A journey to Central Africa

by Bayard Taylor

With my voyage on the Ethiopian Nile a thread of romance was woven, which, in the Oriental mood that had now become native to me, greatly added to the charm of the journey. My nights’ entertainments were better than the Arabian. The moon was at the full, and although, during the day, a light north-wind filled my sails, it invariably fell calm at sunset, and remained so for two or three hours. During the afternoon, I lay stretched on my carpet on the deck, looking through half-closed eyes on the glittering river and his banks. The western shore was one long bower of Paradise—so green, so bright, so heaped with the deep, cool foliage of majestic sycamores and endless clusters of palms. I had seen no such beautiful palms since leaving Minyeh, in Lower Egypt. There they were taller, but had not the exceeding richness and glory of these. The sun shone hot in a cloudless blue heaven, and the air was of a glassy, burning clearness, like that which dwells in the inmost heart of fire. The colors of the landscape were as if enamelled on gold, so intense, so glowing in their intoxicating depth and splendor. When, at last, the wind fell—except a breeze just strong enough to shake the creamy odor out of the purple bean-blossoms—and the sun went down in a bed of pale orange light, the moon came up the other side of heaven, a broad disc of yellow fire, and bridged the glassy Nile with her beams.

Moonlight on the Ethiopian Nile.

At such times, I selected a pleasant spot on the western bank of the river, where the palms were loftiest and most thickly clustered, and had the boat moored to the shore. Achmet then spread my carpet and piled my cushions on the shelving bank of white sand, at the foot of the trees, where, as I lay, I could see the long, feathery leaves high above my head, and at the same time look upon the broad wake of the moon, as she rose beyond the Nile. The sand was as fine and soft as a bed of down, and retained an agreeable warmth from the sunshine which had lain upon it all day. As we rarely halted near a village, there was no sound to disturb the balmy repose of the scene, except, now and then, the whine of a jackal prowling along the edge of the Desert. Achmet crossed his legs beside me on the sand, and Ali, who at such times had special charge of my pipe, sat at my feet, ready to replenish it as often as occasion required. My boatmen, after gathering dry palm-leaves and the resinous branches of the mimosa, kindled a fire beside some neighboring patch of dookhn, and squatted around it, smoking and chatting in subdued tones, that their gossip might not disturb my meditations. Their white turbans and lean dark faces were brought out in strong relief by the red fire-light, and completed the reality of a picture which was more beautiful than dreams.

On the first of these evenings, after my pipe had been filled for the third time, Achmet, finding that I showed no disposition to break the silence, and rightly judging that I would rather listen than talk, addressed me. “Master,” said he, “I know many stories, such as the story-tellers relate in the coffee-houses of Cairo. If you will give me permission, I will tell you some which I think you will find diverting.” “Excellent!” said I; “nothing will please me better, provided you tell them in Arabic. This will be more agreeable to both of us, and whenever I cannot understand your words, I will interrupt you, and you shall explain them as well as you can, in English.” He immediately commenced, and while those evening calms lasted, I had such a living experience of the Arabian Nights, as would have seemed to me a greater marvel than any they describe, had it been foreshown to my boyish vision, when I first hung over the charmed pages. There, in my African mood, the most marvellous particulars seemed quite real and natural, and I enjoyed those flowers of Eastern romance with a zest unknown before. After my recent reception, as a king of the Franks, in the capital of Berber, it was not difficult to imagine myself Shahriar, the Sultan of the Indies, especially as the moon showed me my turbaned shadow on the sand. If the amber mouth-piece of my pipe was not studded with jewels, and if the zerf which held my coffee-cup was brass instead of gold, it was all the same by moonlight. Achmet, seated on the sand, a little below my throne, was Sheherazade, and Ali, kneeling at my feet, her sister, Dinarzade; though, to speak candidly, my imagination could not stretch quite so far. In this respect, Shahriar had greatly the advantage of me. I bitterly felt the difference between my dusky vizier, and his vizier’s daughter. Nor did Ali, who listened to the stories with great interest, expressing his satisfaction occasionally by a deep guttural chuckle, ever surprise me by saying: “If you are not asleep, my sister, I beg of you to recount to me one of those delightful stories you know.”

Nevertheless, those nights possessed a charm which separates them from all other nights I have known. The stories resembled those of the Arabian tale in being sometimes prolonged from one day to another. One of them, in fact, was “Ganem, the Slave of Love,” but, as told by Achmet, differing slightly from the English version. The principal story, however, was new to me, and as I am not aware that it has ever been translated, I may be pardoned for telling it as it was told to me, taking the liberty to substitute my own words for Achmet’s mixture of Arabic and English. I was too thoroughly given up to the pleasant illusion, to note down the story at the time, and I regret that many peculiarities of expression have escaped me, which then led me to consider it a genuine product of the age which produced the Thousand and One Nights.

“You already know, my Master,” Achmet began, “that many hundred years ago all the people of Islam were governed by a caliph, whose capital was Baghdad, and I doubt not that you have heard of the great Caliph, Haroun Al-Raschid, who certainly was not only the wisest man of his day, but the wisest that has been known since the days of our Prophet, Mohammed, whose name be exalted! It rarely happens that a wise and great man ever finds a wife, whose wisdom is any match for his own; for as the wise men whom Allah sends upon the earth are few, so are the wise women still fewer. But herein was the Caliph favored of Heaven. Since the days of Balkis, the Queen of Sheba, whom even the prophet Solomon could not help but honor, there was no woman equal in virtue or in wisdom to the Sultana Zubeydeh (Zobeide). The Caliph never failed to consult her on all important matters, and her prudence and intelligence were united with his, in the government of his great empire, even as the sun and moon are sometimes seen shining in the heavens at the same time.

“But do not imagine that Haroun Al-Raschid and the Sultana Zubeydeh were destitute of faults. None except the Prophets of God—may their names be extolled for ever!—were ever entirely just, or wise, or prudent. The Caliph was subject to fits of jealousy and mistrust, which frequently led him to commit acts that obliged him, afterwards, to eat of the bitter fruit of repentance; and as for Zubeydeh, with all her wisdom she had a sharp tongue in her head, and was often so little discreet as to say things which brought upon her the displeasure of the Commander of the Faithful.

“It chanced that, once upon a time, they were both seated in a window of the hareem, which overlooked one of the streets of Baghdad. The Caliph was in an ill-humor, for a beautiful Georgian slave whom his vizier had recently brought him, had disappeared from the harem, and he saw in this the work of Zubeydeh, who was always jealous of any rival to her beauty. Now as they were sitting there, looking down into the street, a poor wood-cutter came along, with a bundle of sticks upon his head. His body was lean with poverty, and his only clothing was a tattered cloth, bound around his waist. But the most wonderful thing was, that in passing through the wood where he had collected his load, a serpent had seized him by the heel, but his feet were so hardened by toil that they resembled the hoofs of a camel, and he neither felt the teeth of the serpent, nor knew that he was still dragging it after him as he walked. The Caliph marvelled when he beheld this, but Zubeydeh exclaimed: ‘See, O Commander of the Faithful! there is the man’s wife!’ ‘What!’ exclaimed Haroun, with sudden wrath: ‘Is the wife then a serpent to the man, which stings him none the less because he does not feel it? Thou serpent, because thou hast stung me, and because thou hast made sport of the honest poverty of that poor creature, thou shalt take the serpent’s place!’ Zubeydeh answered not a word, for she knew that to speak would but increase the Caliph’s anger. Haroun clapped his hands thrice, and presently Mesrour, his chief eunuch, appeared. ‘Here Mesrour!’ said he, ‘take this woman with thee, follow yonder wood-cutter, and present her to him as his wife, whom the Caliph hath ordered him to accept.’