While all eyes are directed west at the dark-blue loom of the African continent away many miles beyond the greyish-green waters of the sea of Zanzibar, Amer, son of Osman, remarks to his friends in a musing tone:
“I have sat here, close to my own mangoes, almost every evening for the last twenty years looking towards that dark line of land, and always wishing to go nearer to it, to see for myself the land where all the ivory and slaves that the Arab traders bring to Zanzibar come from.”
Directing his eyes towards Khamis bin Abdullah, Amer continued:
“And never has the desire to leave my house and travel to Africa been so strong as this evening, when thou, Sheikh informest me that thou hast brought with thee 600 slaves and 800 frasilah (a frasilah is equivalent to 35 pounds in weight) of ivory from Ufipas and Marungu. It is wonderful! Wallahi! Five hundred slaves if they are tolerably healthy are worth at least 10,000 dollars, and 800 frasilah of ivory are worth, at 50 dollars the frasilah, 40,000 dollars, nearly half a lakh of rupees altogether, and all this thou hast collected in five years’ travels. Wallahi! it is wonderful! By the Prophet!—blessed be his name—I must see the land for myself. I shall see it, please God!” and as he finished speaking he began to wipe his brow violently, a sign with him that he was excited and determined.
“What I have spoken is God’s truth,” said Khamis bin Abdullah, “and Allah knows it. But there are many more wonderful countries than Marungu and Ufipa. Rua, several days further toward the setting of the sun, is a great country, and few Arabs have been there yet. Sayd, the son of Habib, has been to Rua, and much further; he has been across to the sea of the setting sun, and has married a wife from among the white people who live at San Paul de Loanda. Sayd is so great a traveller, I should fear to say what land he has not seen. Mashallah! Sayd, I believe, has seen all lands and all peoples. He says that ivory is used in Rua by the Pagans as we use wooden stanchions or posts to support the eaves of our houses, that ivory holds their huts up, and he believes great stores of it are known to the savages, where some of their great hunters have killed a large number of elephants, and have left the ivory to rot, not knowing how valuable it is, or where a great herd of elephants have perished from thirst or disease. However the knowledge came to these people, or whatever the cause which left such a store of ivory in that country, Sayd, the son of Habib, is certain that there is an unlimited quantity of this precious stuff in Rua, and that we can make ourselves richer than Prince Majid, our Sultan, if we go in time, before the report is common among the Arabs. What money I have made this time on my last trip is so small, compared to what I might have realised, that I mean to try my fortune again in Africa shortly, Inshallah!—please God! I intend going to Rua, and if thou, Amer bin Osman, hast a mind to accompany me, I promise thee that thou wilt not repent it.”
“Amer bin Osman,” replied Amer, “goes not back on his word. By my beard, I have said I shall go, and, if it be God’s will, I shall be ready for thee when thou goest. But tell us, son of Abdullah, what of the Pagans of Rua, and those lands near the Great Lakes? Do they make good slaves, and do they sell well in our market? Yet I need hardly ask thee, for I have two men whom I purchased when young, about twenty years ago, who I believe are more faithful than any slave born in my house.”
“Good slaves!” echoed Khamis. “Thou hast said it. Finer people are not to be found, from Masr to Kilwa, than those of Rua and the lands adjoining. And clever slaves, too! Those Pagans make the best spears, and swords, and daggers found in Africa. Indeed, some of their work would shame that of our best Zanzibar artificers. Near a place called Kitanga—where that is I don’t know, but Sayd, the son of Habib, can tell—there is a hill almost entirely of pure copper, and from this hill the people get vast quantities of copper, which they work into beautiful bracelets, armlets, anklets, and such things. Nothing to be seen in Muscat even can equal the work the son of Habib has witnessed.”
“Mashallah!” cried Amer, delighted; “thou makest me more and more anxious to go to the strange land. A hill of copper!—pure copper! The Pagans must really be a fine people, and rich, too. If it were only possible to catch two or three hundred slaves of the kind thou speakest of, I might be able to laugh in the face of that dog of a Banyan Bamji, and old Ludha Damha himself could not hold his head higher than I could then. I owe the dogs a turn, for the heavy usury they exacted of me when I needed much ready money to make my courtyard and fountains. But the women, noble Khamis, thou hast said nothing of them. Tell us what kind of women are seen in those rich lands.”
“Ah, yes, do tell us of the women,” chimed in two or three others, who had not yet spoken.
“I have seen but one of the women of Rua,” answered Khamis, “and she was the wife of the son of Sayd, the son of Habib, a tall, lithesome girl of sixteen years or so. Her lower limbs were as clean and well-made as those of an antelope. She walked like the daughter of a chief. Her eyes were like two deep wells of shining moving water. Her face was like the moon, in colour and form. Oh! the colour was almost as clear and light as thy son Selim’s, Amer. She was beautiful as a Peri-banou—God be praised!”