Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 1.djvu/83

Rh pilgrims, he asked them why they had left their weapons at home: they replied in the usual phrase, "Nahnu mutawakkilin"—"we are trusters (in Allah)." That evening, having feasted them hospitably, the chief returned hurriedly to the hut, declaring that his soothsayer ordered him at once to sacrifice a pilgrim, and begging the horror-struck auditors to choose the victim. They cast lots and gave over one of their number: the Jirad placed him in another hut, dyed his dagger with sheep's blood, and returned to say that he must have a second life. The unhappy pilgrims rose en masse, and fled so wildly that the chief, with all the cavalry of the desert, found difficulty in recovering them. He dismissed them with liberal presents, and not a few jibes about their trustfulness in Allah. The wilder Badawin will inquire where Allah is to be found: when asked the object of the question, they reply, "If the Ísa could but catch him, they would spear him upon the spot—who but he lays waste their homes and kills their cattle and wives?" Yet, conjoined to this truly savage incapability of conceiving the idea of a Supreme Being, they believe in the most ridiculous exaggerations: many will not affront a common pilgrim, for fear of being killed by a glance or a word.

Our supper, also provided by the hospitable Hajj, is the counterpart of the midday dinner. After it we repair to the roof, to enjoy the prospect of the far Tajurrah hills and the white moonbeams sleeping upon the nearer sea. The evening star hangs like a diamond upon the still horizon: around the moon a pink zone of light mist, shading off into turquoise blue, and a delicate green like chrysopraz, invests the heavens with a peculiar charm. The scene is truly suggestive: behind us, purpling in the night-air and silvered by the radiance from above, lie the wolds and mountains tenanted by the fiercest of savages; their shadowy mysterious forms exciting vague alarms in