by a small window, by which alone the room was
lighted. A few doors, kept religiously closed, opened
into rooms beyond. A small stairway ran up one
wall on to the flat roof, and in one corner a stove
had been built for cooking purposes.
Hamid’s fellow-saint, the second marabout, was
nowhere to be seen, but several negro slaves were
engaged on various household duties in the room,
and two of these came forward as we entered to take
off my boots.
Here, however, a difficulty arose. Laced boots
were clearly objects with which they were totally
unacquainted. They first seized hold of the tag at
the back, and attempted to pull them off without
unlacing them. In this they naturally failed, and
for a moment they were nonplussed. One of them
knelt down on the ground and poked his head round
my ankles as though he were searching for some,
secret exit. Having failed to discover this, he produced
a huge sheath-knife, and was about to cut the
lace, when I interfered and, as it would not have
done for me to pull them off myself, set Alssa to do
so for me.
A splendid thick-piled carpet furnished with
cushions had been placed upon the floor along one
wall for us to sit on. Hamid took me by the hand
(an Arab always takes hold of your hand when he
gets a chance) and led me to this, propped a cushion
against the wall for my back and placed another by
my side for me to lean my elbow on. He then seated
himself beside me and ordered a nigger to bring
some coffee.
This shortly appeared on a beautiful brass tray,
inlaid in silver with texts from the Koran. On this
were some half-dozen cups of thick coarse china and
three or four little tin jugs of coffee. Aissa, El Haj,
and El Ayed sat on the floor by the side of the
carpet and came in for a share of the refreshment.
Our camels and baggage had been taken charge
of by the slaves. When staying with an Arab it is
never necessary to trouble yourself in the least about
your belongings. That is the business of your host,
and any interference on their behalf would be looked
upon by him as a slight upon his hospitality.
The amount of coffee which amongst the five of
us we consumed was enormous, and as each cup
required a separate brewing operation, for about ten
minutes we entirely occupied the time of two of the
slaves in supplying our wants.
At length, when we had drunk some twenty cups
amongst us, and I, not wishing to spoil my supper,
had intimated that I had had enough, the tray was
removed, and, Aissa interpreting, we fell into conversation.
Presently one of the slaves damped down the
embers in the cooking-stove, gathered up the cups
and saucepans and departed, while the others retired
to a corner of the room and appeared to compose
themselves to sleep. A horrible fear came over me
that the coffee which we had drunk represented the
whole of our supper. We had lunched at noon and
it was then past nine o’clock, and as we had been
walking hard all the afternoon I, for one, was
ravenously hungry. I remembered that it was