata captain, who was bringing back a young wife from her
father's, where she had made her escape. The fair fugitive bestrode a
very handsome palfrey, amid a groupe of female attendants on foot.
Clapperton was introduced to her on the following morning, when she
politely joined her husband in requesting Clapperton to delay his
journey another day, in which case, they kindly proposed they should
travel together. Of course, it was impossible to refuse so agreeable
an invitation, to which Clapperton seemed to yield with all possible
courtesy. Indeed he had no serious intention of setting out that day.
The figure of the lady was small, but finely formed, and her
complexion of a clear copper colour, while, unlike most beautiful
women, she was mild and unobtrusive in her manners. Her husband, too,
whom she had deserted, was one of the finest looking men Clapperton
ever saw, and had also the reputation of being one of the bravest of
his nation.
A humpbacked lad, in the service of the gadado, or vizier of Bello,
who, on his way from Sockatoo, had his hand dreadfully wounded by the
people of Goober, was in the habit of coming every evening to
Clapperton's servants to have the wound dressed. On conversing with
Clapperton himself, he told him that he had formerly been on an
expedition under Abdecachman, a Fallata chief.
