Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 1.djvu/75

Rh stands at 120°. You shall be generally shunned if you omit your waistcoat, no matter what the weather be. And if you venture to object to these Median laws—as I am now doing—you elicit a chorus of disapproval, and acquire some evil name.

About 11, when the fresh water arrives from the Hissi or wells, the Hajj sends us dinner, mutton stews of exceeding greasiness, boiled rice, maize cakes, sometimes fish, and generally curds or milk. We all sit round a primitive form of the Round Table, and I doubt that King Arthur's knights ever proved doughtier trenchermen than do my companions. We then rise to pipes and coffee, after which, excluding visitors, my attendants apply themselves to a siesta, I to my journal and studies.

At 2 there is a loud clamour at the door: if it be not opened in time, we are asked if we have a Nazarene inside. Enters a crowd of visitors, anxious to pass the afternoon. We proceed with a copy of the forenoon till the sun declines, when it is time to escape the flies, to repair to the terrace for fresh air, or to dress for a walk. Generally our direction is through the town eastwards, to a plain of dilapidated graves and salt sand, peopled only by land-crabs. At the extremity near the sea is a little mosque of wattle-work: we sit there under the shade, and play a rude form of draughts, called Shantarah, or at Shahh, a modification of the former.