We then conveyed our charges to Euston, and, on the road, Nassuf confided to us that he much disliked being mobbed and stared at, therefore he wished, immediately on arrival in London, to exchange his Arab dress for orthodox English garments, and, much as we regretted the change, we could only sympathize with the feeling that prompted him, and promised to ‘make an Englishman’ of him without delay. At Euston we packed our ‘lambs’ into a cab, and before getting into another ourselves, explained the situation to the cabman, requesting him to drive to the first general outfitter he could find in the Tottenham Court Road. Just as we were starting, he pulled up, climbed off his box, and, putting a perturbed and puzzled face through the window, inquired in an anxious and somewhat embarrassed whisper: ‘Beg parding, sir, but might they be males or females?’ With heroic efforts to preserve our gravity, we gave the necessary information, and were unfeignedly thankful at having escaped being driven up to a ‘ladies’ shop,’ and the consequent explanations!
Arrived at the outfitter’s, Nassuf, treading noiselessly, and smilingly serene, walked up to the counter, and asked us to convey to the salesman his desire to be dressed from head to foot—‘just like him,’ indicating my husband—‘one of everything—good things,’ he added, ‘I have plenty of money!’ and, to the bewilderment of the onlookers, he untied endless knots in a mysterious hidden, white sash, and poured forty sovereigns out on the counter! A kindly assistant took charge of him, and we waited patiently, much amused at the fragments of Arabic and English, struggles with refractory and novel garments, and suppressed chuckles that proceeded from the little dressing-room, until Nassuf emerged radiant and complete from his shiny boots to the gloves he so proudly carried, all his picturesque grace vanished, alas! but quite secure from unwelcome attention, and, to his amazement, his outfit cost him rather less than £6! I greatly suspect that the wily young merchant retailed that costume to great advantage when he reached Tripoli; meantime he adopted quite an air of indulgent amusement over the appearance of his friend, who, either from conservatism or from a chivalrous desire to spare his benefactor’s purse, firmly declined to alter his costume!
We spent several mornings in a great feather warehouse in the City, with a view to finding a market for Nassuf’s wares, but his hopes were rather dashed at the sight of masses of splendid plumes from South Africa, and the price offered for his feathers was, he declared, not half what he could obtain in Tripoli. Even allowing for Eastern methods of striking a bargain, he was obviously telling the truth, for, had it been at all to his advantage, nothing would have been easier than for him to have disposed of all his feathers then and there. I am inclined to think the reason is that the Tripoli market, not being supplied with the really beautiful South African feathers, possibly values more highly the inferior sort from Nigeria—and they are very inferior, possibly because the birds are not farmed, and are plucked at any season of the year, and in a most thorough and cruel fashion. Poor Nassuf was mournfully puzzled to see his enormous ox-hides, in which the feathers were packed, valued at five shillings each! In Tripoli, he explained, they are eagerly bought for a high price, being in great request for Arab tents!
So, after every kindness and courtesy had been showered on the young merchant—and nothing could have exceeded his grateful acknowledgment of it—the decision was arrived at to repack his feathers, and speed him on his journey to Tripoli, and, after a visit to the Colonial Office (when we persuaded him to resume his national dress), we conveyed our charges down to the Docks, much encumbered with packages of apples, razors, cheese and a gold-topped umbrella, and saw them safely established on the Gulf of Suez, en route for Malta and Tripoli. It was quite a sad parting, the two men were child-like in their grief and affection, and we could only console them by promising, whenever the opportunity occurred, to visit Tripoli as the guests of Nassuf’s father, and, meantime, to bear them in mind, and send them news of ourselves.
A couple of hours later we were watching a play, our leave had really begun, and the Gulf of Suez, preparing to slip down the Thames, carrying off our ‘lambs,’ seemed already part of a passed fantastic dream.
CHAPTER IX
Borgu
Outside the Bar at Forcados an October tornado was in full swing, huge green seas swept past, the wind howled and the rain fell in torrents, almost hiding from view the little black ‘branch boat’ tossing uneasily half a mile away. We stood on the streaming deck, watching our belongings being transferred, with the greatest difficulty, from the mail-boat to the other, each boat-load apparently faring worse than the last as the hurricane increased in violence, and it seemed an absolutely foolhardy risk for us, and four other passengers for Nigeria, to attempt to reach the Dodo in an open boat. It was an impasse, for the tides did not suit, and, with every desire to assist us, our Captain was not justified in incurring the danger of trying to cross the Bar: waiting was out of the question, even for twenty-four hours, as these tornadoes sometimes last for days together, therefore we had to make the best of an unpleasant situation and ‘face the music’! So the Dodo steamed round us and anchored on our lee side—at what seemed a very long distance—so as to give us, at least for the start, a certain amount of protection, and enabling the ladder to be let down, a great consideration, which avoids the dangerous process of being deposited in a heaving, rocking boat by means of a ‘mammy chair’ or a bucket.
Our baggage safely (more or less!) transferred, kind friends lent us oilskins, and we six unfortunate wayfarers cautiously crept down the ladder, established ourselves in the boat, waved farewells to the line of anxious faces at the rail above, and set forth, benefiting for a few minutes by the shelter afforded by the ship, but only too soon finding ourselves very much at the mercy of wind and waves.