“Anyhow,” I said at last, “your fathers let a Christian pass through their country in peace, and indeed they even helped him. That Christian, my uncle, Abdul Kerim, was the friend and protégé of Sidi Hamet Beckay; do you think you can do better than your fathers, and the chief who was venerated throughout the whole of the Sudan?”
Surprise and hurried interrogations now ensued.
“What! are you the nephew of Abdul Kerim?”
I read Barth’s book every day, so that it is rather difficult to put me out when his adventures are discussed.
Now it so happened that just before he reached Ansongo a little episode occurred to him which is well worth relating.
Without any disrespect to the memory of my “uncle”—my very worthy and excellent “uncle”—I suspect him of having been the hero of at least one idyl on the banks of the Niger, in which a young beauty of the Kel es Suk tribe also played her part.
Her name was Neschrun, and Barth, who generally dismisses the charms of the black or brown beauties he came across in his travels curtly enough, dwells on her graceful figure, her pleasing manners, her beautiful black eyes, and her hair parted on her brows, à la Vierge. He does not even neglect to tell us that she wore a garment alternately striped with black and red, which was most becoming.
The attraction was evidently mutual, for he adds that she one day said to him, half in fun—
“Will you marry me?”
What prevented the course of true love running smoothly was some question about camels.