“Mother,” said Selim, removing his turban and fez, as if his head-dress compressed the grand thought which filled his brain, “my childhood is passed. I have been thoroughly weaned from all things belonging to a child. I am now a strong boy, and in five years I shall be a man. Allah made the world, and made it to grow. It has been growing ever since it was made. Allah made infants; infants grow if they live; they become boys—boys become men. When I was an infant I had no understanding nor strength. Thou, my mother, didst point out to me my nourishment. I flourished on it, and in time was weaned. In a little time my strength availed me to put my own food into my own lips. I flourished on that food, and I became stronger still. Later I understood language, and answered thee with childish love and affection. I romped in the harem, and was happy. Then I was permitted to go out of doors unattended by my female attendant. I bathed in the sea. I learned to swim, and acquired games which boys learn one from another. I learned to ride on horses; I learned to shoot, and day by day I was getting stronger in body and limb, and with my strength has begun to grow my thoughts. These thoughts are thoughts of manhood, of duty; and the business of life, which I am beginning to learn, is serious. Mother, dear mother, my health required, when I was strong enough to enjoy out-of-door life, that I should run about and leap. Mother, my happiness demands that my thoughts should be humoured as my strength was. I find I am made of two parts—body and mind. Neither may be longer neglected—both must be humoured, or I die. If my body is not exercised out in the open air—if I be imprisoned in a harem, I shall become dwarfed. I shall not grow. If my mind is not exercised by seeing, and talking with many people—if I see no more than my mother and my mother’s slaves—my mind cannot grow. I shall know nothing, and I shall become a fool. I, the son of Amer, the son of Osman, will be sneered at. It may not be, dear mother. I must go away, and learn the lesson of a man’s life.”
“But, my dear son,” said Amina, entreatingly, for she had been astonished and amazed at the amount of logic which the boy, to her surprise, had put forth in his statement. “Consider, thou art yet young, and that thou mayst wait awhile yet before journeying to that horrid land of negro savages. What canst thou find there to learn? Seeing lions and leopards, and elephants and ugly crocodiles, will not ripen thy mind. Surely thou art cruel to think of leaving me alone here—both my lord Amer and my son at one time!”
“Nay, my mother, what I shall see in Africa will be new and strange. The sight of new and strange things is like the lessons which the good Imam used to give me at school from the Küran. Every day I shall see something new, and every day I shall grow in wisdom and experience; and my mind will be enriched by each new thing, and in time will become a store of wisdom, to be applied to my advantage in affairs of life. Thou art surprised that I talk so, mother. I have been talking with wise white men. The consuls, who know everything, have been dropping strange ideas to me every day, not because I asked them, or that they dropped them for my benefit. Being permitted to play with their children, I have been in their presence while they were conducting their business, and the amount of wisdom the white men know is wonderful. Great thoughts—too great for me to understand—dropped from their mouths—from one to another—just as those pearls which thou dost play with are passed from thy right hand to thy left.”
“It is well, my son. I have heard thee through. Thou art already older by many years than I took thee to be yesterday. Thou mayst tell my lord Amer how Amina received thy news. I will have something more to tell thee, before thou goest to Africa,” and Amina arose to leave the apartment for another, humbly, and with her head bowed down.
“My mother,” cried Selim, springing up, and seizing her hand, which he conveyed respectfully to his lips, “be not offended. It is not my doing, but Allah’s, and Allah’s will be done!”
“Ay, truly! Allah’s will be done!” said the poor mother, embracing him, but with more restraint than usual.
We are now compelled to leave each of the Arabs engaged to accompany Khamis bin Abdullah to Rua in search of ivory and slaves to make his preparations as he best knows how. It is not our duty to peer too closely into the small details of this business of preparation. It absorbs all one’s time, and we feel sure if we troubled them to give us too minute an account of the manner in which they get along, some impatient expressions might escape to our regret. Therefore we think it better to leave each Arab alone, to the cunning of his own devices, to his calculations, and purchases, to his ever-recurring vexations, to the fatigue and anxiety which belong to the task of fitting out; merely observing, as we pass by, that each Arab purchases such beads, of such colours, as he thinks proper, such cloth as he deems suitable for his market, so much powder and lead as will sufficiently provide his men for the defence of his goods, should such be ever necessary, so many guns as he has men, such luxuries in the shape of crackers and potted sweets, sugar, tea, and coffee, as the chief of the caravan deems it necessary to take. “Nothing in excess, but enough of every necessary thing,” is the golden rule adopted by all people about penetrating Central Africa.
The Arab chiefs and their followers, though they generally take a long time to prepare a caravan, were in this instance, however, much to our pleasure, punctual to the day named, and at the beginning of the new moon of the sixth month of the year of the glorious Hegira 128-, or the year of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 186-, the ships containing the expedition and the vast amount of stores requisite for the consumption of a large and imposing caravan for about three years, set sail in the morning from the open harbour of Zanzibar, for the port of Bagamoyo, on the mainland, distant twenty-five miles.
Let us wave our snowy handkerchiefs to the travellers, for we have one or two young friends who accompany them. Let us wish them a cheery bon voyage, and a happy issue out of their enterprise, if it so happen that the Lord of Moslems and Christians looks down upon its purpose with favourable eye. Let us at least bear them good will until they have forfeited our good opinion by acts contrary to Christian charity and the good will to all men which that most loving God-Man, Jesus, preached unto us.