Hamed told me it was of myself they sang.
“This morning he came with weapons and followers—perhaps straight from Paris. The pistol hung on his saddle; his horse was red. The proudest charger you could see. He sat straight as a palm on his horse, right over the steep hillside. Yu, yu, yu.
“Now he sits with us as a brother. Yes, like the Bey himself, by the side of Sid Fatushe, our old Khalifa. He has given him his pistol, a costly gift, of greater value than even the best camel. Yu, yu, yu.
“If he will be our friend and remain with us, we will find him a wife. Fatima awaits him—of the beautiful eyes, her nails stained with henna; on her hands are golden bracelets, and anklets on her feet.
“Yu, yu, yu.”
There was a great deal more sung about me which I am too modest to repeat.
The women sang for about an hour, improvising my praises, giving honour to the Khalifa in flattering phrases, and not omitting my friend and guide, Hamed and his horse.
At last the song ceased, and I thanked the Khalifa and begged him to believe in my sincere appreciation.
Next stepped forward a mulatto. Amongst the Arabs these play the part of the jesters of the Middle Ages. Accompanied by the drum and the shrill notes of the clarionet, he delivered a lampoon in verse, directed against the women, since they had not sung in praise of him whom they knew, but, forsooth, had extolled the stranger whom they saw for the first time.
He abused them in language far from decorous, and reaped applause in half-stifled laughter from the men, who spent the whole evening on the self-same spot where they had originally settled; only now and then did one of them rise to wrap his burnous better about him; his figure standing out sharply against the vault of heaven above the edge of the bank.