Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 1.djvu/49

Rh pitiless was the raillery upon the venerable subjects of long and short, fat and thin. One sang a war-song, another a love-song, a third some song of the sea, whilst the fourth, an Ísa youth, with the villanous expression of face common to his tribe, gave us a rain measure, such as men chaunt during wet weather. All these effusions were naïve and amusing: none, however, could bear English translation without an amount of omission which would change its nature. Each effort of minstrelsy was accompanied by roars of laughter, and led to much manual pleasantry, All swore that they had never spent, intellectually speaking, a more charming soirée, and pitied me for being unable to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the dialogue. Truly it is not only the polished European, as was said of a certain travelling notability, that lapses with facility into pristine barbarism.

I will now introduce you to my companions. The managing man is one Mohammed Mahmud, generally called Al-Hammal, or the porter: he is a Havildar, or sergeant in the Aden police, and was entertained for me by Lieut. Dansey, an officer who unfortunately was not "confirmed" in a political appointment at Aden. The Hammal is a bull-necked, round-headed fellow of lymphatic temperament, with a lamp-black skin, regular features, and a pulpy figure—two rarities amongst his countrymen, who compare him to a Banyan. An orphan in early youth, and becoming, to use his own phrase, sick of milk, he ran away from his tribe, the Habr Girhajis, and engaged himself as a coal-trimmer with the slaves on board an Indian war-steamer. After rising in rank to the command of the crew, he became servant and interpreter