Tales of the Caliph

by H. N. Crellin

"Then men came with the tusks they had received from us, one man following another with his purchases, and in every tusk the black spots and patches of decay were beginning to appear. To complete our ruin, when those tusks which we had presented to Amavaroo were brought into his presence, they each and all were found to be in a similar condition. Both the king and his people were very naturally furious. They took from us and out of our house all the jewels we had obtained, and gave them back to those who had exchanged them for the worthless ivory, and then, after holding a very stormy council, they conducted us with every kind of insult out of their town into the plains beyond. There, having stripped us naked, they beat us with branches of nettles and branches of prickly holly, and finally, tying our hands and feet together, they left us to be scorched by the sun during the day, and to be devoured by the wild beasts that prowled about at night. Here we lay all day in a most pitiable plight, and there undoubtedly we should have perished, had it not been for the gratitude and kindness of a slave whom, during our stay at Behar, we had many times befriended and protected, as far as lay in our power, against the tyranny of a very cruel bully, who was his master. This poor fellow stole away at sundown, came to us, freed us from our bonds, brought us some of our own clothes which he had managed to get hold of, and, going with us, became our guide on the slow and painful course of our journey northward. He brought us also a small packet of very handsome stones, which had been dropped by some one during the exciting events of the morning, and which he had seen and picked up on his way to us.

"This seemed at the time a perfect godsend. There were not many stones—about a dozen—and they not nearly so large as many of those we had received in exchange for our ivory. At the same time they were of the utmost value to us now, as we should be able to dispose of them at the first place where we might meet with Arab merchants, and we should thus provide ourselves at least with such things as were absolutely necessary for our return journey to Bagdad.

"Meanwhile, our progress was slow and our subsistence precarious, consisting chiefly of such roots, fruits, and insects, as we were able to discover. In this matter of catering the slave was much more proficient than we, and proved an invaluable aid to us.

"After many weeks of hardship and danger, we arrived at last in the neighbourhood of Daarkol, the town in which we had met the African merchant, from whom we had bought those accursed seeds. As the sun was intensely hot, and a couple of hours' walking would now bring us into the town, where we could sell some of the precious stones and relieve our most urgent necessities, we threw ourselves down under the shelter of a clump of trees and were soon fast asleep.

"It appears, although we had then no suspicion of such a thing, that the African merchant, who was a complete villain, had been diligently watching for our return. He had designed to surprise and overpower us, and take from us the precious stones we should have obtained for his fraudulent ivory, he getting thus at a stroke the fruits of the expedition without undergoing the fatigues, difficulties, and dangers it necessarily involved.

"Being informed, therefore, by one of his spies of our arrival, he stole upon us very quietly while we slept, and bringing with him a party of his slaves, he quickly overpowered us, and binding us hand and foot, he robbed us of the jewels we had, and that not without horrid imprecations because there were so few. After which he immediately departed, leaving us lying under the trees bound and helpless.

"Here we remained for more than two hours. At length, as the day wore on, and it became cooler, we perceived a party of merchants, with whom we had been very well acquainted when we were at Daarkol before, passing along the road which was distant about two or three hundred yards from the clump of trees where we lay. We shouted as loud as we could, and they, hearing the shouting, came presently towards us. They were truly surprised and concerned to find Ahmed and myself, whom they had known formerly as respectable and well-to-do merchants, lying bound, dirty, and ragged upon the ground. They freed us, and we told them of the villainy of the African merchant, and related to them all that had befallen us, from the time he sold us the seeds, until the assault he had made upon us and the robbery he had committed that afternoon. They advised us to lay our case before Lootzee, the king of that country, who lived in the town of Daarkol; although, as regards the African merchant, who was well known as a bad character, he would no doubt by this time have taken refuge in flight.

"This advice was good; but for men so completely destitute, as we now were, to obtain an audience of the king was no easy matter. Like most monarchs, he was surrounded by courtiers and state officials, who must be bribed with considerable presents before they would exert themselves on behalf of any suitor or complainant, no matter how real his grievance, or how urgent his case might be. It is quite possible, therefore, that we might have failed to obtain an audience, had it not happened, fortunately for us, that King Lootzee was attacked just at this time by a severe form of fever to which the natives of that part of Ethiopia are peculiarly liable. Hearing of the king's illness, and knowing of a certain herb which was a sovereign remedy in that disease, we procured some of the herb and prepared an infusion of it. We then borrowed of some merchants of our acquaintance such sums as they would lend us, and sending this as a present to the Vizier or chief officer of Lootzee, we asked audience of the king that we might present to him a medicine of great efficiency in his complaint. The Vizier submitting our petition to Lootzee, he gave orders to admit the merchant from Bagdad, and in short, after taking sundry doses of the medicine, the fever left him, and he was restored to his usual health.

"This cure so much delighted him, that he made us a present of the horses, mules, and all those things which you see we have with us, and in addition he gave us a sum of money that we might be enabled to purchase something to take back to Bagdad, so that we might not, after all our toil and risk, return altogether empty-handed.

"For a long time we doubted and debated what we should buy. But hearing one day that there was in the town a Circassian woman slave of surpassing beauty, who had been captured by some marauders from a caravan while on her way to Bagdad, we determined to purchase that slave in the hope of selling her for a great price to Haroun Alraschid, the Caliph, to whom may Allah be merciful, and for whom she was destined by those merchants who had been robbed of her."