CHAPTER XIX.
A few moments elapsed, and then five fresh slaves made their appearance, three of whom carried an immense jar filled with milk, and the other two iron bowls containing a paste made of sorghum and eleusine flour, called by the Arabs téléboun, and tocusso by the Abyssinians.
"We are expected to eat, after all," exclaimed Miss Poles. "You see I was quite right."
"My dear Miss Poles," remarked Delange, "nobody wants to force you to eat, although, by the way, there is nothing at all repulsive about this food."
"Perhaps not, but I will never sit down at the same table with these creatures!"
"Did I understand you to say table? May I ask where you see one?"
"I was speaking metaphorically, M. Delange," replied Miss Poles, rather sarcastically, "a mode of conversation which, I regret to see, your education does not permit of your understanding."
This passage of arms over, we saw that the fears of our fair companion were groundless, and that the repast was really intended for the Bongo ladies, and, in addition, as a kind of illustrated lecture for our benefit.
The chief took a small calabash, filled it with paste, and then carried it to the lips of one of his wives. I say lips from the force of habit, and the generally received impression that the lips themselves open to receive food and drink. But in these regions that notion is altogether wrong, because, seeing that the mouth assumes, by the process already mentioned, the shape of a long beak, the Bougos are obliged to make use of their fingers to lift the upper lip, and let their nourishment slip down the throat. When, after being thus opened, the mouth, which sticks out like a fortification armed with plates of ivory and copper, is allowed to shut, it does so with a sharp, metallic, and very extraordinary click.
After having made the three monstrosities swallow at least a pound of paste each, the chief dipped his calabash in the jar and gorged them with milk, they all this time looking exactly like huge babies being fed with the bottle, or a trio of overgrown geese attached, as is the case in some countries, to a plank to be fattened.